The Rover
About the writer:
The Play The Rover is written by an English Playwright Aphra Behn. Her life period is from 1640-1689, poet, playwright, translator and fiction writer of the restoration period. She was born in Canterbury, kingdom of England and is resting in Westminster Abbey. Behn’s early works were tragicomedies in verse. In 1670 her first play, The Forc’d Marriage, was produced, and The Amorous Prince followed a year later. Her sole tragedy, Abdelazer, was staged in 1676. However, she turned increasingly to light comedy and farce over the course of the 1670s. Many of these witty and vivacious comedies, The rover (two parts, produced 1677 and 1681), were commercially successful. She is a prominent female writer as she was the first writer to break all the cultural barriers of the society and to become the first English woman to earn from writing. She is remembered in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."
Background in brief and about the title:
The full title of the play The rover is The rover Or the banish'd cavalier It is a restoration comedy, comedy of manners. This play stood as 'Behn's most popular and respected play' for three centuries. It is a dark comedy that mixes themes of prostitution and rape with comic buffoonery This play is revision of revision of Thomas Killigrew's play Thomaso, or The Wanderer (1664). It is set in Naples at Carnival time. Behn was a Royalist, and her works frequently portray Puritans negatively. The subtitle "Banish'd Cavaliers" is a reference to the exile that the Cavalier forces experienced during the English Interregnum.
According to John Dryden it 'lacks the manly vitality of Killigrew's play, but shows greater refinement of expression.'
The rover of the title is either Willmore, an exiled English sea captain on shore leave to enjoy the carnival, or Hellena, a young woman hoping to experience life and love before being committed to a convent by her brother. These two rovers meet and fall in love amid witty debates and sexual maneuvering. Willmore has many parallels to Charles II, whose exploits during his twenty-year banishment from England were well known. Charles II enjoyed the play so much that he commissioned a private viewing of it.
The structure of the play:
Act 1 contains two scenes,
Act 2 contains two scenes,
Act 3 with four scenes,
Act 4 with 3 scenes and
Act 5 with one scene.
Starting with a prologue and ending with an epilogue.
Characters in the play:
Female:
FLORINDA- Sister to Don Pedro, and Hellena.
HELLENA- a young Woman designed for a Nun, and Sister to Florinda.
VALERIA- a Kinswoman to Florinda
ANGELLICA BIANCA- a famous Courtesan in Spain who returns to Naples to put herself up for sale.
MORETTA- the "lady in waiting," or personal assistant, of Angellica Bianca.
CALLIS- Governess to Florinda and Hellena in charge of overseeing the girls and making sure they stay out of trouble.
LUCETTA- a "jilting wench" who steals the clothes and belongings from Blunt.
Male:
DON ANTONIO- the King's Son
DON PEDRO- Florinda and Hellena's brother
BELVILE- an English Colonel deeply in love with Florinda
WILLMORE- the "rover" to whom the title refers; a naval captain who spends most of his days roaming around.
FREDERICK- English Gentleman
BLUNT- a foolish English Country Gentleman who gets duped out of all his possessions by Lucetta.
STEPHANO- Servant to Don Pedro
PHILLIPO- Lucetta's Gallant
SANCHO- Pimp to Lucetta
BISKEY and SEBASTIAN- two Bravoes to Angelica
DIEGO- Page to Don Antonio
In this blog I am going to deal with the following question-
Moretta claims that love is the “disease” of the female sex, whereas Willmore claims that “virtue“ is the true infirmity in women. With whom do you agree and why? Draw from the text to support your answer.
First of all we will deal with the basic character sketch of Moretta. She is a minor character of the play. Moretta is an elderly servant of the most expensive prostitute Angelica. She herself was a former prostitute. Moretta is a strong believer in economically advantageous relationships and opposes Angelica's decision of giving heart to Willmore and having a free of cost relation with him. She is disgusted by Angellica falling in love with Willmore.
This statement of Moretta where she claims love to be disease is in Act 2. Scene 1.
Angelica is most expensive and extremely beautiful prostitute. In the Carnival Poster s of the prostitutes are realized showing their availability. Angelica released her poster in the street. Willmore and Antoni both were looking at the poster but her cost was too high for Willmore so he tried to take the poster of Angelica with him. At that time Don Antonio resisted him for doing so and the fight began between them. Angelica heard the fight and sent her men to look out. She called down Willmore to know about the fight.
Willmore was a lustful Englishmen, he kept on wandering from one to another woman to fulfill his lustful desires. When Angelica called him he started talking about very virtuous things and praised the beauty of Angelica.. Willmore says that although he is poor, he is a gentleman. He relates that he feels conflicted about Angelica—he hates her for putting a price on love, but would sacrifice all he owns to have her. He says that the knowledge that she can be bought will help him heal the wounds that her eyes have made in her heart. Last, he holds her and stares at her in order to prove his strength, once more marveling at her beauty. All this behavior of Willmore attracted her towards him and she started falling for him. Angelica Exclaimed that his words had reached her soul, she started urging Willmore. Willmore promised her to pay with happiness for the rest of his life.
Looking at all this Morreta was worried that Angelica will fall for this fake person and will give her love to him free of cost. And on that time she says the following sentence and tries to explain to Angelica that a sex female should stay a from love, love is a disease for them because once they start sharing love for free she herself lowdown's her own price.
“I wonder what has kept you from that general Disease of our Sex so long, I mean that of being in love.”
But the flattering of Willmore was still on.
“why what the Devil should I do with a virtuous Woman?—a fort of ill-natur'd Creatures, that take a Pride to torment a Lover. Virtue is but an Infirmity in Women, a Disease that renders even the handsom ungrateful;”
Here in this statement in order to flatter angelica he calls her ‘a virtuous woman’.
Contradicting it, Before the entrance of Angelica Willmore had already met Hella who was in disguise of the Gypsy women. He was attracted to her intellect and way of talking. But one of his friends told him that she is a virtuous woman. At that time he says that he needs a ‘wench’ who would play games with him and fancies Angelica. He says that he must find another woman, like Angelica, who is not so virtuous, so that he can put the gypsy girl out of his mind.
“She has play’d with my Heart so, that ’twill never lie still till I have met with some kind Wench, that will play the Game out with me—Oh for my Arms full of soft, white, kind—Woman! such as I fancy Angelica.”
Here we can clearly see that Willmore was just flattering to Angelica for having a lust- relation with her. We see that Morreta was correct. She tried to stop Angelica by explaining it to be a disease. Later in the play when angelica realizes about the character of Willmore she points a gun towards him and threatens to kill. Willmore also offers to pay her for her services but she refuses. But later she spares him for his deeds. she ultimately decides to leave his punishment up to the universe, she is clearly overwhelmed and distraught.
On my personal views, I completely agree with Morreta, she herself was a former prostitute and reading to her arguments we can interpret that she might have also faced situation similar to this and she is trying to safeguard Angelica from doing the same. Angelica was a successful prostitute she needs to control her actions which can ruin her source of income and should not trust the wanderer like Willmore. Being a prostitute Angelica must be well aware about the society’s mentality about whore is somehow less virtuous than a courtesan. Being aware about this and still falling for Willmore seems to be her absurdity.
I hope this blog is useful to you and you are able to understand it. Thanks for visiting. If you have any queries or questions drop a comment. Thank you.
[words- 1518]
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