Introduction: The essence of Structuralism is the belief that things cannot be understood in isolation—they have to be seen in the context of the larger structures they are part of. For instance, texts or discourses are said to transform only a limited number of stories, and these can be said to be essential narrative structures. According to Roland Barthes, the constant aim of Structuralism is “to master the infinity of utterances by describing the ‘language’ of which they are the products and from which they can be generated.” He sees five narrative codes as the basic underlying structures of all narratives. So, in terms of my Structuralist reading of Oroonoko, the individual item is this particular story, and the larger structure is the system of codes, which Roland Barthes sees as generating all possible actual narratives. Now, Barthesean narratology consists of Proairetic code, Hermeneutic code, Cultural code, Semic code and Symbolic code. In this essay, I will try to analyze the textual signifiers of Oroonoko in terms of these five codes laid out by Roland Barthes.
Proairetic Code: Every action in a story, from the smallest to the greatest, is considered here. Actions are syntagmatic, but are often meant to overlap. Since this code provides indications of actions, I will focus on the plot construction of Oroonoko in brief. It should be mentioned here that Oroonoko does not flow strictly in a chronological manner but begins with the narrator’s first-person account of Surinam as a British colony and with a description of its native people. The narrator reports that the British cannot enslave the native people because of their vast numbers; instead, to work the land, the colony has to import African labourers. After this, the narrative switches to third-person narration and the setting changes to Coramantien, today’s Ghana, on the west coast of Africa, where we see local life and finally meet the protagonist, the young prince Oroonoko, who is shortly enslaved and transported to the British colony of Surinam. The story moves to Surinam and changes once again to first-person narration where Oroonoko meets the narrator. It continues in first-person narration with the narrator, when not on the scene, hearing firsthand accounts from those who are witnesses. The final section of the story concerns Oroonoko’s revolt and the horrible death of the hero, who is willing to die rather than bear the name of ‘slave’.
Recurrence is an important aspect of Oroonko’s plot. For instance, Oroonoko returns again and again to his melancholic temperament throughout the work. When he hears of Imoinda’s fate, he is shortly cast into a deep depression. After being enslaved and raging in vain against the betrayal of the English captain, he experiences a fit of depression. Later, a similar episode occurs when he comes to realize that he has been deceived once more by the whites and that they have no intention of granting him his freedom.
Again, the narrator can be considered, in literary term, as an ‘intrusive narrator’ who generally interrupts the narrative when she deems fit in order to interject a personal aside. On the journey to the native village, for instance, she takes a rather long digression by informing the readers how she came to be in Surinam: her father died on the trip to his new post as lieutenant-general, and how she and her family must wait for transport back to England. However, it is remarkable that when the fairy tale is over, the real face of the colonizers are exposed.
Hermeneutic Code: This too works along the syntagm. According to this code, puzzles, questions and other enigmas are either resolved or left unresolved in a story. In other words, this code poses questions or enigmas which provide narrative suspense. And “all the units whose function it is to be articulate in various ways a question, its response, and the variety of chance events which can either formulate the question or delay its answers; or even, constitute an enigma and lead to its solution”. For instance, the British are forced, more or less, to be good to the Native Americans and not ‘treat them as slaves’. Thus, if they are to make money from their Caribbean colonies, the question arises–who are going to cut and refine the sugar, harvest the cotton and tobacco, and so on? This issue gave rise to African slavery in all of the Americas; and thus the question is resolved.
Again, a question arises from the story whether Oroonoko is a pacifist or not. At the beginning, he takes captives from wars with his neighbours and sells them to the European slave traders for profit. But later when he himself is enslaved, he tries to throw off his shackles and lead a slave revolt. Here a mystery appears as to why the slaves sold by him earlier, show their utmost respect for Oroonoko after seeing him in Surinam, instead of hating him for
