Oroonoko: An Analysis of Treason in Behn’s Anglo-African Sojourn

Abstract

Human history rests on specific traits of life. Out of these, ‘trust’ is counted as the most endeared, expensive, difficult to maintain as well as effervescent in nature. The phrase ‘Time once gone, never comes back’ takes us to an equally sensitive world of moral decorum where ‘trust once lost is seldom or never restored’. The paper is a partial attempt to analyse the element of betrayal ranging from familial ties to the national ones. Interestingly, the protagonist is both the subject and the object of treason and his fate is a recoil action of his own past deeds which never occurred to his ownself as ugly and inhuman. His kaleidoscopic life-events are the best whip-lashes to remind him of his past actions and teach him the intensity of the pain of separation from one’s own loved ones and one’s own land.