Point of View

The story’s primary point of view is that of its unnamed, first-person narrator: a white, female, British colonist in the South American country where much of the story takes place. She is telling a story not her own: a story that, she says in her narration, was told to her by its central character, the slave / prince Oroonoko. While this gives the story an air of being second-hand information, it’s important to note that as part of her telling the story, the narrator includes not only information and commentary based on her own perspective (see below) but also information about the thoughts, feelings, and impressions of Oroonoko and other characters, information that she claims to have had directly from them. She is not by any means an omniscient narrator: she doesn’t know, or communicate, everything about every character. However, neither is she...