e, although Behn perhaps puts more value in civility than does Wright. Wright simply does not trust the whites, whereas Oroonoko is shown to be more innocent or naive about the intentions of whites at a crucial point in his story, specifically when he is tricked into surrender by Byam.
Both works are built on the passion of protest and action, specifically action which is meant to express the power of the black individual in a white society antagonistic to that individual. Also important to an understanding of the books are the author's views that there must be some organized effort to stop racism at all levels of society. Both works emphasize the importance of such organization, whether fighting against slavery or any other institutional evil expressing racism or injustice against blacks or any other group.
Wright is sympathetic to the Marxist perspective, so that his argument against racism is also an argument against the socioeconomic and political structures which promote racism. Behn's Oroonoko, on the other hand, strikes out in his effort to organize a slave revolt. Perhaps Oroonoko does not conceive of the nature of the underlying structure of evil which supports racism and slavery in white society, but he does know that slavery is indeed evil and that whites must be fought in order to achieve freedom.
Of course, fighting racism with violence, as both Bigger and Oroonoko do, does not mean that such an approach will succeed, and, in fact, it is not a surprise when both Wright's and Behn's protagonists not only fail to change the racist societies in which they live, but instead meet awful fates as the result of their resistance, specifically execution at the hands of their oppressors.
Despite their violence, or perhaps because of it, both Behn's Oroonoko and Wright's Bigger demonstrate the nobility of black men in the face of racism. B
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