“Telling a story of seduction is also a mode of seduction. (Ros Ballaster)Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay In our contemporary world, “seducing” or being “seduced” often has a sexual connotation, that of one person persuading another , using various techniques, to engage in a sexual act with them. However, although this type of seduction is apparent in Aphra Behn's work, seduction can also mean, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary: “to lead (a person) astray in conduct or belief; moving away from the correct or intended course of action toward an incorrect course of action. This definition suggests that seduction is a kind of deception or sabotage; the difference being that seduction is a seductive and subtle art. Seduction, both sexual and deceptive, is prevalent in Behn's Orinoco, with the king's failed seduction of Imoinda, the false promises of slave traders, and perhaps most importantly, the the narrator's own seduction of the reader; even making “the history of seduction” a “mode of seduction”. If indeed Ballaster's statement is true, it implies that Behn's story is a measured and deliberate attempt to get the reader to believe something, an attempt perhaps to distance his contemporary readers from conventional opinion. This essay will explore the different types of seduction that Behn describes and implements on his reader in order to express political opinions and criticism. If Behn's book is a "mode" of seduction, then this seduction must be mediated by the narrator, as many assume. is a version of Behn herself, who is said to have traveled to Surinam. Behn's protagonist and hero is black, which poses the problem of convincing a readership convinced that blacks are inferior to whites to sympathize with this hero. The “seduction” here functions in two ways, firstly by seducing the audience into their sympathy for Oroonoko, an effect achieved by depicting those in the novel as being seduced by him. Early in the book, the narrator presents an opinion on the character of Oroonoko before we meet him ourselves, stating "we […] were perfectly charmed by the character of this great man",1 the collective pronoun " us” allowing the reader must expect that they too will be equally charmed. Behn's use of a white, English female narrator is essential to providing a reliable figure in whom the reader can place their trust, and whether or not the narrator herself is attractive is not necessarily relevant to this. that Behn is trying to achieve; rather, it is the narrator's experience of being seduced by Oroonoko that is significant: "His face was not that of a rusty brown and black like most of the inhabitants of this nation, but a perfect ebony or a polished jet. […] His nose was raised and Roman, instead of African and flat. His mouth, the most beautiful shape that can be seen; far from these large turned lips, so natural to the rest of the Negroes. » Not only is Oroonoko's beauty represented here in the words of a white woman, but she is also given incredibly Eurocentric features, such as a "rising face." Roman nose and “finely shaped” lips; distinctly distinguishing him from other “Negroes”. In fact, from the initial description given by the narrator, Oroonoko looks like a white person in every way other than her "perfect ebony" skin. This is where the finely tuned “art” of seduction comes in; the contemporary reader finds himself confronted with a man who resembles in every way the white people he knows,with European values, "he heard of and admired the Romans"3, the only difference being his skin, which means that he becomes much less of a foreign "other" to Behn's contemporaries, who probably had not associated beauty in blackness, and who on the contrary becomes seductive and attractive because he has an “ideal” European beauty but with black skin. Additionally, this passage focuses on details of Oroonoko's face, her nose, her skin, and her lips, the latter being a sexually seductive feature. Indeed, Oroonoko possesses many of the characteristics of a person universally considered attractive, then seductive, and in the very act of Behn asking a narrator to describe them, the reader is seduced to her side. Imoinda is an equally beautiful and attractive exception. » to the rest of his ethnic group: “[his] face and person were so beyond anything he had ever seen; this beautiful modesty with which she received him, this gentleness in her gaze[.]'Again, Imoinda, even if she is described through the narrator's description of what Oroonoko saw in her, sees herself attribute attributes considered attractive in Western culture, these being "modesty" and "gentleness" as well as one's obvious physical beauty. While as readers we are seduced by both Oroonoko and Imoinda by the narrator, Behn presents different types of seduction; a pure seduction based on the good and noble qualities of something or someone (like our affection for Oroonoko and Imoinda), and a superficial, false and misleading seduction. Indeed, the narrator, at the beginning of the novel, compares the natives to "our first parents before the Fall", a comparison which explicitly suggests that the natives, including Oroonoko and Imoinda, are pure, intact and innocent. Indeed, much like the pure, desireless love of Adam and Eve before the Fall, the courtship between Oroonoko and Imoinda does not involve any deception or deception that "seduction" may imply. Their interactions are rather presented as reciprocal and without constraint: “he told her with his eyes that he was not insensitive to her charms; while Imoinda, who desired nothing other than such a glorious conquest, was happy to believe she understood this silent language of newborn love[.]'Behn here divides the sentence into two almost equal clauses, l 'one concerning Oroonoko and the other concerning Imoinda. , expressing the balance of mutual affection that the two share. Additionally, Behn chooses "conquest" to refer to Oroonoko, which is interesting because it places Imoinda in a dominant position over him, reversing conventional gender roles in Behn's time. This reciprocal courtship, pure and unadulterated, opposes the king's attempt to seduce Imoinda: "becoming an adult in his second childhood, [he] was eager to see this gay thing, with which, alas, he did not could only play innocently. “Here there is a striking contrast in Ben's use of language, which is no longer exalted and poetic as with 'nothing more than so glorious a conquest', but short and clear. The words “childhood” and “play” suggest an innocence, but a perverse one rather than something truly pure. The representation of the gaze and the eyes is also subverted; while Oroonoko tells Imoinda “with her eyes” of her love and she understands this “silent language,” here the king longs to “see” Imoinda, an objectifying and unilateral action. As Laura J. Rosenthal suggests in her essay on Behn, Women, and Society, Behn "vehemently attacks the immorality of forced marriages, and her heroine vigorously expresses the repugnance of being forced to marry a dirt-rich old man." better than rape", and indeed, Imoinda receives the king's veil with ".