In Aphra Behn's “The Rover,” characters define relationships as a type of economy where value and use are key. This time period commodified love and sexuality, valuing financial success over meaningful relationships. The dowry system made rich women with a high status most desirable for marriage and their value was increased by their honor. Typical of seventeenth century literature, Behn plays with this ideology as “the language of love in Restoration comedies frequently draws on the language of commerce.”1 She expresses her beliefs on the “'interest,' 'credit,' and 'value'”2 associated with love and sexuality through the different prices placed on her characters. Where Behn differs from other seventeenth century writers is that she does not give in to the “world dominated by male writers working in specifically misogynistic forms.”3 She gives women the authority within this economy. Instead of having very little power in their relationships with men, Behn allows women to be dominant. They can create their own value and control the amount of access men have to them. Characters such as Moretta and Angellica Bianca are not forced into submission by their desire for marriage, they “ignore[s] patriarchal structure and exhibit[s] no remorse.”4 They force men into submission through their manipulation of the economy of love and sexuality. Aphra Behn's characterization of Moretta and Angellica Bianca using the language of commerce gives them authority that other woman did not have access to.
Behn introduces Moretta as Angellica's woman; she exists to tend to and advise Angellica. In this way, she is similar to a broker. Moretta sets up the transactions between Angellica and the men she sells sexuality to. Even when a man attempts to bar...
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...Sexual Politics of Behn's "Rover": After Patriarchy." Studies of Philology 95.4 (1998): 435-55. JSTOR. Web. .
Salzman, Paul. "Aphra Behn: Poetry and Masquerade." (n.d.): 109-29. Print.
Diamond, Elin. "Gestus and Status in Aphra Behn's The Rover." ELH 56.3 (1989): 519-41. JSTOR. Web. .
Munns, Jessica. "'But to the Touch Were Soft': Pleasure, Power, and Impotence in 'The Disappointment' and 'The Golden Age'" (n.d.): 178-196. Print.
Behn, Aphra. The Rover; or the Banish'd Cavaliers. The Works of Aphra Behn. Vol. 6. New York: Montague Summers, 1915. 218-295. Print.
Lakhoua, Khaoula Chahed. "Power Of The Powerless In Aphra Behn's The Rover." Aphra Behn (1640-1689): Identity, Alterity, Ambiguity. Ed. O'Donnell, Mary Ann., B. Dhuicq, and Guyonne Leduc. Paris: Harmattan, 2000. 177-182. Print.
Dyck, Reginald. "The Feminist Critique of Willa Cather's Fiction: A Review Essay." Women's Studies 22 (1993): 263-279.
Professor’s comment: This student uses a feminist approach to shift our value judgment of two works in a surprisingly thought-provoking way. After showing how female seduction in Malory’s story of King Arthur is crucial to the story as a whole, the student follows with an equally serious analysis of Monty Python’s parody of the female seduction motif in what may be the most memorable and hilarious episode of the film.
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
Many stories talk about relationships, especially the ones between man and woman as couple. In some of them, generally the most popular ones, these relationships are presented in a rosy, sentimental and cliché way. In others, they are presented using a much deeper, realistic and complicated tone; much more of how they are in real life. But not matter in what style the author presents its work, the base of every love story is the role each member of that relationship assumes in it. A role, that sometimes, internal forces will determinate them, such as: ideas, beliefs, interests, etc. or in order cases external, such as society. In the story “The Storm” by American writer Kate Chopin and the play A Doll’s house by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen I am going to examine those roles, giving a special focus to the woman´s, because in both works, it is non-traditional, different and somewhat shocking, besides having a feminist point of view.
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
Accordingly, I decided the purposes behind women 's resistance neither renamed sexual introduction parts nor overcame money related dependence. I recalled why their yearning for the trappings of progression could darken into a self-compelling consumerism. I evaluated how a conviction arrangement of feeling could end in sexual danger or a married woman 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, regardless, ought to cloud an era 's legacy. I comprehend prerequisites for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the area of women into open space and political fights previously cornered by men all these pushed against ordinary restrictions even as they made new susceptibilities.
Many readers feel the tendency to compare Aphra Behn's Oroonoko to William Shakespeare's Othello. Indeed they have many features in common, such as wives executed by husbands, conflicts between white and black characters, deceived heroes, the absolute vulnerability of women, etc. Both works stage male characters at both ends of their conflicts. In Othello, the tragic hero is Othello, and the villain is Iago. In Oroonoko, the hero is Oroonoko, the vice of the first part is the old king, and the second part white men in the colony. In contrast to their husbands, both heroines—Desdemona and Imoinda—seem more like "function characters" who are merely trapped in their husband's fates, occasionally becoming some motivation of their husbands (like Desdemona is Othello's motivation to rage, Imoinda's pregnancy drives Oroonoko restless to escape). While Shakespeare and Behn put much effort in moulding them, to many readers they are merely "perfect wives". This paper aims to argue that, Desdemona and Imoinda's perfect wifehood may be the product of compliance to male-dominated societies, where women are
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