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Oroonoko's tale of rebellion parallels the story of Katniss in the Hunger Games. Both are thrown into a dangerous new world by a duplicitous higher power. Neither one really wants to rebel; both are impelled to out of concern for loved ones. Both also lose much in order to gain their freedom: for Katniss, it is her home, for Oroonoko, it is his very life.

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Note the similarities between the characters of Eve and Satan. Eve, when she first meets Adam, who is to be her master because she was created from him, at firsts wants to return to her own image, rebelling against that submission.  In the same way, Satan rebels against God, who created him and is supposed to be his master, because he wants to be his own master.  Perhaps this is why Satan chose Eve to convince to eat the forbidden fruit.  Perhaps he saw something similar to himself in her.

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Here the idea of the "noble savage" comes through. The natives of the West Indies are upheld as ideal in their innocence, like children almost. Oroonoko denounces the promises of white men as false, yet in the next breath claims that his fellow slaves deserve their servitude. The idea that Native Americans and Africans were almost childlike in their innocence also justified the actions of white settlers to use them as they wanted, often in cruel and unethical ways.

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But Caesar told him, there was no faith in the white men or the gods they adored, who instructed them in principles so false that honest men could not live amongst them...

...he was ashamed of what he had done, in endeavoring to make those free who were by nature slaves, fit to be used as Christians' tools

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They are extreme modest and bashful...though they are all thus naked...these people represented to me an absolute idea of the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin.

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It was very strange to read sentences like this, and to know that they were made in earnest, from a person sympathetic to the plight of Oroonoko. She describes the natives almost as if they are a new species of animal, and implies that Oroonoko is better than other African slaves because he looks and acts European. Racism was so ingrained in the minds of Westerners that this was a normal way of speaking.

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Some of the beauties which are indeed finely shaped...and who have pretty features, are very charming and novel; for they have all that is called beauty, except for the color, which is a reddish yellow.

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He [Oroonoko] had nothing of barbarity in his nature, but in all points addressed himself as if his education had been in some European court.

His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat...The whole proportion of his face was so noble and exactly formed that, bating his color, there could be nothing more beautiful.

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In the attitude of the fallen angels of Paradise Lost, one can find echoes of the sentiments of many rebels at the time Milton was writing. They are willing to suffer in exchange from liberty from a tyrant ruler, yet that tyrant ruler is a perfect God. Milton reconciles this by making Satan see that perhaps he might be in the wrong, but he turns away from redemption anyways.

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Paradise Lost, Book 4, lines 43-46, 48-50

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Paradise Lost, Book 4, lines 43-46, 48-50

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...he created what I was
In that bright eminence...
nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,

...yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I'sdained subjection, and thought one step higher

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...how wearisome
Eternity so spent in worship paid
To whom we hate.

...but rather seek
Our own good from ourselves...
Free, and to none accountable, preferring
Hard liberty before the easy yoke
Of servile pomp.

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Eve is one of the most interesting characters of Paradise Lost, for she, though supposedly created in a perfect world, innocent of evil, somehow has a flaw from her first moments: that of narcissism. It is this trait that Satan draws upon when he convinces her to eat the forbidden fruit, causing the downfall of man

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Thenceforth to speculations high or deep
I turned my thoughts, and with capacious mind
Considered all things visible in Heav'n,
or earth, or middle, all things fair and good;
But all that fair and good in thy divine
Semblance, and in thy beauty's heavn'ly ray
United I beheld, no fair to thine
Equivalent or second, which compelled
Me thus...to come
And gaze, and worship thee of right declared
Sov'reign of creatures, universal dame.

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...yet methought less fair,
Less winning soft, less amiably mild,
Than that smooth wat'ry image; back I turned...

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Shakespeare, in this sonnet and in Twelfth Night, explores the idea that love and desire are not constrained to just hetero-romantic plots and relationships.

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Antonio:
I could not stay behind you. My desire,
More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth...
My willing love,
The rather by these arguments of fear,
Set forth in your pursuit.

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Sebastian:
So comes it, lady, you have been mistook.
You would have been contracted to a maid...
You are betrothed to both a maid and a man.

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Shakespeare's Sonnet 20, lines 1-2, 13-14

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Shakespeare's Sonnet 20, lines 1-2, 13-14

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A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion...

But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine by thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.

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As a modern audience, it is hard to fault Malvolio's wish to rise above his station. It is a common desire to see one's situation be bettered. But the fault does not lie in Malvolio's ambition, but rather in the lengths he is willing to go to feed said ambition, even beyond his willingness to dress in ridiculous fashion. The fact that he is constantly putting others down to build himself up is what earns their hatred.

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"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy fates open their hands. Let thy blood and spirit embrace them...

If not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch Fortune's fingers."

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Love is often portrayed, especially in sonnets, as a violent force, preying upon hapless individuals and consuming them until they feel as though they must be dying. Many sonnet writers express feelings of resistance to love, warning that love might not be all the wonderful emotion that it seems.

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Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death-wound, fly;
See there that boy, that murth'ring boy, I say, Who like a thief hid in dark bush doth lie
Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey.

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Orsino:
If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die...

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity,
Receiveth as the sea...

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My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th'uncertain sickly appetite to please.

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The way that love is portrayed by the pop culture of today in some ways mirrors that of sonnets. It seems like love is this overwhelming force that can make a person do crazy things, like fly to another country, leave another person, etc. just to be with the one that he or she loves.  This idea that love sometimes overrides our logical decisions is a notion to which both modern and medieval audiences can relate.

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Olivia:
Item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two gray eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth.

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Even in earlier poetry like Lanval, authors would use blazon to describe the features of fair maidens. Shakespeare's poem rebels against this hyperbolic itemizing, and later in Twelfth Night he references it ironically, speaking of Olivia's beauty.

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My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

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Una:
"Now now Sir knight, shew what ye bee,
Add faith unto your force, and be not faint..."

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The Faerie Queene draws on the paradoxical view of women that they can be simultaneously the savior and the downfall of men.  Many of the villains of the story, such as Error and Fidessa, are women, yet one can argue that it is only with Una's support that Redcrosse can defeat Error and eventually the dragon.

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"The author then," said he, "of all my smarts,
Is one Duessa a false sorceress,
That many errant knights hath brought to wretchednesse."
...
The false Duessa, now Fidessa hight...

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Tho wrapping up her wrethed sterne arownd,...
All suddenly about his body wound,
That hand or foot to stirre he strove in vain:
God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine.

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Her neck whiter than snow on a branch,
her eyes bright, her face white,
a beautiful mouth, a well-set nose,
dark eyebrows and an elegant forehead,
her hair curly and rather blond;
golden wire does not shine
like her hair in the light.

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"Long ago I became the most cruel punishment,
most hated by men, until I made open
the right way of life to language bearers."

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The Beheading Game, which begins as a pagan narrative, by the end of the poem takes on Christian overtones, as Gawain is spared the hit that he justly deserves, because he fell to temptation. This mirrors the grace given to mankind by God.

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"So who has the gall? The gumption? The guts?...
I'll afford one free hit from which I won't flinch...
Then claim
The duty I deserve
In one year and one day."

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These lines point to a perception of eternity that seems almost hopeless, as if the things that we do here and now mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

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Where did the steed go? Where the young warrior? Where the treasure giver?
Where the seats of friendship? Where the Hall's festivity?
Alas, bright beaker! Alas burnished warrior!
Alas, pride of princes! How the time has passed,
Gone under the night helm as if it never was!

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The women of these works are in a difficult position, as they take charge of situations, which is considered a more male characteristic, so they must soften their commands to fulfill the feminity expected of them while still manipulating events as they desire.

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The prudent woman soon asked one of the men from the spacious city to come towards her,
And hastily to let them in...

"...glorious and triumphant success is approaching and...honor has been granted by fate to you..."

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"Love," she said, "I admonish you now,
I command and beg you,
Do not let any man know about this"

"He has been accused in your court --
I don't want him to suffer...
If he can be acquitted through me,
Let him be set free by your barons."

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"The harm which you caused me is wholly healed.
By confessing you failings you are free from fault
And have openly paid penance at the point of my axe.
I declare you purged, as polished and as pure
As the day you were born, without blemish or blame."

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...each year, short-lived, is unlike the last
And rarely resolves in the style it arrived.
So the festival season finishes and a new year follows
In eternal sequence, season by season...

...All which had risen over-ripens and rots
and yesterday on yesterday the year dies away,
And winter returns, as is the way of the world
Through time.

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During World War II, brave women such as Freddie Oversteegen (pictured), in the Dutch resistance aided their subjugated countrymen by seducing many Nazi soldiers, leading them into the forest, and executing them, much like Judith.

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Judith is portrayed here as a war hero, with descriptors usually reserved for male heroes.

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Judith had won illustrious glory in the battle as God, the Lord of Heaven, granted it so when He gave her victory....
Then the courageous women went from there straightaway, until the triumphant women, elated, got away out from that army...

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Out of the whole evangelistic message of the tree, this statement stands out as a climax. It sums up the whole journey of the tree.