Vázquez 1 Painted In Our Own Way: Europeanization, Otherness and the Other in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, by Raúl J. Vázquez Vélez A Poet is a Painter in his way; he draws to the Life, but in another Kind; we draw the Nobler part, the Soul and the Mind; the Pictures of the Pen shall out-last those of the Pencil, and even Worlds themselves Aphra Behn, Oroonoko; “The Epistle Dedicatory To The Right Honourable The Lord Maitland.” The narrative voice of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko shows an acute awareness of the sense of wonderment with which most Europeans at the time regarded the New World and its peoples, along with its flora and fauna. This astonishment extends towards the types of government that were found in various parts of Africa and the Americas and, just as importantly, to the customs and ways of life of their respective aboriginals. However, the narrator’s acts of cataloging and accounting for this brave new world are not what most people would regard nowadays as objective and scientific research for knowledge and understanding; these acts are tinged with opinionated sensationalism that presents such findings in ways reminiscent of ancient and medieval travel and science books. Moreover, even here the novel’s narrator belies a sort of ironic mistrust of her own work and subject matter, pertaining particularly to its protagonist, his love interest and their relationship with their white European antagonists. For instance, the narrator begins her Prologue by claiming to mistrust Dedications to literary works. Although she participates in the long-standing Western tradition of dedicating written works to the protection of powerful personages (such as Lord Richard Maitland, in this case), the Introduction to Oroonoko is all too aware of the artificialness into which these conventions de rigueur are likely to fall. The prologuist associates these acts of falsifying writ with authors’ desires to ingratiate themselves with their patrons, protectors and readers by all means necessary. It is no wonder that “The most part of Dedications are charg’d with Flattery”, since it is of utmost importance for authors that their works are recommended to the wider public