Literature Review Aphra Behn s 1688 And Couto s ...

As it stands in our modern age, both the general public at large and scholars within all factions of academia have acknowledged the horrific documented abuses perpetrated by colonial powers from the Age of Exploration to the present day. Similarly, the mechanics behind the oppression of women have been exhaustively researched and debated over. However, if one is to analyze and compare literature born out of the height of the colonial age, and literature released within our own lifetime, they may actually arguably find very little difference in how they characterize women; in particular, there seems to still be a racial element of subjugation, whether intentional or not. By examining the dynamics between the feminine ‘natural’ and the masculine ‘human’ in Aphra Behn’s 1688 novel ‘Oroonoko’ and Couto’s ‘The Tuner of Silences’, published in 2009, I will argue how men and women are constructed differently in the literary s ense as not only as natural beings, but also as inhabiting natural assumed roles in relation to one another and the ecology they are a part of. Specifically, these texts illuminate the striking similarity between the human cultural imposition on natural spaces, and the masculine imposition and domination of female identities. I will demonstrate how the European woman, present in both of these texts, negotiates and holds a unique place of rank within not only the colonial framework, but also within the gendered ecology of human civilization, and as such serves