The Role Of Women In The Rover By Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn’s “England’s first professional female author “ has been a very controversial figure in terms of literary criticisms throughout the centuries . The plays she wrote during the restoration period were hugely popular on the stage , and her fiction and poetry also enjoyed success , though on a much smaller scale . However , under rigid Victorian standards , her work essentially disappeared from literary discussion and did not re-emerge until the mid – 1900’s : in the 40’s Behn’s work was “little known , since she had lived under a cloud of Victorian disapproval for her erotic writing and her allegedly licentious way of life . However , by the end of world war II , “the kind of feminine interest that now gives importance to Aphra Behn as a pioneer in women’s professionalism was beginning to emerge “. Behn used her work as societal commentary , addressing politics , sex , money , relationships , power , virtue and ideals but it seems to me that the major focus of her writing is on gender roles .

The representation of the scenes in which the women are being raped suggest that the women’s being subject to men convey the male sexual aggression during that period . In “ The Rover “ , Behn does this by examining the overt commodification of women by not only men , but as a society as a whole ; in Behn’s eyes women were often just as guilty by their complicity . Through the characters of Hellena , Florinda , Angellica and the roving cavaliers , Behn examines ‘commodification ‘ by illuminating just how differently men treated their women according to class and how women were objectified by prostitution , forcible rape and arranged or forced marriages .

It is Florinda’s rebellion against the commodification of forced marriage th...

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...th of the commodity of virginity was held in such high regard that talk of sex was relegated to that which took place for a price by a whore .

So both in marriage and in prostitution – two institutions not usually thought as comparable women are used as objects of exchange . While the institutions themselves may appear vastly different , the level of objectification is equivalent . And they are altogether different from enslavement , or even rape ; there is in all an inherent element of force perpetrated by the male : the virgin is forced into marriage ; the prostitute , not being a virgin , is forced into her profession because she will never be deemed marriable and rape , ofcourse , by definition , is all about power and force . Though Angellica lived in the society , however she was not considered the part of society . Both are the victims of male authority .