But it is not only her emotions that make her so exceptional, it is also the uniqueness of Maggie´s appearance. She has a darker skin at the time when lightness is prized in a larger cultural arena (For example in Book Fourth, Maggie becomes frustrated by the traditional plot lines in which the light, blond women live happily ever after in love). Maggie´s family views her darkness as ugly and unnatural, yet by the end of the novel, it has made men perceive Maggie as more beautiful because her darkness is a rarity. However, her most striking feature are her eyes. All men (including Philip, Bob Jakin, and Stephen) notice her eyes first and become entranced. Maggie´s eyes are a symbol of the power of emotion she contains—the depth of feeling and hunger for love that make her a tragic character. This unique force of character seems to give her power over others, for better or for worse. In Book First, Maggie is associated with Medusa, the monster who turns men to stone by looking at them. Maggie´s eyes compel people, and different characters´ reactions to them often reflect the character´s relationship with Maggie.
Oroonoko, similarly, is unique. Contrary to the typical projection of darkness onto to Africans, often times synonymous with evil, Behn portrays Oroonoko´s personality as full of humanity and absense of barbarity. For example, we can see Oroonoko´s monogamous behaviour, contrary to the traditional polygamous, when he promises Imoinda that she will be the only woman he would possess in his life. However, Behn is not only captivated by the genuine and rare characteristics of his inner beauty, but his outer beauty as well and goes into detail of his handsome figure and beautiful facial features and the fine color of his skin. One would assume that the readers of her time would be quite unfamiliar with her subject matter, so she seeks to enlighten with descriptions of detail. His skin is “a perfect ebony“ not black as one would suppose, and all of his facial and body features are clearly Europen.
Protagonists´ diversion from excepted values makes them experience similar conflicts of the self. Forces of the external world and their own nature are very strong in both novels and both protagonists must try to resolve them. In both novels the conflict between love and loyalty is the most striking.
Maggie´s loyalty to those she loves is very strong, however her feelings of love often prevail. Tom especially forces her to put her loyalty to her family before love. Repeatedly he privileges social abstractions over the warmth and happiness of his real loving sister. Tom always tries to manoeuvre Maggie, and then threaten to sever all ties with her when she refuses to co-operate. It is Maggie´s loyalty to Tom that makes her rebuff Philip´s advances and leave her home. And it is her loyalty towards Lucy that forces her to leave her house and tell Stephen that she will never marry him. Though eventually her love for him proves too strong
Love prevails on the river Floss, where a flood of passion carries Maggie and Stephen away in a rowboat, but only for a short time. She finally sacrifices her love to loyalty to her family and close friends and refuses to marry Stephen. It causes her life to be as good as ruined. Sexual relations before, or outside marriage were taboo at that time and women would more than likely be forced to leave their family home if such relations were discovered, rather than bring shame on the family. When Maggie is thought to have slept with Stephen, Tom tells her she must leave the family house and the reaction of villagers is also typical for that period, they feel no pity for Maggie, only for Stephen. Only a very limited group including Philip still show sympathy for her and only a dreadful flood in which Maggie tries to save Tom can lead the well-meaning but doomed girl to some kind of transcendence.
Even though Maggie´s tragedy originates in her internal competing impulses, not in her public disgrace, yet, Eliot remains concerned with the workings of a community - both social and economic - and tracks their interrelations, as well as their effect upon characters, as part of her realism. In the first part of the novel, Eliot alludes to the effect these communal forces have on Maggie´s and Tom´s formation, showing that the past holds a cumulative presence and has a determining effect upon characters who are open to its influence. Maggie holds the memory of her childhood experience in community sacred and her connection to that time comes to affect her future behavior. Here, the past is not something to be escaped nor is it something that will rise again to threaten, but it is instead an inherent part of Maggie´s character, making fidelity to it a necessity.
However, Maggie never manages to internalise the accepted social values and always retains an internal distance from them, even as she comes to recognise their ubiquitous hold over others. Her basic childhood emotion is that of frustration, and her character is best evoked through a memorable sequence of childhood vignettes in which her natural attitude clashes with the alien world of social formality. Cutting off her own hair to distract Tom from teasing her and running away to join a gypsy community deliberately highlight how her need for reciprocal affection has evaded socialisation. Her later decision to run away with the foppish Stephen Guest is somewhat incredible but serves the purpose of making her a fallen woman figure cast out from society, preparing the way for the final extreme reconciliation with her censorious brother.
Loyalty in Oroonoko is a bit more complicated. Oroonoko even before his enslavemenent, thanks to his French tutor and trading with English, is influenced by two very different cultures, Coromantien and European, and therefore belongs in a way to both and so does his loyalty. Moreover, one of the greatest displays of the quality traits that Behn admires in Oroonoko comes through with his lasting loyalty to his only love Imoinda.
One of the important conflicts between loyalty and love is symbolized by the royal veil sent to Imoinda by the king. The role of the king was great in Coromantien society, he was worshipped as much as gods and therefore Imoinda had to obey. She would have died if she hadn´t. Oroonoko, unlike Imoinda, had more possibilities how to deal with the situation, but it was really hard for him to choose only one solution. He could have waited until the king would die, and then marry her, but it would be according to custom a cime, or he could have fled away with her. Actually, she was his lawful wife and therefore it would be just to take her as it was the king who broke the law. However, the king was his grandfather, and to forget about loyalty to his own family was impossible for him. He finally with a great sorrow decided to hide his present feelings towards Imoinda from the king and wait.
But against his wish, his heart twice betrayed him when he saw her and it was evident to the king that they still loved each other. King´s spies then saw Oroonokoko in Imoinda´s apartment during the night they spent together. And as it was in the Coronatian society the greatest crime in nature to touch a woman after having been possessed by a son, the king decided to remove Imoinda from the otan and sent her to slavery. Lying to his grandson, he said that she was secretly put to death. However, even after Oroonoko was told that she died, he grieved for her and could not move on to another lady, his love and loylaty to her gradually becoming immortal.
Apart from the loyalty to those he loves, humanity and sense of honour are the most valued features of Oroonoko and also most praised by his close friends. The Prince was the kind of man who was not only worthy of writing about, but also defending. Oroonoko proved victorious in battles and displayed his character on the field many times. In one particular battle, he hurt the enemy´s leader badly and captured him. Some leaders might have killed the enemy´s leader and that would not have been questioned; yet, Oroonoko cared for his enemy by letting him live and giving him a gift of close friendship. If Oroonoko´s enemies can trust him, the reader is assured that Oroonoko is a leader worth knowing about, because there are few like him in the world.
Oroonoko´s honour was such that he had never violated a word in his life himself. Therefore he didn´t expect others to do so. Even though we see instances of lying in Coronatian society (the King, Aboan), they are much more frequent among Europeans. Oroonoko realizes throughtout the novel that white men hide behind their faith, swearing in the name of God, but in reality they have no sense of honour. The captain is a good example of that. He gave to Oroonoko his word that he would set both his friends and himself ashore on the next land free, if Oroonoko would stop refusing all things they brought to him and persuaded the others to do the same. But he broke his promise and sold them off as all other slaves.
Though Oroonoko in Surinam suffered only the name of a slave and not the labour of one, he was very uneasy when his wife became pregnant. The loyalty to his wife and his unborn son clashes here most visibly with the loyalty to his white friends. He knew that if Imoinda and himself would be slaves at the date of birth of their child, the child would be a slave too. He felt when the day of birth was coming closer, that he delayed too long waiting till the Lord – Governor should come, and decided to flee away.
In his antislavery speech, where he above all stressed that he and his fellows did not become slaves by the chance of war and that the whites has treated them as dogs, he persuaded other blacks to follow him in the name of honour. They were, however, followed by The Deputy-Governor, Byam. Before he pretended the most friendship to Oroonoko, and now was the only violent man against him. He led his army to pursue Oronooko. Later on, we can see that Oroonoko did not learn anything from the accident on the ship and was still very naïve as to the European sense of honour. Byam promised that if Oroonoko would surrender, all respect should be paid to him and his wife and child would all be freed. Instead, he was whipped heavily, which was the worst indignity he felt in his life and he planned to revenge on Byam.
Oroonoko´s effort to revenge led him to the strongest conflict of the self. He was aware that if he should do his deed and died, Imoinda would be in a great danger, freely exposed to the whites´ rage. He could not bear this thought and decided to kill her in the name of revenge, the one he loved most in the world. It was really not suprising that after the act he went mad. Moreover, his sacrifice was useless. He did it because he wanted to revenge, but his sorrow was such that he was incapable of it. His final execution, even though very humiliating and nasty, freed him. He had no reason to live. He lost his lovely Imoinda and there was no chance of his return to the native land.
In fact, both novels deliberately attempt to explore the consequences of the choices people have to make when they interact with others, struggling to find a just image of themselves and a place within the social order. The plots of the novels are constructed so as to highlight the implications of the choice of social action. These implications of choice are essentially twofold. First, our choices and actions affect those around us and can rebound back upon us - our actions may indirectly determine our fate. But secondly, our choices also act directly, not just indirectly, upon us by forming or reforming our own character through each act of practical moral decision.
Bibliography:
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Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko and other writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. London: Penguin Books, 1994.
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King, Jeannete. Tragedy in the Victorian Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
4) Reader, William Joseph. Life in Victorian England. London: B.T. Batsford, 1964.