| Aphra Behn(1640-1689) is the first professional woman playwright and novelist in England. She wrote seventeen plays, two verse collections, some translation works, and thirteen novels in her lifetime. She is credited with influencing the development of the English novel toward realism, and is one of the early abolitionist writers; her most important work is the anti-slavery novel Oroonoko.This paper intends to systematically explore the theme in her works-aspiration for freedom from three aspects: feminism, abolitionism, and libertinism.The paper consists of six chapters with the first chapter beginning with an introduction to Aphra Behn in details. She once wrent abroad as Charles II's spy in Surinam in South America. There she watched the savage tribe's free and innocent life unspoiled by laws and civilization. The savage tribe's free run of their nature deeply influenced Aphra Behn's life and writing. After returning to England, Aphra Behn earned her living by her pen. Her successful plays prove that women have the same ability with men. Her plays giveprominence to female characters. And she reversed the traditional passive role of female to active female characters, expressing female characters' desire for freedom and equality. But Aphra Behn's bold stage style aroused the public's condemnation and she was accused of being an immoral woman.Her works suffered the coldness of the eighteenth century and nineteenth century. Aphra Behn's fame recovered in the early twentieth century by Virginia Woolf comments on Aphra Behn's importance to the history of female writers in England. Woolf said: "With Mrs. Behn we turn a very important corner on the road in the history of women writers. ...All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."Chapter II analyzes the feminism conveyed in her works. Her feminist idea is mainly contained in her three "address to reader", some of her letters to her friends, and her works. She exposed double standard between man and woman on sex, education and writing. On this basis, Aphra Behn created some anti-traditional female characters, for example, female warriors, nuns, and courtesans.Chapter III analyzes abolitionism conveyed in her novel Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave. This novel is the first anti-slavery novel in the Western countries. In this chapter, through symbol and contrast, the author discusses Aphra Behn's abolitionist view. The prince Oroonoko symbolizes man's free nature; the slave Oroonoko symbolizes man's trodden-down nature. The theme is further analyzed through the clash between the savage tribe's life and the slavery plantation.Chapter IV discusses the libertinism in Aphra Behn's works. These libertines are longing for life above the social conventions and confinements.Chapter V explores the pessimist vision shown in Aphra Behn's later works from the aspect of her life. Aphra Behn's long-term poverty and struggle against prejudice disastrously ruined her health. And her physical weakening is shown in her later works.Chapter VI is the conclusion. This chapter further discusses Aphra Behn's individual freedom in her works from the aspect of her political point of view. The victory of the Glorious Revolution in England made the royalist fall from power in whom Aphra Behnplaced all her ideal of freedom. With the royalist career's failure, her hopes were shattered. It is this point that makes Aphra Behn a controversial figure. The author thinks Aphra Behn's royalty is revolved around an idealized aristocratic ethos that liberates the individual from the tyrannies of dull customs and traditions. |
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