“Petting Oroonoko”:
The Politics of Virtualization in Srinivas Aravamudan’s Tropicopolitans
“Petting Oroonoko,” the first chapter in Srinivas Aravamudan’s Tropicopolitans (1999) begins with a discussion of the recent critical fascination, fixation, and fetishization of Aphra Behn’s novella Oroonoko. In fact, by the end of the first section of the chapter, I found myself wondering why Aravamudan had not chosen to italicize “Oroonoko” in the chapter title since the chapter is framed by such an insightful discussion of recent critical responses to Oroonoko [the text] that have “petted” or fetishized the it. No doubt, these critical caresses have ruffled Aravamudan’s feathers.
He argues—and his thesis is repeated in several insightful permutations throughout Tropicopolitans—that many of the most significant (post-colonial and new-historical) critics of the long eighteenth century have forged a path of interpretation of Behn’s text that has, unfortunately, still left a rocky terrain to navigate. Aravamudan cites the work of critics Laura Brown, Margaret Ferguson, Catherine Gallagher and several others as creating a climate of what he terms “a veritable oroonokoism” (29). Although he does not specifically define oroonokoism, from the examples he gives we can say with some certainty that oroonokoism can be found in works that attempt to too closely align Behn’s discussion of, what Aravamudan calls “dispersal of the subject, multiple voices and positionings, expressions of ideological ambivalence, and clear assertions concerning the political construction of culture and gender” with our contemporary concerns as readers (29).
No better for Aravamudan is “imoindaism” in which writers see Imoinda as the “ideological crux” of the novella (31). Imoindaism also attempts to counteract the effects of oroonokoism by focusing on Imoinda’s struggle for agency and her methods of resistance in Behn’s text. Aravamudan recognizes the limitations of each of these aspective critical approaches. The critical petting of Oroonoko or Imoinda leads critics down a dangerous path where one might conceivably make quote, “the heathen into a human so he can be treated as an end in himself.” To do so would run the risk of enacting what Gayatri Spivak has called “the terrorism of the categorical imperative”(33).
Aravamudan ends his introduction cautioning readers to recognize that although quote the virtualization of Oroonoko [the text] has been useful…a closer attention to Behn’s and Southerne’s generic protocols shows that redemptive readings are undercut by tragic-comic, parodic, and satirical strains (33). Subsequently, Aravamudan links Behn’s representation of Oroonoko (the literary character) to an overview of pethood in eighteenth century England, discusses Southerne’s adaptation of Behn’s novella, etc.
Aravamudan also makes a noble stab at assessing the implications of the various critical and literary interpretations of Oroonoko focusing particularly on those interpretations that might be termed mocking or that make Oroonoko (the character) into a Christ-like figure of sacrifice. In the time that I have, it would be quite difficult to even begin to unpack the complex argument(s) that Aravamudan makes in a relatively short number of pages. Instead, I’d like to concentrate on a few key terms that pop up in the introduction of “Petting Oroonoko” that frames the body of the essay.
I want to spend some time talking about the term virtualization as well as the way Aravamudan sees this technique as leading to misreadings of Oroonoko. It is only by understanding virtualization that we can begin to fully comprehend the critical moves Aravamudan makes within the essay, as well as begin to think about where we might place “Petting Oroonoko” and more broadly, Tropicopolitans, within the other works of post-colonial criticism we’ve been reading for this class.
In the introduction to Tropicopolitans Aravamudan explains:
The term virtualization describes colonialist representations that acquire malleability because of a certain loss of detail, a process that enables readier identification and manipulation by readers, thus putting the trope of the tropicopolitan into motion toward an open-ended future (Tropicopolitans 17).
Perhaps we can also benefit from a definition of the term tropicopolitan which Aravamudan proposes in the introduction as:
a name for the colonized subject who exists both as fictive construct of colonial tropology and actual resident of tropical space, object of representation and agent of resistance. In many historical instances, tropicopolitans—the residents of the tropics, the bearers of its marks, and the shadow images of more visible metropolitans—challenge the developing privilege of Enlightenment cosmopolitans (Tropicopolitans 4).
Synthesizing these two terms is crucial to understanding Aravamudan’s thesis in “Petting Oroonoko.” I also think that explicating and, perhaps, troubling these terms might even help us to answer the questions that Professor Warner distributed to us via email last week. I take virtualization to be, in Aravamudan’s argument, the fundamental way in which the vast majority of post-colonial criticism of Oroonoko has engaged in oroonokoism or imoindaism. Virtualization has the potential to create a narrative of colonization that includes topical issues for critics writing today, but so far away from the conundrums of colonialism and imperialism facing Behn, Southerne, and their audience. Aravamudan’s focus in Tropicopolitans is on the representation of the tropicopolitan subject who is both an agent of resistance to colonial rule and a secret sharer in the Enlightenment project. The tropicopolitan’s status challenges Enlightement aspirations and leads to the creation of a new schema of tropicopolitan subjectivity interdependent with but unique to the metropolitan subject. Virtualization can lead to a shift in focus away from the tropicopolian and towards the individual interests of contemporary critics. Which is limiting. Aravamudan’s text seems to me to be a cry to emphasize the specific ways in which characters such as Oroonoko blur the boundaries of the schema of contemporary post-colonial criticism. Neither the “radically innocent” abject colonial subject constructed by Said, nor the hero seen in critical works marked as oroonokoist, Aravamudan seems to me to be more aligned with critics such as Pratt and Thomas who recognize the asymmetry of the colonial encounter while at the same time acknowledging that there is always some emotional and physical give and take between colonized and colonizer. In fact, tellingly, Aravamudan ends “Petting Oroonoko” by reminding the reader that “real-world tropicopolitans” were able to revolt through the process of marronage foreshadowing his discussion of the Haitian Revolution. Thus, a chapter which highlights the inadequacies and limitations of the current critical fascination with a highly stylized and fantastical sort of character and story pulls us back into “real history,” where ultimately some degree of independence was achieved vis a vis decolonization.
Aravamudan’s argument highlights some of the significant pitfalls of oroonokoism and imoindaism. Can you think of any other reasons why oroonokoism or imoindaism might occur that Aravamudan fails to mention? In most classes that I have taught in or been taught in, Oroonoko is a text that functions as a way to bring issues of multiculturalism and feminism into the classroom. Often it is the rather than a text which deals overtly with issues of race, colonization, gender etc. How does the special status of Oroonoko in the classroom complicate Aravamudan’s description of such terms as virtualization, oroonokoism, or imoindaism?
For Aravamudan, oroonokoism and imoindaism are excellent tools for highlighting the dubious effects of virtualization. What are the benefits and drawbacks of relying on such specific sorts of terms? (How) does Aravamudan’s idea of oroonokoism or imoindaism apply to other works within the canon like Robinson Crusoe? What are the limitations or benefits of creating such text-specific definitions?
“Petting Oroonoko” attempts to move beyond the current schema of post-colonial criticism and to detail how “redemptive readings [of Behn and Southerne’s works] are undercut by tragic-comic, parodic, and satirical strains” (33). How successful do you feel Aravamudan was in achieving his goal? How much do you think his specific goals are a product of his own “critical narcissism”?
A text specific question: Oroonoko and Imoinda communicate through a unique language of eye contact throughout Behn’s text. How does Behn’s emphasis on the importance of non-verbal communication between her hero and heroine relate to Pratt’s concept of the contact zone? What does it mean that although Imoinda and Oroonoko can understand each other through their “secret language of eyes” apparently Behn is also able to interpret their eye contact? Moreover, how does body language (appearance, dismembering, etc.) form another sort of non-verbal method of communicating within the contact zone?
“a name for the colonized subject who exists both as fictive construct of colonial tropology and actual resident of tropical space, object of representation and agent of resistance. In many historical instances, tropicopolitans—the residents of the tropics, the bearers of its marks, and the shadow images of more visible metropolitans—challenge the developing privilege of Enlightenment cosmopolitans” (Tropicopolitans 4)
“The term virtualization describes colonialist
representations that acquire malleability because of a certain loss of detail,
a process that enables readier identification and manipulation by readers, thus
putting the trope of the tropicopolitan into motion toward an open-ended
future” (Tropicopolitans 17)