Aphra Behn's The Rover

1) Angelica consider the financial negotiations that one makes before marring  a prospective bride the same as prostitution  . Do you agree.

    the desire to do meaningful work might, poignantly, be the strongest urge a late eighteenth- to early nineteenth-century woman knew, propelling her into marriage with a man who could employ her skills. But this narrative altered because, starting in 1855, feminist activists popularized the idea that middle-class women suffered from being denied work. In Middlemarch, Can You Forgive Her?, and The Clever Woman of the Family, heroines traverse the same plot: an inevitably doomed vocational marital future. This “suppressive hypothesis” made it impossible to depict a successful vocational marriage. The fantasies of female empowerment we saw in the neighbor plot had become unwriteable in the latter half of the century. Marriage had become a private, romantic dyad, inimical to the social orientation of familiar marriage.

     

   The pliability of the theme allows for different arguments in different situations and even permits contradictory arguments in similar situations. The ambiguity of how these relationships can be interpreted is a key to their popularity .

2.) All women together ught to let flowers fall upon the tomb of aphra behn , for it was she who   earned them the right to speak in a room of one's own . Do yo agree with the statement ? Justify your answer with reference to your reading of the play the rover .

   She was a pretty popular writer. She invented investigative reporting, several plays and some of the oldest novels we can find. And since she rose to prominence in the Stewart era, she was the first crop of poets to become “published writers" She might be the first female poet and dramatist to become a writer.

She wrote a lot of weird and sometimes cringy and sometimes awesome stories about her travels including a book about her youth in Surinam and befriending a slave revolt leader named Oroonoco. (Orinoko) Which is a trip. It may be gross and racist or may be satire and no one really knows. While dramatized she did actually know the man, who died in a slave Rebellion. And she wrote a story about how awesome he was and how screwed up race relations are in the new world. And that even African noblemen who are awesome and cool are being kidnapped just like regular slaves. It can be read as a woman who is incredulous and naive about the world. Or a sarcastic take that its not fair to kidnap African royalty.

She made a fortune on plays and became the most famous woman of her day. 

   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.

3.)  Which female character best represents the playwright aphra behn? Consider the characteristics and beliefs of each female character and make an argument that relates these distinctive attributes to what you know abut behn.

     

   Aphra Behn was a woman ahead of her time; as the first published female author, she broke the mold not only in her professional accomplishments, but also in her daily life. She was a well-traveled woman, spending time in Surinam with her family, and in Antwerp as a spy for Charles II. Behn is also purported to have had an on-and-off-again relationship with an English expatriate and spy. Her path is one characterized by inconstancy, and it was one that could only have been undertaken by a brave and confident individual. In The Rover, it is Hellena who best demonstrates confidence and bravery in her endeavors to alter her destiny. Like Aphra, Helena is a confident woman and persuasive leader, not afraid to draw attention to the hypocrisy of religion, and drawn strongly to the freedom of libertinism. She also shares with Aphra a desire to explore and live dangerously.