Hello, i am himanshi parmar. Here i write a blog about The Rover by Aphra Behn. As a task of thinking activity of paper number - 1, Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration period. Unit number - 3.
Angelica concider marriage and prostitution, both the relationships are somehow same because both the relationships are relay on financial negotiation. Of course, they both are entirely not same. But if we look from Angelica's perspective, then we can't able to deny her point. Here, writer satire to the society, by the statement of Angelica. Marriage can be turned as amoral as proatitution, if people can relate it with monetary value. Instead of looking for love and culture or social value and state.
To under state the point of Angelica, it is very important to know about the entire plot of the rover. So let me here put summary of the play firstly.
Summary of the Rover :-
The Rover, or The Banish’d Cavaliers is a 1677 play in two parts by the English author Aphra Behn. A rewriting of a similar play, Thomaso, or The Wanderer written thirteen years earlier, it focuses on the adventures of a group of Englishmen who have traveled to Naples to celebrate Carnival. A bawdy, humorous play, it is considered one of Behn’s most ambitious works and features a twist-filled story with many characters. Behn, a loyalist to the crown during a time of much dissent, frequently put her politics into her work and the play is noted for its rough treatment of Puritans. The titular “rover” is Willmore, a Naval captain who falls in love with a young woman named Hellena who is being sent to a convent. However, when a powerful woman sets her eyes on Willmore, their love story is complicated. In a side story, Hellena’s sister Florinda is seeking to marry her true love Colonel Belvile rather than her arranged marriage. The third main story focuses on the misadventures of Blunt, who finds that the girl he has fallen for is not everything she appears to be.
In act one, Hellena and Florinda discuss Florinda’s love life. Florinda is in love with the English Colonel Belvile, but their father wants her to marry an elderly man named Don Vincentio. Their brother, Don Pedro, wishes her to marry his friend Don Antonio, but encourages her to obey their father. When Florinda refuses, Pedro agrees to help her by arranging her marriage to Don Antonio the next day. Florinda and Hellena disguise themselves to go to Carnival. Meanwhile at Carnival, three men, Belvile, Blunt, and Frederick, are enjoying the festivities, although Belvile is depressed because his love’s father has denied him permission to marry her. They meet up with their friend Willmore, and enjoy the night. They are soon joined by Florinda, Hellena, and their cousin Valeria, who are disguised as Gypsies. Willmore and Hellena hit it off, while Florinda and Belvile arrange to sneak off together in the middle of the night. Blunt, meanwhile, who is seen as the most foolish of the group, becomes infatuated with a local woman, Lucetta, and sneaks off with her. Frederick informs his friends that Angellica Bianca, a powerful courtesan, has arrived in Naples.
In act two, as Willmore, Belvile, and Frederick head over to see Angellica, they meet up with Blunt who believes that Lucetta is in love with him. He becomes angry when they imply she is planning to cheat him. Angellica, whose price as a courtesan is high, is frustrated by the lack of takers. She decides to pursue Don Pedro and Don Antonio, but they get into a fight over who has claim to her first. As they challenge each other to a duel. Willmore attempts to steal a portrait of him. When he is caught, Angellica asks him to stay behind with her. Although he attempted to steal from her, she doesn’t particularly care and is instead excited by this rogue she has encountered. He attempts to con her into sleeping with him for free, and she agrees because she has apparently fallen in love with him. Her maidservant, Moretta, warns her off, but she ignores her.
In act three, we catch up with Florinda, Hellena, and Valeria. Still in disguise, Hellena cannot stop thinking about Willmore, but when the men return without him she worries. Willmore is retrieved and brags about having been with Angellica for free. Hellena pretends she hasn’t heard anything and she and Willmore begin to flirt again, but Angellica has followed him in disguise. She sees that Willmore is not true to her. When Hellena confronts Willmore, she makes him promise not to see Angellica again. Florinda and Valeria attempt to test Belvile’s loyalty by attempting to seduce him in disguise, but he holds firm. The locket Florinda gives Belvile makes him think Florinda’s been kidnapped. Meanwhile, hapless Blunt is seduced by Lucetta, and is promptly robbed and falls into the sewer. He emerges, angry at being tricked. That night, Florinda waits for Belville, but Willmore enters drunk and mistakes her for a prostitute. He attempts to rape her when Belvile and Frederick arrive. The ensuing fight attracts Pedro and is servants, and the Englishmen flee. Belvile is enraged, and Willmore runs off to seek refuge at Angelica’s house. When he arrives, Antonio is already there, and they fight. Willmore injures Antonio and flees. When Belvile arrives in pursuit of Willmore, he is arrested for attacking Antonio.
In act four, Antonio believes Belvile has attacked him, and orders him to take his place in the duel with Pedro. Belvile agrees, believing the duel to be over Florinda. Meanwhile, Florinda worries that Belvile did not come to find her that night. At the duel, the various mistaken identities and disguises are revealed when Wilmore comes crashing in, and Pedro refuses to bless the union. As Willmore, Angellica, and Hellena pursue and follow each other, Florinda runs off and hides in Belvile’s house to avoid her brother. Blunt finds her and is convinced she’s a prostitute. He attempts to rape her due to his anger at all women, but Frederick thinks she might be valuable like Angellica and suggests they lock her up for ransom.
Act five concludes the story Blunt tells his fellow men that he’s captured a woman. They decide to have their way with her, but Valeria gets Pedro out of the room and Florinda reveals her identity. Florinda and Belvile are quickly married by a local priest, and Blunt and Frederick are horrified by what they almost did. Angelica bursts in with a gun and threatens to kill Willmore. Don Antonio’s deception is revealed, and Pedro reluctantly agrees to the union between Belvile and Florinda - only to find out it’s already occurred. As Angelica decides to let Willmore live, Hellena and Willmore reunite. They become engaged, and the group enjoys Carnival, their dramas settled at last.
Here i share three videos of all three Separate acts of The Rover.
Angelica considers the financial negotiations which one makes before marrying a prospective bride the same as prostitution. Do you agree?
Women in seventeenth-century Europe had few options in terms of marriage. They could not initiate relations with men, and often their parents made the final decision about whom they would marry. Families sometimes used marriages to seal business and political relationships, ignoring the daughter’s interests. This is something seems similar to prostitution system. That they sell their daughter for money or business. Similarly the whore sell her body for money. The practice of paying a dowry was also still common. Most families would invest their dowry money in the eldest daughter, vying to marry her into the best family possible. And to find richest family. Younger daughters often were consigned to a convent, thus reducing expenses, while at the same time “contributing” to the church. In poorer families, prostitution became a viable option. Once married, often to a man she neither knew nor liked, a woman became his property, as did all of her belongings. With no means to prevent pregnancies, the wife became a baby “machine,” producing heirs for the family and very often mourning their early deaths, since child mortality rates were shockingly high. Nevertheless, men expected sexual gratification from their wives, as well as from their mistresses and required obedience and fidelity.
In The Rover, Aphra Behn portrays the typical pattern of options available to women. As the eldest, Florinda is to be married to a man of her father’s choosing. Hellena wryly describes the loveless marriage, bed that lies in store for Florinda if she marries the aging Don Vincentio. However, since their father is away, her brother has jurisdiction over her and has chosen his best friend as her mate. Because he is wealthy enough. Hellena, he has dispatched to a nunnery. She has come home for a brief visit before taking her vows. Neither Florinda nor Hellena wants to obey Pedro’s wishes, yet they have no recourse but to try to enjoy a day and night of freedom before their fates are sealed. That they both end up with the man they love and the freedom to marry him is nothing more than a matter of blind luck. Similarly willmore is a person who don't love Angelica, but just want physical pleasure by her. And thats why when he saw Hellena and found her beautiful so he try to seduce her. But when the matter of marriage come, firstly he neither choose Angelica nor Hellena. Because he only think both as a thing to enjoy pleasure. But at the end we find that he will be ready to marry Hellena. Because she find her noble woman. And refused Angelica because she has no social status, and she is prostitute. So the concept of protitution and marriage plays vital role in it.
Also when we see the character of Hellena, she is the lady who is seems independent but when it comes to marriage. She Also choose Willmore even if she know that he has affair with Angelica, he seduce Angelica, and also try to seduce Florida twice or thrice. And still she is ready to marry willmore. This show her weaker personality. It reflect the poor situation of that age. Similarly even if Frederic, Blunt try to seduce florida, still she forgive them, and also forgive willmore. Because this is something normal thing in that age. Which prove that the statement of Angelica is fully true.
in Behn’s play is the clear distinction that was made between “ladies of quality” and “whores.” Frederick, who nearly gang-rapes Florinda, along with Blunt, exclaims that he would not want to be “trussed up for a rape upon a maid of quality when we only believe we ruffle a harlot.” The shift in terminology from “rape,” which is an act of violence, to “ruffle,” which connotes a harmless trifle, aptly represents the vast difference in social responsibility between the two classes of women. The distinction between women seeking men for marriage and women who sell themselves for money lies at the heart of Behn’s play. As Elin Diamond explains in her essay “Gestus and the Signature in Aphra Behn’s The Rover,” this play “thematizes the marketing of women in marriage and prostitution.”
To read more about the play Rover, it's themes, character sketches, symbols (click here)
Words :- 1905
Paragraphs :- 8
Images :- 3
Videos :- 3
References :-
1)Gradesaver.com
2) suppersummary.com
3) encyclopedia.com
