TUTORIAL: CC 7

“The Rover” by Aphra Behn as a Feminist play- How are the

women Characters more important than the male characters

NAME: RITANWITA DASGUPTA

SEMESTER: III

COLLEGE ROLL NO: BA 270

CU ROLL NO: 212034-11-0091

CU REGISTRATION NO: 034-1211-0099-21

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

SHRI SHIKSHAYATAN COLLEGE

 Abstract

The most popular of Aphra Behn's plays, The Rover has all the stock ingredients of Restoration

drama - an attractive libertine, a spirited heroine, a domineering quasi-parental figure to be

thwarted, and a foolish but endearing fop, trying unsuccessfully to be a rake. Florinda and

Belvile's love-match, opposed by family and rival suitors, belongs to an old dram- atic tradition,

as does Callis's role of the governess or nurse. Angellica Bianca moves beyond the traditional

stereotype of a prostitute to become a complex version of the dangerous scorned mistress. Yet,

for all these recognizable characteristics and the incorporation of songs, music, sword-play,

and dancing which an audience might expect from a play of this period, The Rover is full of

surprises. On the surface, Behn appears to be working within the literary conventions of her

day, but under it she pushes their boundaries as far as she dares.

In her works, Aphra Behn examines the possibilities of female agency in a patriarchal world.

This paper begins by contextualizing Behn’s work within the male literary tradition in which

she wrote to understand the place of female agency. Her play The Rover is closely examined

to show this agency in heterosexual relationships and its connection to money and

parental/patriarchal authority. The paper also analyzes the interrelationship between subjects

and objects of desire. The use of masks in the play as instruments that accord temporary

liberation or empowerment is discussed, and how the women characters emerge as more

powerful than the perpetrators of subjugation. Through the stories of Florinda, Hellena, and

Angellica, Behn integrates strong elements of feminism and libertinism by focusing on issues

of marriage, self-identity and representation. Each of these character types represents a

different aspect of a woman’s struggle to define themselves in the restoration period.

 Index

Topics Page numbers

1) Introduction 1-2
2) Important female characters in – The 2-7
Rover and their examples of
subjugation
3) Negotiating gender roles and 7-11
masculine circles and women
standing up for themselves

4) Conclusion 11-13
5) Works cited 13
 Dasgupta 1

Introduction

Aphra Behn, the writer of the play was the first woman writer of the late seventeenth century.

She wrote plays from the female perspective about the historical aspects of the Restoration

society. In her play The Rover, Behn portrays the elements of feminism through the characters

of Florinda, Hellena and Angellica. Each of these characters represents their own way of

feminine struggles to make an identity during Restoration.

Through each of these women, the writers tried to show how the string of every woman’s life

was always controlled by the men of the Restoration society. Florinda, the noble lady began

with no sense of agency, but the power shift gave her more agency to choose her partner.

Hellena , who had almost the same level of agency as her sister, being forced into the life of a

nun, found the shift of power through the courtship of a man. However, Angellica who had the

agency of power and control over men lost it, by falling in love and defying her values for the

sake of love. It left her vulnerable and decreased her level of agency which lowered her social

value and self worth. Each of these characters display a struggle to revive their identity and self

worth. Behn covers the topics of marriage, self-identity and social representation in relation to

the Restoration age. Through these elements, ‘The Rover’ earns itself a critical part in the

history of Restoration theatre.

Through Florinda, Hellena, and Angellica, Behn was able to bring to life some of the ideals of

the Restoration while also critiquing popular movements within the era. Each of these
 Dasgupta 2

characters endures a social struggle that fits into a bigger picture for the time. Marriage, self-

identity and social representation are all topics that women of the Restoration were faced with

and characterized what it meant to be a woman during that time. Behn’s execution of these

elements makes The Rover a critical part of the history of Restoration Theatre.

Each woman begins the play bound one of the three fates: Florinda to marriage, Hellena to the

nunnery, and Angellica Bianca to well-paid prostitution. Through Carnival, however, these

women abandon their prescribed positions with disguises to “be mad as the rest, and take all

innocent freedoms,” including to “outwit twenty brothers” (Behn 138-139). The masquerade

serves multiple purposes. First, disguise 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 her peers should seek to escape the restrictions that define them.

Important Female characters in – The Rover and their stories of

subjugation

Throughout the play, Florinda formulates the plans by which Belvile and she might be united.

Stepping out of the house without her brother’s knowledge is her first step towards

emancipation while the more active part she plays in bringing about the union with Belvile
 Dasgupta 3

shows a reversal of the traditional roles. But in exchanging her passive female role for a more

active masculine one, Florinda exposes herself, twice, to the danger of rape, a historically

patriarchal tool of oppression. Significantly though, there is not one instance where her lover

rescues her. She either does it herself or is assisted by her fellow females. This issue of rape is

deeply connected with the appearance of women on stage as Jean I. Marsden (1996) explains

in her article “Rape, Voyeurism, and the Restoration Stage.” The body of the actress is

subjected to the male/audience’s gaze so that “the rape becomes the physical manifestation of

the desire perpetrated by the rapist but implicit in the audience’s gaze. Thus the audience, like

the rapist, ‘enjoys’ the actress, deriving its pleasure from the physical presence of the female

body” (Marsden, 1996, p. 186). The presence of the female playwright evokes a similar

response, as Catherine Gallagher (1993) argues, and publication of a woman’s writings, in the

seventeenth century, was equivalent to being a “public” woman; that is, the female playwright

was a whore. In Behn’s case, these ideas are manifest in her plays, as Alison Findlay (2010)

states, particularly in Lucetta through whom “Behn characterises the common association

between woman playwright, actress and whore” (p. 48). In the first of the rape scenes in The

Rover, Florinda is assaulted by Willmore who, in his drunken state, can only see a woman in

the dark. He does not recognize her as his friend’s beloved, or as “belonging” to any man (in

seventeenth century England, women were the property of first, the father or related male

guardian, and then, the husband) which, to him, is reason enough to suppose she is a prostitute

and, therefore, to be had/possessed. Dagny Boebel (1996) explains that “In the patriarchal

system of signs, once she is loosed from her signification as Belvile’s mistress, Florinda

becomes a sign of generalized ‘woman,’ equated only with her biological essence, thus ‘a very

wench’” (p. 65). This interpretation is reinforced in the second rape scene where Blunt desires

to avenge himself on womankind for his sufferings at the hand of

 Dasgupta 4

Lucetta: thou shalt lie with me too, not that I care for the enjoyment, but to let thee see I have

ta’en deliberated malice to thee, and will be revenged on one whore for the sins of another”

(Rover 4:5: 49-51). To Blunt, thus, one woman is as good – or as bad – as the other. They blend

into one form and become identity-less, their significance reduced to nothing. Florinda is also

subjected to the threat of a gang rape when all the men, including her lover and her brother,

draw swords – a very potent phallic symbol – to decide who will lie with her first. Florinda had

gained some independence by stepping out of the house in a mask, an opportunity accorded by

the carnival, which also was a time of sexual license. The mask allows her to disguise herself

to avoid detection as well as a chance to actively pursue her lover and test his faithfulness. For

a while, she is the active agent of desire as she makes the plans and attempts to execute them.

Having a fortune, Florinda need not be afraid to defy her brother, on whom she is not

economically dependent. She is powerful enough to know what she wants and to pursue her

goal. But, as Boebel (1996) says, in spite of such empowerment, “the assaults on Florinda

silence her. She does not confront Belvile about his participation in the prospective gang rape,

and she does not tell Hellena about Willmore’s assault” (Boebel, 1996, p. 67). She seems to

have absorbed the idea that since she was not actually harmed, there is no need for

confrontation or punishment, which perhaps explains why Behn does not, in the end, show the

men being punished or even made aware of having done wrong. According to Boebel (1996),

though, Florinda becomes silent because “[s]he experiences a violent reassertion of phallic

hierarchy and prerogatives” (p. 67). Hellena, Florinda’s sister, is, according to Heidi Hutner

(1993), a combination of the virgin and the whore characters of Killigrew’s play Thomaso,

which was the source for Behn’s play. In combining these two
 Dasgupta 5

oppositional characteristics in the “sexually desirous yet virginal Hellena, Behn emphasizes

the limited choices available to women of her age: the nunnery where female sexuality lies

buried behind the monastery wall, or prostitution, in which female sexuality represents itself

for male pleasure” (Hutner, 1993, p. 106). I would, however, add that there is a third alternative

– that of marriage to the man of one’s choice. Though marriage is yet another institution which

threatens to bind and limit female existence, Behn in The Rover seems to suggest that if women

choose their own partners, life would not be too bad. The play begins with Hellena setting the

tone for the active participation of the female characters in a pursuit commonly accorded to the

male. She is daring enough too to defy her brother and voice her distaste of the system of

marriage in that society. Hellena, however, falls in love with the Rover, Willmore, who does

not believe in marriage, which, perhaps, should have been ideal in that she could be free of the

bindings that accompany marriage. But since she has chosen this man herself, Hellena has the

opportunity of being able to impose the bindings on the man and so, with wit and intelligence,

she makes him finally succumb to her wishes. In her case, too, as she very carefully points out

to her brother, inheritance of a fortune allows her to make her own choice without the threat of

being disowned without a penny. It is an instance of the female empowerment that Jane Spencer

(1995) mentions in her introduction to The Rover and Other Plays. Compared to Florinda,

Hellena is given more agency. Being not only beautiful but intelligent too, Hellena is able to

take control of each of the situations in which she finds herself contending with her lover. The

use of a mask and a disguise gives Hellena the opportunity to observe, without being subjected

to scrutiny herself, the actions of the man she loves. In other words, the gaze, commonly

masculine, is inverted. In her, as Julie Nash

 Dasgupta 6

(1994) puts it, “Behn breaks out of the binary split that has fixed these other characters,

[Angellica and Lucetta] and produced a heroine who occasionally controls both the gaze and

her own pleasure, obtaining some form of subjectivity without resorting to cruelty or

prostitution” (p. 83). By adopting the disguise of a man at one point, Hellena also adopts an

assertive masculine role and finds a way to express her feelings directly to Willmore without

seeming “improper.” Hellena, as wit, is on a level with Willmore, but she gains the upper hand

when she is able to extract a promise of constancy from the Rover and persuade him into

marriage. As a woman with a fortune, she does not need to be financially dependent on

Willmore, which makes the marriage seem a union between equals.

Angellica Bianca, who is, by all definitions, a whore, is Hellena’s rival and a character who

confuses all the norms of masculine society. She has the advantage of being in control of her

body. It is she who actively engages the men’s interest and names the price. The men have no

choice but to pay what she asks. By having Angellica put up her picture and then look at the

men looking at it, Behn, as Hutner (1993) notes, employs the “reversed double gaze – watching

the men watch her” (p. 107). Angellica purposely submits herself to objectification, with an

awareness of how the men will gaze on her. This awareness allows her a measure of control

over the male gaze, which “is a means of acquiring subjectivity” (Nash, 1994, p. 81). Her

assertive action, as Nash (1994) explains, taking her cue from Janet Todd, in hanging out her

portrait and guiding/controlling the male gaze is “unfeminine” since it “places her too far in

the realm of subjectivity, making her too powerful for her own good” (Nash, 1994, p. 82).

Willmore, with whom Angellica unfortunately falls in love, feels threatened by her power and

so does not return her feelings. Angellica’s power is thus short-lived since Willmore
 Dasgupta 7

betrays her. By falling in love with a man who does not reciprocate her feelings, Angellica

takes on a role in which she can be dominated. In other words, she slips back into a more

conventional feminine role at this point. This, however, could problematize Behn’s own

motives in writing Angellica’s role, because, by making this character “incapable of achieving

sexual-political conquest,” she “facilitates her own conquest of the literary marketplace”

(Smith, 2007, p. 5), thereby ensuring her place as a writer in the predominantly masculine

literary circle. Later on, though, Angellica attempts to avenge herself on Willmore. With a gun

in her hand, Angellica assumes the power within her. Willmore’s nonchalant attitude towards

her rage, too, serves to undermine her power. The whore Angellica is cast aside at this point to

make way for the virgin Hellena. The issue of the success of one woman over another in gaining

a man, however, is problematic in the sense that Angellica’s failure may be attributed to her

immoral life and Hellena’s success to her virginity, virtues, and noble birth, factors or standards

which have already been set by a masculine society.

Negotiating gender roles and masculine circles and women standing up for

themselves

Aphra Behn became a pioneer in the fight for women’s emancipation” (Woodcock, 1989, p.

9). Conventional writings tended to portray relationships where the male partner is the subject

and the female counterpart the object of his desires. In her plays and poetry, however, Behn

gives agency and a more active role to the female figure. Interestingly, such female agency can

be found in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis and Marlowe’s Hero and Leander, and a brief
 Dasgupta 8

look at these two poems is merited since they provide the unusual examples of the female as

subject in works by men prior to Behn’s time.

One of the things that Behn could not abide was forced marriages where a woman was

subjected to the choices made by her male guardian. Her first play The Forc’d Marriage,

focuses, as its name suggests, on this issue. In this play, she attempts to expose how marriages

arranged by parents without their daughter’s consent can ruin her life. The Rover, Behn’s most

successful play, also deals with this problem, but it goes a step further. Here, Behn gives agency

to the female characters; that is, instead of making them the objects of desire as was the norm,

she makes them the agents of desire and accords them mobility through the help of masks –

convenient since the setting of the play is during the carnival time. Florinda’s father has decided

that she would marry the old Vincentio while her brother Don Pedro contrives to marry her to

his friend Don Antonio. Florinda has no say in the matter although she is in love with Belvile.

Thus, supported and encouraged by Hellena, her sister who is “an equally unwilling candidate

for a nunnery” (Woodcock, 1989, p. 124), she sets out to obtain her love. Hellena too takes the

opportunity to find herself a lover as does their cousin Valeria.

Another triangle formed within the complex relationships in this play is seen in the assertion

of different forms of patriarchal authority over Hellena who is destined for the Church, an

institution which substitutes for the parental authority of the home. On the other side, there is

Don Pedro, her brother, who also represents patriarchal authority as her guardian at home.

Hellena is unwilling to be subjected to either of these authorities but, nevertheless, she must

accept, at least for some time, the united forces of the two. Because she must be a nun, she
 Dasgupta 9

must comply with a certain code of conduct. Within the Church, her actions will be described

by religious authority but while she remains outside the Church, Pedro will substitute for that

authority. A relationship or connection is thus formed between Pedro and the Church – both

masculine – whose object of interest is a woman.

The following argument is not intended to contest feminist perspectives of Behn’s comedies,

but to support these feminist arguments from the alternative perspective of male characters.

Behn complicates those libertine philosophies that promote total male dominance over women.

First, Behn places her male characters in notably compromised states of authority and strips

them of many conventional sources of power such as wealth, status, and the territorial

advantage of being in England. Though, conventionally, rakes are resourceful, this lack of

power amplifies the protagonists’ libertine behaviours by forcing them to behave in ways that

are especially opportunistic. Secondly, Male sexual aggression, specifically rape, is heavily

ironized as the depiction of rape is often coupled with dramatic irony. Finally, while the

libertine code of values is immensely important to Behn’s male protagonists (including the

male homosocial bonds discussed by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) the male characters often betray

the values to which they are supposed to adhere. that Behn carefully exposes libertine

masculinity in such a way as to criticize, not libertinism, but the contradictions and flaws of

libertine behavior that promote male superiority and dominance.

Women being unwilling to submit to authority is a common theme in Restoration comedy and

causes a great deal of anxiety for those male characters who wish certain women to remain

submissive. The authority of patriarchal figures is particularly tenuous. In the first scene of The
 Dasgupta 10

Rover, Pedro tells his sister Hellena that she will serve “everlasting penance in a monastery”

(Behn 2012, 1.1.138) and that their other sister, Florinda, must marry his friend, Antonio. These

threats engender the action of the plot for the rest of the play as the two young women refuse

to White 5 bow to their brother’s will. Notably, Pedro’s intentions for his sisters comes at the

cost of usurping his own father’s authority. Pedro, explaining his plans, says to Florinda

: I’ve only tried you all this while and urged my father’s will – but mine is, that you would love

Antonio; he is brave and young, and all that can complete the happiness of a gallant maid. This

absence of my father will give us opportunity to free you from Vincentio by marrying here,

which you must do tomorrow. (1.1.158)

Pedro, by usurping his father’s role as patriarch and imposing his authority upon his sisters, is

guaranteeing that his own authority will be undermined and that he will be defied and

disobeyed throughout the play. Of course, it is not only unlikeable patriarchal figures that are

made anxious by female dissension. Willmore, for example, is greatly angered when a woman

he believes to be a prostitute, Florinda, refuses to sleep with him. Willmore is convinced that

she is a “wench” (3.5.16) who is, therefore, “obliged in conscience to deny [him] nothing”

(3.5.40). Florinda struggles and cries out, “Help! Help! Murder!” (3.5.73). Willmore simply

offers her money and, at her refusal, forces himself on her. Only an interruption by Belvile

stops the rape from being completed.

Maybe, Behn didn’t want to neglect the existence of such women in the society as well.

Financial independence was needed by all but the modes to gaining security were varied like

shown here. Holistically though, when trying to trace the contrasting portrayal of women in
 Dasgupta 11

The Rover, it can be comprehended how in their personal manners, they shared a similar

odyssey of self-discovery and assertion withstanding their differences. This can perhaps be

understood as a demonstration of the psyche of different women during the Restoration period

as also suggested in the Portrayal of Restoration Women in The Rover by Angela White.

Besides, the supposed reason for leaving the title’s Rover undisclosed could be its expected

interpretation of encouragement of women to be rovers, not orframeworks that muted them.

Like here, successful attempts were made to escape the unspoken norms of the society that are

mainly directed towards their sex. Their awareness of the misogynist attitudes in all societal

structures including marriage and realization of the requirement of rigorous measures to flout

subtly mend them is what made this play feminist. It acknowledged the model of strict

classification of women into Virgo and Meretrix. At the same time, celebrated sisterhood and

female expression of feelings and desires and mocked the rigidity of heteronormative gender

roles which were blurred in the carnival festivity where identities were unrevealed and cross-

dressing, wizarding were used as tools to create bewilderment for smoother transgression .

Conclusion

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 all capable and proactive

young women who exhibit “the initiative and daring reserved for cavaliers” (Burke 122). 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, and the sexually
 Dasgupta 12

liberated courtesan, Angellica Bianca, adopt similar goals in pursuit of passion. They are

nothing like the subordinate females of Puritan propriety, but witty, competent matches for the

men they meet. Through their strong personalities, 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” (Hutner

104).

The foppish Cavaliers of The Rover 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 well-intentioned 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 and encourages late Stuart Britain to respect the female libertine as a strong,

capable lady, not a whore.

 Dasgupta 13

Each woman begins the play bound one of the three fates: Florinda to marriage, Hellena to the

nunnery, and Angellica Bianca to well-paid prostitution. Through Carnival, however, these

women abandon their prescribed positions with disguises to “be mad as the rest, and take all

innocent freedoms,” including to “outwit twenty brothers” (Behn 138-139). The masquerade

serves multiple purposes. First, disguise 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 her peers should seek to escape the restrictions that define them.

Works cited

Behn, Aphra, “ The Rover” ed. Robyn Bolam, New Delhi, Bloomsbury publications, 2012

Gender Roles Theme Analysis - The Rover

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-rover/themes/gender-roles

Negotiating Masculine Circles: Female Agency in Aphra Behn's Work

https://rupkatha.com/V12/n4/v12n403.pdf

Portrayal of Women in Aphra Behn's The Rover - A Room of One's Own

https://aroomofonesownbysimranarora.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/portrayal-of-women-in-
aphra-behns-the-rover/
Works cited