THE ROVER A sex comedy / strong parable about drive for gender equality Context: Following the collapse

of the Puritan Protectorate in 1660, the halls of the court seemed to buzz with a festive attitude: Charles II led his noblemen by example with a hedonistic lifestyle of parties, sex, and extravagant spending. The sexual and social freedom of this libertinism, however, did not extend to women. Women: NUN - PROSTITUTE WIFE One could give the whole cargo or nothing Performed in 1677 Behns characters demonstrate the active, complicated game required of women seeking to secure happiness Puritan ideology saw feminine identity and chastity as being intertwined and indivisible Behn accuses the Puritan voice of restricting the audiences sense, which in turn encourages the publics examination of normative understandings of the English culture, specifically in regards to gender She disparages judgemental leaders who damn everything that maggot disapproves, want to censor theatre, and to dull method all our sense confine This places under public scrutiny the validity of Puritan disapproval. If an audience member doubts the sects condemnation of society, others may be thrown into question. the idea that the late Stuart ideology created a liberating space for women is as false as a school childs notion of the jolly cavalier The transition back into the loose, showy world of the monarchy merely removed the insolence of commonwealths from executive, not social, power. Few women could not support themselves without male support Behnss characters strive for independence within the limitation s of the British system of courtship and marriage Each takes up position of active wooer Maidenly Hellena openly vows to do not as my wise brother imagines but to love and to be beloved by reeling in a husband Witty & competent & act confidently on sexual feelings demasculises desire and undermines the depiction of women as the passive sex Foppish cavaliers are juxtaposed against the women to further emphasise their feminine ability and power

Each women begins the play bound to one of three fates: Florinda to marriage Hellena to a nunnery Angellica Bianca to well-paid prostitution Through carnival they abandon these prescribed positions with disguises to be as mad as the rest, and take all innocent freedoms, including to outwit twenty brothers This equalises class distinctions, blurring and even mocking the difference between categories available to women Initial costumes as gypsies allow them to approach the men in feminised, desirous waygypsies are outcasts of society therefore, by taking on their looks, Florinda and Hellena put themselves and their sexuality outside the confines of cultural expectation. Hellena and Angellica take on the appearances of men during the play: Hellena: dressed in mans clothes, Hellena can punish Willmore for his infidelity: something Ill do to vex him for this: She interferes in a meeting of Willmore and Angellica by informing the courtesan of a young English gentleman who wooed another woman and then paid his broken vows to you. fools them both, but more importantly fools Willmore she reverses the Restoration tradition of men as the engineers of the bold plots HOWEVER, halfway through the breeches scene, Willmore recognises Hellena and hijacks the control of the situation he is given the power to reveal Hellenas identity Angellica: Seeking revenge an act later, Angellica Bianca dons a masking habit and vizard and threatens Willmore with a pistol her choice of weapon is symbolic of her attempt to seize phallic control of her own sexual desires. Instead of feminising her lust, Angellica masculinises herself. Romance, justice and sexuality therefore seen as rights that society can only accept from men The threat of discovery undermines the subversive nature of female crossdressing it puts her firmly in her place by forcing her to rely on mans good nature and discretion Such a transfer of power from Hellena to Willmore restores social order Restoration satire tames these intelligent, devious women by revealing their sex by showing them to be merely women and therefore susceptible to public shame and scorn Female cross dressing emerged within a rigid social structure; however it is a construct that was bent and not broken. Breeches scenes were a common plot device in comedies, not tragedies women in breeches act as objects of laughter, and their actions result in a humorous confusion. the audience felt safe laughing with the actress in breeches because they trusted in the comedys convention

Behns construction of the conventional comedic ending a marriage unravels much of her depiction of Hellena as a transgressive female this actually makes the image of a witty female in breeches acceptable to the Restoration audience Hellenas sentimental lines, such as my business is the same with all living creatures of my age, to love, and be loved, and heres the man seems like it should be spoken by a woman in a prim wedding dress, not breeches! - fortifies concept of comedic events as transgressive moments and comedic structure as a reinforcement of the status quo. The audience accepts Hellenas bold, unconventional statements at the beginn ing of the play because she ultimately reverts to an expected portrayal of Restoration femininity. What is troubling is that she allows Hellena this transformation without transforming Willmore he is not presented as being truly repentant he does not protest his fidelity or enduring love Also, Hellenas demand for equal freedom from marital constraints and duties is undermined by the fact that she pursues only Willmore and desires no other subverts her libertine claim In the second play, Hellena dies before the play even begins, and WIllmore resumes his role as the rake-hero Behn seems to relinquish the possibility of a woman who can successfully transcend gender rols and boundaries; instead, she reinforces the idea of the Restoration rake-hero.

Female characters may have dawned trousers and a male persona, but they did so as a means to an acceptable and expected end - marriage. Comic moments are not about resisting marriage, but about negotiating the terms, literal and figurative, under which restoration and eighteenth century women existed within the institution Hellena From the first scene, Behn asserts Hellena as an untraditional woman. She is brash - aggressively defies her brothers wishes for her to become a nun: dost thou think that ever Ill be a nun? Or atleast till Im so old, Im fit for nothing elsethat which makes me long to know whether you love Belvile, is because I hope he has some mad Companion or other, that will spoil my Devotion Not just unconventional in her thoughts but in her ability to articulate them Matches Hellena as a verbal opponent to Willmore in several witty banters. Hellena admired as much for her intelligence as her beauty Makes strong, pre-feminist assertions: Why must we be either guilty of fornication or murder if we converse with you men? Doesnt shy away from sex invites Willmore to save her from the nunnery with humorous and sexually charged dialogue Father Captain, you would impose no sever penance on her who were inclines to console herself, before she took orders mixes sexual innuendoes with religious references unapologetically bold and transgressive female

The ending: Florinda and Hellenas attempts to challenge their brothers arrangements are successful; the Florinda marries her lover and Hellena escapes a future as handmaid to lazars and cripples in the nunnery. However, their enterprising boldness in chasing men leads them into the same wifely duties of most women their challenge to the repression of their autonomy and desires still leads to the hierarchical man-woman relationship of Puritan wedlock.

Male characters indistinguishable Each goes into completely different adventure: One romances a rich heiress who is disguised as a gypsy, one is robbed by conspiring crooks, one fights in a duel It never matters which one goes through these adventures since they get to experience little, if any, adventures of the spirit - one can follow a woman into a street and end in one situation, another can follow someone else and get into another, but switch these men around and the play stays exactly the same! The script provides them only with shreds of personality The romantic heroes Willmore and Belivile do win Helena and Florinda, as well as their bounteous dowries, in matrimony but their actions are nearly their undoing along the way. One of Belviles Samaritan acts lands him in jail Willmore ruins his friends secret rendezvous with Florinda by drunkedly confronting her and raising a commotion

This is emphasized by the variation and complexity of the female characters - this can be illustrated by the ability of the actresses playing these parts to bring dimension to their characters - one critic observed that if a script allows different actresses playing the same character to show genuine diversity in their depictions, this proves a successful playwright. An example can be made of Kim Mancusos theatre production, in which one actress who played Florinda depicted her with a convincing combination of wistfulness and intensity, whilst anothers Florinda was described as being a whirlwind of energy.

One could give the whole cargo or nothing disparages judgemental leaders who damn everything that maggot disapproves, want to censor theatre, and to dull method all our sense confine

each takes up position of active wooer Maidenly Hellena openly vows to do not as my wise brother imagines but to love and to be beloved by reeling in a husband demasculinises desire Father Captain, you would impose no sever penance on her who were inclines to console herself, before she took orders Why must we be either guilty of fornication or murder if we converse with you men? dost thou think that ever Ill be a nun? Or atleast till Im so old, Im fit for nothing elsethat which makes me long to know whether you love Belvile, is because I hope he has some mad Companion or other, that will spoil my Devotion Comic moments are not about resisting marriage, but about negotiating the terms, literal and figurative, under which restoration and eighteenth century women existed within the institution my business is the same with all living creatures of my age, to love, and be loved, and heres the man dressed in mans clothes, Hellena can punish Willmore for his infidelity: something Ill do to vex him for this She interferes in a meeting of Willmore and Angellica by informing the courtesan of a young English gentleman who wooed another woman and then paid his broken vows to you. Through carnival they abandon these prescribed positions with disguises to be as mad as the rest, and take all innocent freedoms, including to outwit twenty brothers Hellena openly vows to do not as my wise brother imagines but to love and to be beloved