The Rover- Aphra Behn PDF

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critically examine the rover by aphra behn as a feminist play....

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Question:- Critically examine Aphra Behn’s The Rover as a feminist play. Aphra Behn (14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, translator and fiction writer from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Behn’s early works were tragic comedies in verse. In 1670 her first play, The Forc’d Marriage, was produced, and The Amorous Prince followed a year later. Her sole tragedy, Abdelazer, was staged in 1676. The answer further attempts to critically analyse “The Rover” as a feminist play. “Between the categories of “virgin” and “whore” lay a void, not a spectrum; one could give the whole cargo or nothing” ------ Aphra Behn The social and sexual freedom of “libertinism” which was followed by the collapse of the Puritan Protectorate in 1660 in the form of a a hedonistic lifestyle of parties, sex, and extravagant spending, did not extend to women. Although they might crave higher degrees of autonomy and sexual expression, their lives still fit within the boundaries of three roles: nun, prostitute, or wife. Performed in 1677, Aphra Behn’s play, The Rover, speaks to such double standards, which limited women sexual desires to the realm of convent, brothel, or home. Behn’s female characters strive for independence within the limitations of the English system of courtship and marriage. In The Rover, the three leading ladies are nothing like the subordinate females but witty, competent matches for the men they meet. According to Burke, they are capable and proactive young women who exhibit “the initiative and daring reserved for cavaliers. By placing Hellena’s narrative early in the play, Behn combats the masculine ideal of female passivity. Behn highlights the heroine’s self-assertiveness by making Hellena refuse the nunnery, masquerade, and pursue love. Hellena is perhaps the most independent and outspoken of all female characters in "The Rover". From the very opening of the play, she is presented as a woman with confidence and drive. Her leadership and bold defiance, as well as her ability to manipulate others, are all put on display when she convinces Callis to allow both her and Florinda to attend the carnival, despite being ordered by her brother to spend the evening locked up in her room. Not only does Hellena actively disobey her brother’s orders in this scene, but she also effectively manages to convince her sister to join her in rebelling against restrictive patriarchal and fraternal commands. Over the course of the play, each takes upon herself the position of active wooer. Maidenly Hellena openly vows to do “not as my wise brother imagines [for her future], …but to love and to be beloved” by reeling in a husband (Behn 170). Her virginal sister, Florinda, adopt similar goals in pursuit of passion. Unlike, Belivile, who spends his time at the beginning of the play passively lamenting his predicament, it is Florinda, not

Belvile, who takes the initiative to alter their destiny; she both designs (and largely executes) the plan that leads them to marriage. Burke suggests that this sort of rebellious behavior is out of the ordinary for female characters in seventeenth century theatre. Behn’s feminisim can be further illustrated in Behn’s depiction of the courtesans in the play. Angelica, a courtesan, has been raised to “prostitute as heroine” as opposed to the old “prostitute as outsider”.Upon discovering that Willmore had been using her she is able to reflect upon herself and becomes humanized for the audience: But when Love held the Mirror, the undeceiving Glass Reflected all the Weakness of my Soul, and made me know, My richest Treasure being lost, my Honour, All the remaining Spoil cou’d not be worth The Conqueror’s Care or Value. Behn actually allows, of all women, a prostitute, perhaps because she is in charge of her sexuality, to divorce herself from a dependency on men and obtain agency for the female character. The theme of female agency can also be seen in other female characters. Lucetta, for example, designs and executes a clever albeit cruel plan to cheat Blunt out of his possessions. Like Hellena, Lucetta knows what she wants, she knows how to get it and, most importantly, she actively pursues what she desires. The men of "The Rover" take more of a back seat, the foppish Cavaliers are juxtaposed as foils against these women to further emphasize feminine ability and power. The romantic heroes, Willmore and Belvile, do win Hellena and Florinda, as well as their bounteous dowries, in matrimony; however, their actions are nearly their undoing along the way. Belvile’s wellintentioned efforts to woo his lady bring him close to her several times, but backfire without fail. One Samaritan act lands him in prison. Willmore ruins his friend’s secret rendezvous with Florinda by drunkenly accosting her and raising a commotion. Later, as a disguised Belvile prepares to marry his love, Willmore reveals his identity with a hug, knocking “Belvile’s vizard… out on’s hand” and effectively destroying hopes for the wedding (Behn 198). A common prostitute dupes the comic figure, Ned Blunt, despite his comrades warning of possible deception. Florinda’s brother Pedro, along with the English band, becomes so absorbed in the

libertine hunt for sexual conquest that he nearly rapes his own sister. The blundering behavior of the English cavaliers speaks to the reason and abilities of women. During that time period, so many things Behn wanted, such as playwriting, were often only attained by males. Behn, through her pursuit of male-dominated aspirations displays a disregard for gender disparity or recognition. The ability for on-stage cross-dressing in an attempt to subvert an enemy allowed gender mobility that was scarce in Behn’s time, but conforms to the ideas of performative gender and explains Behn’s distaste of gender roles. In The Widdow Ranter, Ranter, herself, dresses like a man because she cannot acquire what she wants when dressed as a woman. Similarly in Rover Hellena and Angellica also take on the appearances of men during the play. Such costumes permit them to alter their lovers choices and lives. “Dressed in man’s clothes,” Hellena can punish Willmore for his infidelity with “something [she’ll] do to vex him” (Behn 202). Angellica Bianca dons “a masking habit and vizard” and threatens Willmore with a pistol (Behn 228). Instead of feminizing her lust, Angellica masculinizes herself. By masquerading as men, both women demonstrate how ladies may take ownership of rights associated only male Cavaliers, romance, justice, and sexuality. Disguise also equalizes the class distinctions, “[blurring, criticizing] and…even [satirizing] the difference between the categories available to women” (Kreis-Schinck 160). When lost in the festivities, the ladies join all that “are, or would have you think they’re courtesans,” the most sexually liberated women (Behn 142). Their initial costumes as gypsies allow them to approach men in a feminized, desirous way. Gypsies already occupy the role of outcast on the liminal edge of society; by taking on their looks, Florinda and Hellena put themselves and their sexuality outside the confines of cultural expectation. Their decision implies Behn’s opinion that women should seek to escape the restrictions that define them. The accusation of being unwomanly was also unwarranted as her male contemporaries were often writing with much of the same bawdiness and imagery. Excessive drinking, although nothing completely new to Britain, was a more acceptable excuse for immoral behavior in men and as such Willmore was not as harshly chastised for his actions.However, in a just and right universe, he is punished, and Behn crafts his punishment through the death of his newly acquired love, Hellena. According to Heidi Hutner : Killigrew’s female characters are depicted either as prized, angelic virgins or as deformed and grotesque “others.” In constrast, Behn’s play rebukes the patriarchal concept of women and “others” as property. Another way Behn shows abhorrence for masculine double standards is through the character of Florinda and her lover, Belvile. Florinda is romantically aligned with Belvile who is her equal in piety and goodness. This, as Hutner asserts, is Behn’s way of saying that if women are expected to be good and respectable then men should be held to the same standards of decency

Behn’s feminist attitude (even though the term had not been coined), does not negate her from taking a dialectical approach. She allows her women to speak their mind while assuring a male audience that it’s simply talk and the women really do support their husbands and their subordinate feminine position. Although with a lot of subtelty, Behn suggests at early British women’s potential to feel and act confidently on sexual feelings, thus “[demasculinizing] desire” and “[subverting] the construction of woman as a self-policing and passive commodity”.

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Portrayal of Restoration Women in The Rover by Angela White COLLABORATION OF FEMINIST AND POST TION OF FEMINIST AND POSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSES IN THE PLAYS OF APHRA BEHN AND CARYL CHURCHILL Erica Spiller Virginia Commonwealth University

https://www.google.com/url? sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn&ved=2ahUKEwibx LmgnPfsAhV3_XMBHY_sDdgQFjASegQIGxAB&usg=AOvVaw1EnZ3wDl_A3OfIENvLv4ep https://www.google.com/url? sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://commons.marymount.edu/magnificat/portrayal-ofrestoration-women-in-the-

rover/&ved=2ahUKEwjYk6yam_fsAhXi7HMBHWoVBNAQFjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw1 cI8hB6-CfvuYLKL2NUVdG https://www.google.com/url? sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%252F978-0-230629448_13.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjYk6yam_fsAhXi7HMBHWoVBNAQFjAEegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVa w0345kaWe8xf7Xu_CU5bLnrhttps://www.google.com/url? sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://theconversation.com/amp/vivacious-and-unapologetic-therovers-17th-century-feminism-is-painfully-pertinent80455&ved=2ahUKEwjYk6yam_fsAhXi7HMBHWoVBNAQFjALegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw2 DLDq19zTvSqh79ZMbk7GQ&cf=1 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.gradesaver.com/therover/studyguide/themes&ved=2ahUKEwjYk6yam_fsAhXi7HMBHWoVBNAQFjANegQIAhAB&usg=AO vVaw2CZZfelzsxvSvNIZIk8TW1...