TUTORIAL: CC7

IN THE CARNIVAL WORLD OF EDEN’S GARDEN: ROVING

AND RAPE IN THE ROVER

NAME: ALAKTIKA ROY

SHRI SHIKSHAYATAN COLLEGE
ROLL NUMBER: 327
CU ROLL NUMBER: 22034-11-0053
CU REGISTRATION NUMBER: 034-1211-0055-22
SUBJECT: ENGLISH HONOURS
DATE OF SUBMISSION:
ABSTRACT
Aphra Behn was a distinguished poet and novelist in addition to being one of the most
prominent dramatists of the late 17th century. Her modern image is based primarily on her
"scandalous" plays, which she claims would not have been attacked for impropriety if they
had been written by a male. Behn's claim to a unique place in English literary history is
supported not only by the remarkable conditions of her writings but also by those of her life
experience. The plot of ‘The Rover’ is centred around Naples during the festive season of
Carnival common among the Roman catholic notions in the last days and hours of the pre-
Lenten days, it being the final festivity before the commencement austere 40 days of Lent
during which fasting, the main abstinence from flesh and meat, is observed and, symbolically,
the needs of the body and sensuality are to be negated and strict piety and austerity are to be
observed. The Carnival was not only liberating because – for a short period – the church and
the state had little or no control over the lives of the people. Its true liberating potential can be
seen in the fact that set rules and beliefs were not immune to ridicule or re-conception at
carnival time. Literary theorist and philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin, even suggests that the
European Renaissance itself was made possible by the spirit of free thinking and impiety that
the carnivals engendered. Carnivalesque literature – like the carnivals themselves – broke
apart oppressive and mouldy forms of thought and cleared out the path for the imagination
and the never-ending project of emancipation. Danny Beobel’s Bakhtinian reading of The
Rover demonstrates how both the carnival context and the women’s speech, by
deconstructing accepted sign-signified connections, disclose patriarchal hierarchy as arbitrary
fantasy, rather than metaphysical truth. The play also exposes the libertine concept of carnival
as another form of patriarchal hierarchy brutally oppressive of female subjectivity and
suggests an alternate, feminist concept of carnival that liberates women from the patriarchal
system of signification.
INTRODUCTION
Though it has become conventional, in the study of Restoration drama, for critics to treat
gender as a major concern, they differ as to whether it ought to be regarded as “liberated or
misogynist; rapacious or castrated; homoerotic or homophobic” (Rosenthal 107). The plays
of Aphra Behn have become the focus of a great deal of contemporary criticism on account of
Behn’s status as English literature’s first professional female writer and the complexity of the
gender politics expressed in her plays. Feminist critics, who consider much of Restoration
comedy to be misogynist, have largely explored Behn’s concern with female rights. The lack
of scholarly attention that Behn’s male characters receive can be explained by the fact that
her protagonists—like the male characters of other Restoration comedies written by men—
rape, scheme, lie, seduce, threaten and connive. Indeed, the gratuitous sexual violence that
takes place in The Rover can be deeply disturbing for a contemporary audience. Behn’s
depiction of male characters as unapologetic libertines— men who pursue sexual pleasure
and have few moral restraints—seems to function as an obstacle to the argument that Behn is
an early advocate for women’s rights. This play thus interweaves issues of gender relations,
social hierarchies and identity in a carnivalesque backdrop wherein masquerade is used as a
device to pit characters against social rebellion and to test their virtue. The women in the
play, or the “Virgin Commodities”, as critic Elin Diamond chooses to call them, employ the
masquerade as a means of hiding their identity and emphasising their otherwise subdued
sexuality. The so-called gentlemen and cavaliers use this to their advantage, and we find a
darker side of male domination manifesting on the streets of Naples as the boundaries
between “women of quality” and “prostitutes” become blurred during the carnival.
IMPORTANCE OF CARNIVAL IN APHRA BEHN’S ‘THE ROVER’
“Masquerading! A lewd custom to debauch our youth. There’s something more in this than I
imagine.” – Don Pedro

Aphra Behn, the first female playwright to earn a living through her writing, was also one of
the wittiest and most entertaining as evidenced by her most well-known play, The Rover. Set
in 17th-century Italy while under the colonial reign of Spain, a large cast of characters
becomes embroiled in scenes of infidelity, seduction, misrepresentation, and elaborate
swordplay, which create tension and confusion in addition to many comedic episodes. The
setting is Carnival time in Venice, which is important to the plot for several reasons: the
wearing of masks (as was customary) allows freedom from normal constraints, there is often
in the play a mistake made in identities, circumstances can (and do) occur which could never
otherwise happen, it allows for a fast pace to be maintained which keeps the spectators
involved, and ultimately, “confusion captures the spirit of the carnival”.
The idea of the carnivalesque was developed by the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin in his
study of the seventeenth-century prose satirist, Francois Rabelais. The carnival for Bakhtin
was an event in which all rules, inhibitions, restrictions and regulations which determine the
course of everyday life are suspended, especially all forms of hierarchy in society. The
concept is derived from the practice of medieval carnivals when the people would enjoy a
holiday from their labours and in the process ridicule the authorities of church and state.
Carnival was also considered a period of indulgence focusing on the pleasures of the body
vis-à-vis eating, drinking and promiscuous sexual activity.
During carnival times class barriers came down with the rich mingling with the poor. The
tradition of wearing masks at carnival time became necessary to protect the rich's identities.
This also gave opportunities to act out in a manner far removed from their habitual one. By
having her female characters hidden behind masks, Behn can remove them from their
traditional roles as women and give them empowerment. In effect, they can assume new
personalities and remove their inhibition or the otherwise usual yokes that have been cast on
them by a male-dominated society.
To understand Behn’s use of Carnival, the nature and purpose of Carnival must be
understood. John Tillotson, a contemporary of Aphra Behn’s, comments on Carnival stating,
“In the Popish Countries, in the time of their Carnival, just before Lent… how scandalous a
liberty men take of doing lewd and wicked things…[They] take the opportunity to gratify
their lusts.” W.H. Auden, a 20th-century poet, comments on the social upheaval arguing,
“During Carnival, all social distinctions are suspended, even that of sex. Young men dress up
as girls, young girls as boys. The escape from social personality is symbolized by the wearing
of masks”. Belvile’s appearance and response exemplify the conventional attitude towards
Carnival. His disguise represents temporary indulgence and subversion of Carnival. Belvile’s
reference to his normal countenance reminds the characters and the audience that Carnival
does have an end and that social order is to be restored.
THE CARNIVAL SETTING AS A METAPHOR FOR BEHN’S
DECONSTRUCTION OF PATRIARCHAL PRIVILEGE
For her 1677 play, The Rover Aphra Behn changed the setting of Thomas Killigrew’s 1654
closet drama Thomaso from Spanish Inquisition to Neapolitan carnival. The carnival setting
serves as a metaphor for Behn’s deconstruction of patriarchal privilege. The carnival world of
The Rover signifies a break from their former moorings in phallic discourse as Behn liberates
the female characters to signify solely themselves. Thus, they escape the domination
maintained by that “signification (that) serves to sustain relations of domination”. Behn’s
shift of setting, while it provides a locus of genuine chaotic liberation, also makes it possible
for her to satirize masculine notions of carnival liberty. For while the Puritan commonwealth
was viewed by Royalists like Behn as an oppressive regime like the Spanish Inquisition,
Behn makes it clear that carnivalesque freedom, as it was understood by the Cavaliers, locked
women into a sexual double bind that the Puritan preachers inflicted on women under the
guise of liberating them. Given the revolutionary character of carnival as understood by
Behn, the problem with male revellers is that, fixated on their phallicism, they do not carry
the revolution of carnival far enough. It is not surprising, then, that in The Rover Behn is not
content to undermine only Whig pretensions. The carnival setting provides her with an
opportunity to create her carnivalesque displacements, exposing how arbitrary the male
system of signification is. Virginia Woolf has likened the pen in the hand of a woman writer
to a pickaxe breaking apart the male-constructed narrative, in which women play no part
except concerning men. Woolf asks her reader to consider the oddity of an Other narrative, in
which men are represented only in relationships with women — as lovers, husbands, fathers,
and brothers. Behn creates such a narrative, defined by the Other, in the first scene of The
Rover. The play opens with female characters wittily deconstructing patriarchy and discussing
men solely for feminine desire. In carnival, the bodily element is “deeply positive”. Indecent,
bawdy expressiveness are “so many sparks of the carnival bonfire which renews the world”.
The carnivalesque elevation of carnality in general and of feminine sexuality, in particular, is
illustrated in The Rover by two processions, the first composed of female carnival celebrants
and the second of men. Both the women, who wear and carry roses, and the men whose
bodies are covered with horns, symbolize the displacement of phallic discourse by a body
language that dissolves the hierarchical male/female binary and privileges feminine
jouissance. As Terry Castle claims in his book Masquerade and Civilization: The
Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture and Fiction (1986), Carnival masks
provided a detachment from identity, and thus provided also a sort of detachment from
traditional morality. Masks were particularly significant as aphrodisiacs: “Conventional
wisdom held that someone donning a mask, especially a woman, experienced an abrupt loss
of sexual inhibition.” Hellena is thus able to assume a more liberating identity, or to put it
simply, more “male” in nature. This “maleness” affords her a certain amount of power and
authority in the play.
IRONY AND MALE SEXUAL AGGRESSION
The Rover is set during the Puritan Interregnum, and the male protagonists banished English
Cavaliers, have come ashore at Naples. The fall of the Puritan Commonwealth did little to
dispel the political and religious tensions that affected the early Modern British conception of
womanhood. Even after the Protectorate’s end, Roundhead's beliefs dictated “the necessity
for female subordination and obedience” to her husband, as ordained by several Bible verses.
Eve’s role in the division of mankind from God “fuelled…[a cultural] conviction of the
weakness and sinfulness of women”. Thus, female sexuality was perceived as a spiritual flaw
to manage. Male governance of the female body, once responsible for Adam’s downfall, led
to a Puritan “masculinization of desire—the creation of woman as other and as object—that
[was] crucial to a sexual ideology that insists on the indivisibility of feminine chastity from
feminine identity” (Hutner 104). By approaching sexuality, Roundhead men narrowed the
confines of women’s acceptable roles in society to one alone: the wife, family-oriented and
sexually pure. Neither Catholic nuns nor transgressive prostitutes met Puritan expectations
for women.
Written seventeen years after Richard Cromwell left England, The Rover responds to these
vestiges of Puritan belied in English society. In her epilogue, Behn mocks the strait-laced
prudishness that would turn humour into a form of sinful self-pleasure: “The devil’s in’t if
this will please the nation/in these our blessed times of reformation.” (Behn 242). Her
derision places under public scrutiny the validity of Puritan disapproval. If an audience
member doubts the sect’s condemnation of one aspect of society, other frowned-upon
practices might be thrown into question. Accusing the Puritan voice of restricting the
audience’s sense encourages the public’s examination of normative understandings of the
English culture, specifically regarding gender.
For women, both cultural expectations, influenced by Puritan beliefs, and reality
problematized any desire for sexual freedom. Where the hedonistic ideology encouraged
passion outside marriage, few ladies could not support themselves without stable male
support. Behn’s female characters strive for independence within the limitations of the
English system of courtship and marriage. In The Rover, the three leading ladies are all
capable and proactive young women who exhibit “the initiative and daring reserved for
cavaliers” (Burke 122). The foppish Cavaliers of The Rover are juxtaposed as foils against
these women to further emphasize feminine ability and power.
Ironic depictions of sexual aggression are common in The Rover, particularly within the
scenes involving sexual assault. Jane Spencer, in Aphra Behn’s Afterlife, discusses the
excessive amount of male aggression that Florinda encounters, “facing the threat of rape at
almost every turn” (Spencer 192). Two attempted rapes take place in The Rover. The first
occurs when Florinda is attempting to meet her beloved, Belvile, and unfortunately
encounters an intoxicated Willmore. The second takes place when Florinda, running from her
brother as her “life and honour are at stake”, enters a house and finds a revengeful Blunt
within. Ironically, the heroic characters of the play behave in ways that are revealed to be
villainous. These sorts of ironic details surrounding male sexual aggression are rampant
within The Rover, primarily in the attempted rape scenes, and provide compelling evidence
that, in this play, Behn criticizes the libertine approval of rape. Behn also complicates the
libertine lifestyle as she shows her protagonist’s “gallantry” to be simply a façade that hides
the ugliness, perversity, and hypocrisy of male dominance over women.
CONCLUSION
As feminist critics have established, Behn often negatively portrays libertinism. However, it
is not only through her female characters that Behn unfavourably portrays certain libertine
behaviours, but through her construction of masculinity. Yet, such an argument is complicated
by the complexity of Behn’s loyalties. Certainly, Behn has a concern for female agency that is
not only explicit in many of her plays but also in her prefaces to them. The actions and
treatment of women in Aphra Behn’s play expose the narrow social limitations within which
early Modern British women found themselves. Hellena and Florinda have the potential to
explore their sexual freedom at Carnival, but they focus instead on securing financial futures
with men they like. Through Angellica, Hellena and Florinda, Behn reveals that the libertine
female has no place in late Stuart society. The playwright’s observation comes as a wistful
warning at a time when women seemed to push the limits of tradition. Actresses appearing on
stage might feel they have found a career as a bodily expression, but from Behn’s experience
as a woman with male colleagues, the freedom is a façade. Women on stage faced
fetishization and loss of status. Behn’s commentary on women’s position in the late Stuart
period serves to point out the double standard of libertinism in court life and the public
sphere. By exposing and mocking the Puritanical and Cavalier restraints imposed on ladies,
she encourages viewers to reevaluate women’s limited roles in the new age. The masquerade
thus challenges individual and social identities in terms of women’s sexual liberties and
patriarchal domination. The stance that Aphra Behn takes on masquerades is associated with
social change, and she dramatizes a cultural conflict between moralistic and transgressive
imperatives, equanimity and adventure.