Portrayal of Restoration Women in The Rover

by Angela White
April 2014

In late seventeenth-century London, Aphra Behn was the first woman to earn her
living as a writer. As a playwright, she wrote plays that reflected historical and
cultural aspects of the Restoration from a female perspective. In 1677, she penned
one of her most notable plays, The Rover; or The Banished Cavaliers. Behn’s play
debuted during the height of the Restoration period, which for theater meant more
female agency on the stage because women were allowed to take on female roles for
the first time. Behn places the action of her play in the midst of carnival, which
is a setting fit for emphasizing the urge to break free from societal constraints.
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 herself during the Restoration.

Florinda’s character encompasses the Restoration woman’s struggle to gain agency in

marriage. Before arriving at carnival, Florinda is trapped in the midst of a battle
between following her own desire and the desires of her family. She wants to marry
the English colonel Belvile, but must obey the patriarchal orders of her father and
brother to marry who they see fit for her. Peggy Thompson points out that during
the time that Behn wrote, male relatives often negotiated marriage contracts for
the women in their family, but did so “not to protect their wards’ autonomy and
property, but to enhance familial and dynastic interests” (Quinsey 73). In
Florinda’s case, these interests would lead her to marry a rich elderly man named
Don Vinciento. In a conversation with her brother Don Pedro during the opening
scene, Florinda claims that she hates Don Vinciento, despite the fact that her
brother says he could provide a good life for her. (1.1.113-114). However, the
prospect of marrying a man for property and stature is not appealing to Florinda,
and she goes on to compare the tradition of arranged marriage to slavery, calling
it an “ill custom” (1.1.77).

This “ill custom” was not generally espoused during the Restoration. In Susan
Staves’ article, “Behn, Women, and Society”, she describes how the Church of
England taught that children had a “religious obligation to honour and obey their
parents” (13). But during the Restoration, the church clergy and “most decent
people” felt that while the daughter was still obligated to listen to her parents
in terms of a suitor, she should still have the ability to choose who she wanted to
marry (13). This shift in perspective gave women a sense of agency in who they
chose to marry, which is important to Florinda’s character because it allows her to
break free of her social limitations. In her conversation with Don Pedro, Florinda
rejects the patriarchal order of marriage and then ventures off to carnival with
her sister Hellena, defying her brother once again as he had just ordered her not
to go.

With Florinda’s sister Hellena, Behn exposes the struggle of self-identification,

specifically in terms of faith. Hellena has been set on the path to become a nun,
and as she ventures off to carnival with her sister, which is a tool for her to
break herself from societal restraints and experience interaction with men and find
real love. As noted earlier, the Church of England was very influential during the
Restoration. here we can consider nunnery to play the role of cage to keep women of
that time under control to express their ideas and opinions. Behn incorporated a
critical view of church customs by portraying such strong libertine ideals from
Hellena. Throughout the action at carnival, Hellena is determined not to return
home and become what is expected of her. This illustrates the libertinism that goes
against the patriarchal order ingrained in her religious devotion.

Hellena’s libertine values are very apparent when she meets Wilmore. . Wilmore and
Hellena are both looking for an escape at carnival. Hellena’s feelings of
oppression, curiosity and yearning for male companionship connect the libertine
elements of these two characters together. In her article, Staves discusses how a
central problem for Behn “was to work out the sharply different consequences of
libertinism for women” (19). While Wilmore, the libertine man, thrives on sexual
conquest and fails to yield anything constant outside of the moment, Hellena, the
libertine woman, experiences her feelings as “proof that she is desirable” while
also threatening her sense of identity (20). This contrast is evident in the plot
since Wilmore has sexual desire for Hellena as well as the fair courtesan,
Angellica Bianca.

Despite their increasing agency in choosing a marriage partner, women in the

Restoration were nonetheless valued as commodities. Angellica Bianca is an example
of this as her struggles stemmed from social perspectives of value within the
marketplace. The Staves article mentions that Behn was intrigued by the “’value’ of
women in her society and experiment[ed] with dividing and isolating elements of
conventional female value” (21). In her profession, Angellica usually takes on the
dominant role in choosing a mate. The amount that the men are willing to pay
represents her value and elevates her idea of self worth.

Angellica’s role reflects a need for representation and agency for women during the
Restoration. She wears no mask, unlike Florinda and Hellena when they go to
carnival, and has a reputation outside of carnival based on her profession.we can
describes her character type as “Behn’s version of a maximally desirable woman
[who] simultaneously possesses beauty, the power to evoke desire in men, wealth,
and wit” (21). Unlike Florinda and Hellena, who seek to gain independence,
Angellica’s conflict is between the powerlessness of love and maintaining control
of a powerful commodity. In the second act, the cavaliers gaze at Angellica’s
picture and discuss the contracted price. Words such as “stock” (2.1.21) and
“quality” (2.1.60) are used. She claims that she has never been in love before)
but she falls for Wilmore, who argues that placing a price on sexual pleasure is a
“sin” ., she in turn gives him her power by breaking the rules of her profession,
(2.2.155-65). Like Florinda and Hellena, Angellica broke the rules of her society
for love,allowing wilmore to be with her for sexual pleasure at the cost of his
love alone due to the argument of conventional morality on her min With the
argument of conventional morality on her mind but the end result did not help her
position in the marketplace.

Though each of these women was a valuable social commodity in their respective
situations, Florinda began with no sense of agency, and the power shift in her
patriarchal environment gave her more agency to choose who she would marry. Hellena
began with the same level of agency as her sister, being forced into a life as a
nun, but the shift in power allowed her to take on a new identity with a man which
in turn gave her more agency in her devotion. Angellica, on the other hand lost
power by falling in love. It left her vulnerable and decreased her level of agency
which lowered her social value and self-worth.

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 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 Theater.
Behn’s politics were conservative and her sympathies were Royalist. During the
Second Anglo-Dutch War, which broke out in 1665, she is said to have acted as a spy
in Bruges (her code name was Astrea) on behalf of the court of Charles II.
Espionage was not a lucrative career, though, and Behn seems to have returned to
London within the year. Some accounts have her serving time in debtors’ prison,
although that (like much else about her life) is not officially documented.

Writing for the stage

Back in England, Behn turned her attention to writing. We know that she began
working for the King’s Company and the Duke’s Company, two theatre companies
authorized by Charles II after the Restoration, first as a scribe and then as a
playwright. 1677’s The Rover, however, was a critical and commercial victory, and
from then on Behn had a steady career as a playwright
Much of Behn’s work was published anonymously during her own lifetime. Her poetry
is frequently frank about female sexual pleasure and humorous about male sexual
dysfunction (as in ‘The Disappointment’), and some of it was originally attributed
to her male contemporary, the famously bawdy Earl of Rochester.

INTRODUCTION TO ROVER
Aphra Behn’s best-known play today, The Rover, was probably also the most
successful in her own time.
The men’s desire for these Italian women echoes a widespread Restoration libertine
commitment to indulging the senses and rejecting marriage.

. Pedro is confident that he can force Florinda to marry his powerful friend
Antonio, and save the cost of a dowry for Hellena by sending her back to her
nunnery (1.1.5). Act 5 threatens to descend into a gang-rape: the patriarchal
Pedro’s near rape of his sister Florinda is only prevented by Valeria’s quick-
thinking intervention (5.1.71).
Here, the play’s most powerful voice is that of Angellica, who sees prostitution as
a better choice than marriage. When the rakish Willmore remonstrates with her for
charging for sex, she points out to him that men routinely have sex for money: when
a man marries he gets his wife’s dowry. Financial advantage, not a woman’s personal
characteristics, determines the choices men make:

In one of the play’s many densely patterned ironies, Angellica’s challenge to

Willmore foresees what is to happen. Attracted to both Angellica and Hellena, the
rake chooses the heiress.
Under early modern marriage law, Hellena’s riches will become Willmore’s if she
marries him – which, believing that she has won him through her wit, is what the
nunnery-raised teenager agrees to do.

When Angellica draws a gun on Willmore as she embarks on vengeance,WHERE ONE

WOMAN'S PROBLEM IS ALWAYS CONNECTED TO THE OTHERS. This is striking, given that the
lives of these women would have been categorized as quite different from one
another in their culture. For instance, both the virtuous Florinda and the
courtesan Angellica use their pictures to communicate with their lovers – Angellica
allowing Willmore to keep one he steals Florinda handing hers to Belvile to tell
him who she is (3.1.37). Both virgin and whore also believe that they can stop men
fighting over them, but they are ignored
Both women(ANGELLICA AND HELLENA) prove a source of wealth to Willmore, and both
derive their money from the same ‘Old General’ – the uncle who left Hellena her
tremendous fortune as well as the deceased keeper of Angellica Any reading or
performance of the play will offer more echoings of this kind. It is clear that
Behn crafted The Rover with considerable care, expecting us to see her female
characters as variants on a single theme, not as competitors.

As the women literally take off one character and put on another, they give
themselves permission to pursue their own desires—Hellena seeking to evade life as
a nun, and Florinda hoping to marry her love. In her gypsy costume, Hellena is able
to put off her ‘nice girl’ self and tease Willmore, saying that she would take some
of his “world of love” off his hands “but for a foolish vow I am going to make to
die a maid.” Later in the play, roles are even further subverted as Hellena and
Florinda dress as men, spying on Willmore and Belvile to see if they have been true
to them. Dressing as males allows them the privilege to participate in the male
world in a way they would never be able to as females.

The chaos of the carnival also allows Behn to make a statement about the disturbing
practice of allowing rape to go unpunished if the victim wasn’t high enough on the
social ladder. As the audience waits to see if the innocent Florinda will be raped
at multiple points in the play and as Blunt’s lady of quality, Lucetta, turns out
to be anything but, the audience is forced to think about their perceptions of who
is valued and who is not. It is the masks of the Carnival that help to make this
point.

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rover was a play written by aphra ben in the later half of the 17th cent. and for
the first time in the history of literature we had women writer off note, and this
writer was not in the hist of lite for a long time, with no mentions of her. infact
her place of birth,dob,family identity, nothing athorortative is known about her
rather than some mere speculations here and there. women were always on the
periphery and considered as items in the life of important people. and if presence,
they will not merely threten the ppl already inn the filefd of literatiure but also
make them self consious and aphra may have done that beczuse she was more active
than other contemporary writers.

1660s 70s, she had a very mysterious kind of career. for instance, for sometime she
was not in england, she had gone out and ppl say she was in some kind of a payroll
mission of the govt,charles 2nd govt.being a women they always put her in the
receiving end of the male dominated society. she was exploited socially even
physicslly, therefore we can see instances of her talking about sexuality,
titlation because this was what ppl demanded for women at that time. this was also
the first time women appreard on stage as an actor. ppl persuied women for
plesdsure and treated of commodities and ppl would buy them from brothels and
whores. this made her a bold women and the kind of usage of the words in her play
to say out clear about her sexuality.

the title:

willmore(roving eyes) name defined, features of 17th cent restoration comedy, the
attributes of characters are shown trough their name. but since written by a women
the rover woulld not be left alone so she created another women character who also
is a rover, hellena, who herself is not exactly have the same personality as the
rover but has distict qualities which is why she excels in the world of art. she
also persues man for pleasure and friendship

helena knows that for a women to remain secure it this world, marriage is important
unlike men.

florinda is an eligible women for marriage. the family has decided hr marriage with
an old man who is wealthy. this is introduced in the beginning to us that florinda
is pressured by her family, mainly father and brother, to marry the old man.
florinda does not think that she is meant for this type of matrimonial
arrangement.just in the gap of 50 years from shakespearian era to this period,
women characters have started to take choice for themselves. this could be seen
with florinda haing her plan in the mind to marry her lover and fulfill her
wish.ofc she belongs to upper caste of the family, nobilty.

women::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

helena as a women has a problem of the decision being taken by the family that she
will be sent to a nunnury and will be away from worldly life. boundaries have beeen
blurrred. it becomees clear that hellena as a rover has a limited role becoz
everytime she enters a public sphere she has to undergo crossdressing, be a part of
carnival, and it is only through that she can participate in the public sphere,
unlike willmore who is ingaged with women with ease. how behn portrayed beutifully
that the owmens role in 3 phases: on the basis of nunnery, wife, or a whore,
represented by, hellena,florinda and angellica, biannca resp and tried to blur the
boundary but even then in the end womens role is still limited and may improve in
future.
nunnery as a cage to tame women who was to flourish and take stand in expression.
women driven.