"The Rover"
This task is given by Megha ma'am
1) Angellica considers the financial negotiations that one makes before marrying a prospective bride the same as prostitution. Do you agree?
● Introduction:
Angellica is character of the play by Aphra Behn. Angellica's perspective on financial negotiations before marriage equating to prostitution is certainly a provocative one, and it raises important questions about the nature of relationships and societal norms. Let's break down the arguments for and against this view:
#Points in Favor of Angellica's View:
1. Transactional Nature:
- Financial negotiations before marriage often involve discussing dowries, prenups, and other financial arrangements. This can make the relationship feel transactional, similar to how prostitution involves a financial exchange for a personal service.
2. Commodification of Relationships:
- When financial terms take precedence over emotional bonds, it can reduce a deeply personal and emotional union to a commercial transaction, akin to commodifying the relationship.
3. Power Imbalance:
- Financial negotiations can create or reinforce power imbalances, where one party (often the one with more financial resources) holds greater control or influence, much like the power dynamics seen in prostitution.
4. Loss of Romantic Ideals:
- Romantic relationships are ideally based on mutual love and respect. Introducing financial negotiations can undermine these ideals, making the relationship appear more like a business arrangement than a partnership based on love.
# Points Against Angellica's View:
1. Practical Considerations:
- Financial negotiations can ensure financial stability and security for both parties. In modern times, discussions about finances can be seen as practical and necessary for planning a stable future together.
2. Protection of Interests:
- Prenuptial agreements and other financial arrangements can protect the interests of both parties, preventing potential disputes and ensuring fairness if the relationship ends.
3. Cultural and Societal Norms:
- In many cultures, financial negotiations are a traditional part of the marriage process and are not necessarily seen as diminishing the emotional aspect of the relationship. They can be viewed as an integral part of familial and social bonds.
4. Distinction in Intent:
- The intent behind financial negotiations in marriage is often to plan for a shared future and ensure mutual support, whereas prostitution involves a financial exchange for a temporary personal encounter.
● Conclusion:
While Angellica's view highlights the potential pitfalls of financial negotiations overshadowing genuine emotional connections, it is important to recognize that these arrangements can also serve practical and protective functions. The key lies in ensuring that financial discussions do not undermine the emotional and personal bonds that form the foundation of a marriage.
Ultimately, the relevance and appropriateness of financial negotiations in marriage depend on the values, intentions, and cultural contexts of the individuals involved. This nuanced perspective encourages us to reflect on the balance between practicality and emotional authenticity in relationships.
2) “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” Virginia Woolf said so in ‘A Room of One’s Own’. Do you agree with this statement? Justify your answer with reference to your reading of the play ‘The Rover’.
Incandescence, the narrator reiterates, is a state of mind that simply would have been impossible for a woman in the sixteenth century. She continues her history by tracing the gradual emergence of women writers out of that blank past. The first would have been aristocrats, women of "comparative freedom and comfort" who had the resources not only to spend their time writing, but also to brave public disapproval. This is how the narrator accounts for the poetry of Lady Winchilsea around the turn of the eighteenth century. Her work, however, is far from incandescent: "one has only to open her poetry to find her bursting out in indignation against the position of women." She then turns to the writings of Margaret of Newcastle, who might have been a poet or a scientist but instead "frittered her time away scribbling nonsense." Like Lady Winchilsea, she was an aristocrat, had no children, and was married to the right kind of man. The letters of Dorothy Osborne, next off the shelf, indicate a disdain for women who write, and at the same time betray a remarkable verbal gift in their own right. With Aphra Behn, the narrator identifies a turning point: a middle class woman making a living by her writing, in defiance of conventions of chastity. The later eighteenth century saw droves of women following her example, and these paved the way for the likes of Jane Austen and George Eliot. "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn ...for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.
●Why were all these women writers novelists?
The major nineteenth-century figures, except for the fact that all were childless, seem to have had very little in common. The narrator offers several reasons why they all might have been attracted to the novel form. For one thing, these women wrote in the shared space of the sitting-room; perhaps the novel proved a hardier form than poetry in this climate of distraction. Secondly, without any formal literary training, the education nineteenth century women received in reading character and behavior would have been their main literary asset—one most applicable to the novel. Emily Bronte might have made a better dramatic poet; Eliot was by disposition a historian or biographer. Yet these women wrote novels (though Bronte also wrote lyric poems), and the novels were good ones. Jane Austen was known to hide her work when someone entered the room, yet her novels are written "without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching." Like Shakespeare, the narrator thinks, Austen wrote in such a way that her art "consumed all impediments." Charlotte Bronte does not write with that same incandescence; Bronte may have had more genius than Austen, but her writing bears the scars of her personal wounds.
The lack of an existing literary tradition is, in the narrator's opinion, the greatest obstacle for these heroic nineteenth-century writers. The writings of the greatest literary men were no help to the female author against the problem "that there was no common sentence ready for her use." The masculine sentence of a Johnson, say, would not do, and these motherless women had a great work before them. This may be another explanation for the turn to the novel, which form "alone was young enough to be soft in her hands." But women may not always choose to write novels, the narrator predicts. They have poetry in them still unexpressed. This does not necessarily mean that they will write poems, however, but that they may channel that poetry into some new form, as yet unconceived.
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 about Behn.
In the play "The Rover" by Aphra Behn According to me best character is Hellena.The ‘rover’ in Aphra Behn’s play The Rover refers to Willmore. But Hellena’s playful ‘rovings’ gives her the status of the ‘female rover.’ Hellena’s personality changes as her rovings take her to different social settings. Sometimes she represents quality to break free from social orders. But sometimes she functions withing the barriers of the social customs. She is a gay, young woman destined for a nun. She is also attractive and talkative. Her brother Don Pedro calls her a ‘wild cat.’ Thus, from the beginning of the play, forecasts the trajectory of the course through which Hellena’s would develop.
● Hellena ignore her brother and Father's decision:
Hellena is presented as a deprived younger sister to be groomed as a nun. But by nature she is inclined more towards gaiety. She desires to explore love and to be loved. She questions how she is unfit for love: “Have I not a world of youth?” In this way Hellena expresses her opposition to the patriarchal order. She rejects what her father and brother have decided for her. She uses masks to free herself from the male dominated domestic space.
● Her concept of Mask wearing:
At one point she even appears in the disguise of a boy. She goes out in search of real love. She also questions the suitability of Florinda’s match with Don Vincentio. In this way Hellena rejects social conventions that neglect women.
● Her Wit:
Hellena’s best features are her wit and her evident resolve. The very first scene presents a sample of this. She graphically describes the consequence of the match between Florinda and the rich old Don Vincentio. Willmore finds this ‘humour’ of Hellena most attractive.
● Her attraction for Willmore:
Willmore finds this ‘humour’ of Hellena most attractive. Hellena’s resolve is expressed in her announcement; “I’m resolved to provide myself this carnival.” But her man turns out to be a rake. Still Hellena retrieves her from inconstancy and draws him away from the most beautiful courtesan.
● Her opinion for marriage:
As a ‘rover’, Hellena is different from Willmore. She believes in a lasting relationship. She is also aware of the insecurity involved in a relationship outside marriage. She has also planned for financial security with her inheritance from her uncle. Thus Hellena submits to two vital codes of security in man woman relationship: marriage and financial support.
● Conclusion:
To conclude we can say that Hellena is attractive, witty a character Which have "A beauty with brain".she married with Willmore.
● My reference sources are:
https://daskdotblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/04/the-rover/
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/roomofonesown/section4/
Thank you...
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