Oroonoko Explored
The Mysterious Surinam
In Oroonoko, the English colony of Surinam is the main setting for the second half of the book, following Oronooko’s ordeal in crossing the Atlantic. Even though Surinam falls into the Pan-Caribbean culture that revolved around plantation slavery, it does differ from the Caribbean in one key way; it is on the mainland of South America. Behn pulls on the idea of the mysterious, unmapped continent, placing it in an imagined space between the East and the West, but without any definitive lines separating the two. She says on page 43 that “it reaches from East to West; One way as far as China, and another to Peru (Behn 43).” Indeed, her emphasis on the mystery and otherness of Surinam places it in an oriental perspective. The exotic animals and plants are not of European stock, and the account of Oroonoko defeating tigers pulls on the idea that tigers are native to Asia, connecting in readers mind that Surinam is a place of mystery, in a location far away from the European home (Yang 246).
New World flora and fauna, from Du Tertre's Histoire Generales des Antilles
This is, of course, where Behn uses some artistic license to heighten the sense of fantasy and mystery in her novel, as we well know that South America is not Asia. It does, however, have exotic animals and plants that a 17th century Englishwoman might associate with to Asia, and the thought of having a noble African prince brought to this island elevates the exotic nature of the story. The illusion of Surinam is really only broken when the evils of slavery force the reader to come to see that these parts are not fiction, but instead based very much in historical practices.