'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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In our contemporary world, “seduce” or being “seduced” often has a sexual connotation, of one person persuading another, using various techniques, to engage in a sexual act with them. However, although this type of seduction is evident 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; deviate from the right or intended course of action to engage in wrong conduct.' This definition suggests that seduction is a kind of deception or sabotage; the difference is that seduction is an attractive and subtle art. Seduction, both sexual and deceptive, is prevalent in Behn's Oroonoko, with the failed seduction of Imoinda by the king, the false promises of the slave traders, and, perhaps most significantly, the narrator's seduction of the reader ; indeed, 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 contemporary readers from conventional wisdom. This essay will explore the different types of seduction that Behn describes and enacts on his reader to express political and critical opinions. If Behn's book is a "mode" of seduction, then this seduction must be mediated through the narrator, who many assume is a version of Behn herself, who is said to have traveled to Suriname. Behn's protagonist and hero is black, a fact that raises the problem of trying to convince an audience who believed that blacks were inferior to whites to sympathize with this hero. The "seduction" here works in two ways, firstly by causing the audience to feel sympathy for Oroonoko, an effect achieved by portraying those within the novel as seduced by him. Early in the book, the narrator presents an opinion about Oroonoko's character before we meet him in person, stating that "we […] were perfectly charmed by the character of this great man,"1 with the collective pronoun "we" allows the reader can anticipate that they too will be fascinated in the same way. Behn's use of a white, English, female narrator is crucial to providing a trustworthy figure in whom the reader can place their trust, and whether or not the narrator herself is seductive is not necessarily relevant to what Behn is trying to get; rather, it is the narrator's experience of being seduced by Oroonoko that is significant: "Her face was not that of a brown, rust-black like most of that nation, but a perfect ebony, or a polished jet." […] His nose was upturned and Roman, rather than African and flat. His mouth, the most beautiful shape one could see; away from those big shapely lips, which are so natural to the rest of the niggers.' Not only is Oroonoko's beauty depicted here in the words of a white woman, but she also attributes to him incredibly Eurocentric characteristics, such as a 'rising Roman nose' and 'finely shaped' lips; clearly distinguishing him from other "niggers". In fact, from the initial description given by the narrator, Oroonoko resembles a white person in every way, apart from her 'perfect ebony' skin. This is where the finely tuned art of seduction comes in; the contemporary reader is presented with a man who is through and throughall similar to the white people he knows, with European values, "he has heard of and admired the Romans",3 with the only difference being his skin, meaning he becomes much less of an alien "other" to Behn's contemporaries , who would hardly have associated beauty with darkness, and instead becomes seductive and alluring because she possesses the "ideal" European beauty but with black skin. Furthermore, this passage focuses on the 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 and, consequently, seductive, and in the very act that Behn has a narrator paint these, the reader is seduced alongside her. Imoinda is an equally beautiful and seductive exception. ' to the rest of his ethnic group: '[his] face and person far surpassed anything he had ever seen; that adorable modesty with which she welcomed him, that sweetness in her gaze[.]'Once again, Imoinda, although described through the narrator's representation of what Oroonoko saw in her, is given attributes considered attractive in Western culture, those that they are 'modesty' and 'softness' as well as her obvious physical beauty. Where 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 towards Oroonoko and Imoinda), and a superficial, false and deceptive seduction. Indeed, the narrator, early in the novel, compares the natives to "our first parents before the Fall," a simile that explicitly suggests that the natives, including Oroonoko and Imoinda, are pure, undefiled, and innocent. Indeed, similar to the pure and lustful love of Adam and Eve before the Fall, the courtship between Oroonoko and Imoinda involves none of the trickery or deceit that "seduction" can imply. Rather, their interactions are presented as mutual and unforced: “he told her with his eyes that he was not insensitive to her charms; while Imoinda, who desired nothing but so glorious a conquest, was content to believe that she understood that silent language of new-born love[.]'Behn here divides the sentence into two almost equal propositions, one concerning Oroonoko and the other concerning Imoinda, expressing the balance in mutual affection that the two share. Additionally, Behn chooses "conquest" to refer to Oroonoko, interesting as this places Imoinda in a dominant position over him, reversing conventional gender roles in Behn's era. This mutual, pure and genuine courtship contrasts with the king's attempted seduction of Imoinda: "now in her second childhood, [he] eagerly desired to see this cheerful thing, with which, alas, he could only play innocently" . 'Here there is a sharp contrast in Ben's use of language, which is no longer heightened and poetic as in the case of 'nothing but such a glorious achievement', but short and simple. The words "childhood" and "play" suggest an innocence, but a perverse one rather than something truly pure. Even the representation of the gaze and the eyes is subverted; while Oroonoko tells Imoinda "with his eyes" about his love and she understands that "silent language", here the king wishes to "see" Imoinda, an objectifying and one-sided 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 repugnance at being forced to marry a rich old man as nothing better than rape" and in fact Imoinda receives the king's veil with.