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The Jury's Still Out on Aphra Behn

 Between Oroonoko and The Fair Jilt, I'm entirely puzzled by Aphra Behn as an author. In an entirely Swiftian manner, I simply cannot decipher if her writing is meant to be a commentary on unsatisfactory happenings or if she is actually racist and sexist. If you've read my previous blog on Behn, I further explained this situation in relation to The Fair Jilt and the different lenses it can be viewed through. Where Oroonoko is concerned, she could either be explaining the issue of the noble savage concept or genuinely have a type of savior complex by inserting herself into the narrative and humanizing a brutal story. I would be very interested to read different analyses of her works to see if there is an answer hiding in all of this.

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