About the writer:
Aphra Behn 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.
Introduction of rover:
The Rover is a dark comedy that mixes themes of prostitution and rape with comic buffoonery.
Characters of Rover:
Florida
Helena
Bellville
Don pedro
Don Antonio
Angelica
Luceta
Blunt
Valeria
Fredrick
Summary of rover:
The rover is a Restoration comedy. In this text there are five acts. Characters are divided into two parts. The characters have so many disguises and because of disguise the central theme of the text is disguised.
Act 1 starts with the introduction of Florinda Helena. They both were sisters.pedro is brother of these sisters. Here the readers can see the different choice of father brother. Pedro wants her sister Florida married to Don antatinio when her father's choice was don vincento.helena wants to become a nun. Here Florida was already in love with bellville. So they make the decision that they will go to the carnival.
In act 2 there is introducation of Angelica _A prostitute. The male characters of the text saw Angelica.there is also Angelica put her portrait.On the other hand Antonio and Pedro want to spend a night with Angelica.here willmore steals the portrait of Angelica,and he appreciated the picture of Angelica. So in Act 2 there is 4 major events takes place
1.Angelica introduction
2. Pedro Antonio fight/dual
3.Anglica Willmore connection
In act 3 Helena rejects the idea of love, but she is always thinking about willmore. The women came into a disguise. Willmore saw Helena and started to flirt with her.On the other hand Helena knows the character of willmore how he was, so she reveals face to willmore, he admires Helena.Angelica got angry and sent a servant to find about Helena.
On the other hand, Angelica and Valeria test Bellville's loyalty. Luceta tricks Blunt.now, florinda waits for belvile, meanwhile drunk willmore was entered in that Garden and she tries to attempt to rape on florinda.Then Antonio &willmore fights for Angelica, willmore thought that Antonio was died so he left,belvile got arrested for Antonio's death, but in reality Antonio doesn't died at all.
In Act 4 there is a concept of fight between bellville and pedro, actually the fight takes place between Antonio pedro because Antonio was wounded so in the place of him bellville fights on behalf of him.so the sword fight begins. Here florinda thought that belvile doesn't come as the plan but after some time the truth was revealed about the true identity.Pedro promises about marriage of florinda and bellville.on the other hand the servant of Angelica find that willmore is in love with Helena, so Angelica decide to revenge with willmore. Willmore want to Angelica again.belvile&pedro talk seriously willmore again follows florinda again by mistake.he tries to rape on florinda again.willmore&blunt lock up florinda in the room.
In the act 5 all are gathering with their beloved. In the last act there are three marriages takes place
Florinda -Belville
Hellena-willmore
Valeria-Fradrick
Symbols in rover
There are four symbols in rover
1 carnival
2. Masks
3.swords
4. Picture/portrait of Angelica
Carnival
Carnival symbolises a world of inverted values and freedom in which noblewomen can roam the streets and impoverished cavaliers can court them and win their hands. Yet the world of the Carnival—a world without consequences—is not without its dark side. Predators such as Willmore and Blunt take advantage of the free-for-all atmosphere in order to accost and even assault women, while belligerent men often end up duelling each other on the streets. In depicting both the positive and dark sides of Carnival, Behn is displaying both the comic and the troubling aspects of the topsy-turvy, consequence-free genre of Restoration Comedy.
Masks:
Hellena, Florinda, and the cavaliers all use masks and disguises in order to plan and carry out their various liaisons. On a deeper level, however, masks represent the confusion of identity that takes place within this play. Willmore and Hellena fall in love without even knowing each other’s names. Bellville, meanwhile, repeatedly does not recognize Florinda even when she is right in front of him. Masks, therefore, are emblems of confusion and deception, and proof that identity is not as stable or singular as it seems.
Picture of Angelica:
Every day, Angelica commands her servants to display pictures of herself in front of her house, so all the citizens of Naples can admire her beauty. Once she falls in love with Willmore, however, she ceases to do so. These pictures represent not only her vanity, but also her sense of self. The courtesan stops displaying them because she has fully given herself to Willmore and so is no longer “giving herself” to anyone else—a disastrous decision, as she soon learns.
Swords:
swords are associated with masculinity, virility, and power. Belleville is a true man in part because of his skill with a sword. Much of Blunt’s humiliation comes from being robbed of his sword, and then being forced to wear a rusty one. At one point the cavaliers and Don Pedro draw their swords, and much is made of the fact that Pedro’s Spanish blade is longer than their English swords. Willmore, in particular, often uses swordplay as a metaphor for intercourse. The connection between masculinity and violence is a traditional but disturbing one, and Behn takes care to show the consequences of such a belligerent and dangerous atmosphere.
Themes of rover:
In the rover there are major themes like Gender roles, love v/s lust Deceit&disguise, class&money.
Gender roles:
In many ways, the characters of The Rover conform to the traditional gender roles found in comedies of the Restoration period: the dishonourable men, like Willmore, seek pleasure; the honourable men, like Belvile, seek to protect women; the honourable woman, like Florinda, seek matrimony; and the dishonourable women, like Angelica and Lucetta, seek to ensnare men. Men bear swords and seek out violence; women are peaceful and are threatened by violence.
Love v/s lust
The characters within The Rover constantly try to distinguish whether they are feeling love or lust. The line between the two is a blurry one, but an incredibly vital question within the play. In fact, each character can be defined by their attitude towards these two emotions. In general, men prefer lust while women seek out love, but the play complicates matters. The rakish Willmore uses the ambiguity between love and lust to his advantage, vowing love when he actually only feels physical lust. Angelica begins the play preferring lust to love (and profiting from the lust her beauty inspires), and suffers greatly when she finally succumbs to the second emotion. Hellena, for all her boldness, wishes for love rather than lust, and succumbs to Willmore’s advances only after she is convinced that he loves her, rather than simply lusting. For the more traditional Florinda, lust is dangerous, making formerly honourable men threatening and dangerous.
Deceit Disguise
The Rover takes place at Carnival time, and brims with masks and disguises, from the gypsy costumes that Hellena, Florinda, and Valeria wear to Don Antonio’s and Don Pedro’s comedy of mistaken identities to Lucetta’s robbery of Blunt. Fascinatingly, however, the play does not take a moral stance on disguise, since it is used by moral and immoral characters alike. The play does, however, create a strong connection between disguise and love, the prevalence of masks and lies implying that while deceit may often be harmful, some measure of deceit may be necessary in order to help love flourish.
Class &Money
Class Money plays the most important role to shape the plot construction properly.Class creates even deeper issues, since it is the main barometer by which men decide whether or not a woman is worthy of respect. When Willmore attempts to rape Florinda, he does so because he does not know that she is a woman of “quality,” and the same pattern occurs later in the play with Florinda, Blunt, and Frederick. Hellena, meanwhile, is able to attract Willmore because, although she is dressed in a low class costume, she displays noble manners (and because she has a large fortune). For the same reason, Angelica will never be truly valued; for all her riches and beauty, she is still a prostitute, and therefore at a lower rung on the social ladder.
Conclusion
So, to sum the text rover it can be seen that how much Restoration literture is important among the readers. By the reading of this novel it can be seen that in the text there is two types of women belonging and that's why class became more important than the other qualities.
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