Despair and Lack of Agency Embedded in Fates of Behn's Oroonoko and Evaristo's Zuleika

My chosen texts are Bernardine Evaristo’s 'The Emperor’s Babe' and Aphra Behn’s 'Oroonoko (The Royal Slave)'. Ultimately, the characters have no control at all, as they are figments of their author’s imaginations. However, upon closely examining the texts, the two characters which I will focus on have little to no agency and gradually lose all of their freedom, whereas most of the surrounding characters have comparatively more autonomy.

Starting with Zuleika from The Emperor’s Babe, her low social class, ethnicity and gender prove her powerless in controlling her destiny within the heavily hierarchical and patriarchal Roman society. Zuleika’s main opponents to her freedom are her husband Felix and her emotionally turbulent relationship with her family.

On the other hand, there is Oroonoko from The Royal Slave, who although shares the similar powerlessness that Zuleika, encounters due to their ethnicity, he nevertheless is a male character of high birth. Oroonoko’s oppressive factors can be seen to mirror Zuleika’s, as his only family member is a major cause of his suffering, similar to Zuleika’s parents forcing her to marry. His freedom is further diminished by an oppressive society that he is forced into, this again mirrors Zuleika. Interestingly, both Oroonoko and Zuleika are royalty within their original cultures (although Zuleika’s claim is debatable), however upon moving to a new society, they find that their previous statuses are ignored and their ethnicity is the basis for their harsh treatment and lack of freedom. Zuleika claims: “dad was chatting his usual bollocks, about really being the exiled king of Meroe”, and the narrator of Oroonoko describes the prince’s status: “he had only left him for his Successor, one Grand-child, Son to one of these dead victors”.

Evaristo’s choice to make Zuleika female is intriguing, as women’s history has largely been overshadowed and controlled by men. This itself mirrors her power struggle, as she is quite often controlled and imprisoned by Felix. Evaristo’s choice seems deliberate, as there are other female characters within the book who do seem to hold the power within their relationships. For example, Alba’s husband is powerless in stopping her having affairs; “he lets it go, otherwise he knows full well, I will go”. Further, the characters mostly surrounding Zuleika seemingly have more control than she does, for example Venus is able to elope with her lover and Felix can easily leave for months at a time and visit his mistress. It seems as though only Zuleika’s mother, Valeria and Aemilia experience a similar lack of agency, despite the fact that ultimately they all have control over Zuleika as her slave girls tell Felix of her affair and her mother shows more attention to her brother.

Nevertheless, Zuleika’s marital experiences diminish her freedom gradually, until she is eventually completely confined to her house awaiting her death; “many an errant wife ended up in an unmarked grave outside the city walls”. Evaristo’s choice to make Felix poison Zuleika is a final example of his controlling ways, as he not only controls whether she lives, but also the pace at which she dies; “it was not despair sapping my energy but arsenicum”. Zuleika’s socialization is especially controlled by Felix to begin with, as “he is too selfish to share his new bride just yet”. This controlling behaviour towards Zuleika impacts her greatly, and paired alongside Felix’s inability to show her pleasure, it causes her attention to turn to the Emperor. Zuleika’s toxic marriage was neatly summed up by Alba’s comparison between herself and Zuleika; “No one imprisons me. I’m not you”.

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Returning to Oroonoko, his experience of control is different from Zuleika’s in the fact that it is his grandfather who becomes jealous of his betrothed and cruelly keeps the lovers apart, thus having overall control over the relationship; “what Love would not oblige Imoinda to do, Duty would compel her to”. Behn’s choice to make the king the oppressor is calculated as he cannot be disobeyed, therefore giving him considerable control over the two lovers. Even after Oroonoko and Imoinda escape the king, they are forced into a life of slavery and discover that they have less agency than before. The unfortunate and uncontrollable circumstances that Behn places Oroonoko and Imoinda within are heightened by the cruelty of surrounding influences, such as the jealousy of the king and the deception of the slavers. These traits are also opposite to those of the two lovers, which is seemingly another device by Behn to differentiate between characters that are protagonists and antagonists, which not only controls the characters, but also the reader’s perceptions of them.

The little freedoms that Oroonoko exercises seem to draw more restrictions to him, for example, when he demands and receives some liberty upon the slave ship, he is met with binding and a forced name change when he reaches land: “Oroonoko was first seiz’d on, and sold to our Overseer… so that Mr. Trefry gave Oroonoko that of Caesar”. Similarly, Zuleika’s encounters with this cruel cycle seemingly allow her freedoms such as becoming a lover of the Emperor; “I felt an overwhelming urge to take my rightful place as official consort” and then snatch her happiness away with imprisonment. The technique of this cycle has long existed, with one of its most prominent forms being the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ during the Medieval period. Both authors seemingly employ it’s use to further push the assumption that their characters ascension and descension, which greatly affect their freedoms, are no more controllable than the elapse of time.

Both authors also make the choice to assert the idea that family plays a part within agency. The obvious favoritism and detachment that Zuleika’s parents show is starkly clear in one line; “I would make contact with the aliens”. By giving Zuleika a loathing of her family, Evaristo has created a sense of emotional freedom. As much as Zuleika despises her family, and so can distance emotionally from them, she also longs to get the attention and encouragement that she was denied (as is evident within her breathless speech on pages 83-5), thus both liberating and restraining her.

Finally, both Behn and Evaristo allow their prominent characters to fall victim to the most restrictive force of all: death. Zuleika’s untimely murder at the hands of her husband proves to be his final controlling act towards his “errant wife”, whereas Oroonoko’s killing of Imoinda is the opposite. Oroonoko saves Imoinda and their unborn child from the life of slavery that is otherwise inevitable, yet his own death mirrors Zuleika as he too is viewed as disobedient and killed for attempting to find freedom and happiness. The slaying of both Oroonoko and Zuleika is heightened by their reactions, as both appear to accept their fates and effectually “surrender” to dying, which points to the surrender of their agency as well.

However, it can be argued that the reactions to their fates are their last defiant gestures of agency, as they control what they do in their final moments. Zuleika speaks to Alba and chooses what she will have written on her grave, and Oroonoko’s last request is a pipe to smoke as he is executed, and he does so with no indication of pain or alarm. Therefore, it is evident that both Oroonoko and Zuleika were inevitably controlled from the start, and despite snatches of agency over their lives, they could never truly break free from the bindings that prevented their autonomy.