56 pages • 1 hour read
Aphra BehnThe Rover
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1677A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Act IAct Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
The prologue, “written by a person of quality” (2), says that when a play by an unknown playwright is produced, the writers and intellectuals in the audience tend to form a critical majority opinion and then bully the minority into following it. Sometimes people decide to hate the play because the jokes are so good that they strike a nerve, which is one of the pitfalls of writing comedy. The writers who sit in the audience and judge all think themselves superior to the new playwright, but a lot of them just steal ideas from each other. Others work so hard to carefully write extemporaneous dialogue that their dialogue sounds natural, but no one recognizes their hard work. Some writers are funny people, but their sense of humor is not sophisticated enough for the stage.
The “person of quality” comments that they asked the playwright what “he”—the audience would have known that Behn was a woman—wanted them to say to the audience, and “he” said that it did not matter, because people do not care about the playwright and only come to plays for themselves. The audience, the “person of quality” concludes, are all either smug intellectuals or hoping to see some debauchery, and they all crowd together and sweat like commoners.
Act I, Scene 1 Summary
The play opens at Carnival time in 1650s Spanish-ruled Naples. Florinda and her sister Hellena enter, and Florinda is exasperated with Hellena’s pestering questions about love. Hellena dreams about being in love and wants to know all about it, although she was raised in a convent and is meant to take vows as a nun when the Carnival period ends and Lent begins. Hellena tries to guess who Florinda is in love with: her guesses include Belvile, the Englishman their brother, Don Pedro, has brought home; Don Antonio, the Viceroy’s son; and Don Vincentio, the rich older man who their father wants Florinda to marry. Florinda exclaims that she despises Don Vincentio. She insists that she will not be “marrying that hated object” and will make their father “understand better what’s due to [her] beauty, birth, and fortune, and more so to [her] soul” (5-6). Hellena approves of Florinda’s sentiments, but Florinda tells her not to be so wild, since she is going to be a nun. Hellena counters that she does not wish to be a nun. She plans to find a man before the Carnival ends, hoping to avoid the convent.
Florinda admits that she met Belvile during a siege in Pamplona and has been in love with him ever since. Their brother, Don Pedro, enters with his servant, Stephano, and his sisters’ governess, Callis. Stephano carries Don Pedro’s masked Carnival ensemble, which he puts on while talking. Don Pedro asks about Don Vincentio, provoking Florinda to rearticulate her refusal to marry him. Don Pedro tries to persuade her, wondering if her reluctance might have something to do with Belvile. Florinda admits to her feelings, but Don Pedro reminds her that Belvile has no money. Hellena defends Florinda, arguing that her sister would be better off in a convent with her than married to Don Vincentio.
Annoyed with his sister’s impertinence, Don Pedro decides that Callis will lock Hellena up and watch her closely until the end of Carnival. To Florinda, Don Pedro explains that he has only been doing their father’s bidding, but he too despises Don Vincentio. Since their father is out of town, he has arranged for Florinda to marry his friend Don Antonio, the Viceroy’s son, tomorrow. If she does not marry Don Antonio, she will have to marry Don Vincentio. Don Pedro exits, and Florinda is distraught because there is no good reason to avoid marrying Don Antonio.
Hellena and Florinda plead with Callis to let them go to the Carnival instead of locking Hellena up. They argue that their brother will never find out, since they will both wear masks. Callis agrees, as long as she can go with them to chaperone, divulging in an aside, “I have a youthful itch of going myself” (11). Stephano enters and announces that their Carnival costumes are ready, and their cousin Valeria is waiting. The two women exit to get dressed.
Act I, Scene 2 Summary
A morose Colonel Belvile enters with his two friends: Ned Blunt, a wealthy Englishman from the countryside, and Frederick, an English gentleman. Frederick questions Belvile about his sorrowful demeanor, wondering if he has a new love in Naples, or left one in Paris. Belvile denies this, and Frederick is perplexed, suggesting that maybe he is sad because of poverty or for “the want of a wench” (12). Frederick guesses that Belvile is upset because he reunited with Florinda, who he has been in love with since he met her in Pamplona. Belvile agrees, explaining that Florinda’s brother, Don Pedro, has decided that she will marry the wealthy Don Antonio, and politely banished Belvile from their house upon discovering his love for Florinda. Now Belvile can only exchange letters and longing glances with her.
Frederick wonders why he and Blunt never fall in love as Belvile has done, and Blunt asserts that while they have been with plenty of beautiful women, none of them have inspired love. Blunt muses that unlike Belvile, he never gave up his estate to the English Commonwealth by becoming a Cavalier. Although he left the country with Prince Charles II and his supporters, English leaders know that he is not there to help.
Willmore—the “rover of the play’s title—enters. As a Cavalier, Willmore has been sailing with the exiled Prince Charles II, and has come to shore for a couple of days to seek “love and mirth” (14) during the Carnival. They watch as a group of revelers enter, the men in masks and the women dressed as courtesans carrying baskets of flowers. Willmore’s interest is piqued, and Belvile warns that they might be real courtesans, or they might just be dressed as them for the Carnival. Willmore reads the papers pinned to their chests: “Roses for every month” (15) and starts to attempt to seduce one of the women with lewd puns about roses. She tells him, “Beware of such roses, sir” (15) and leaves with another man. Willmore is irked at being snubbed. Two men enter dressed in horns to indicate that they are dressed up as men whose wives cheat on them. Papers pinned to their backs read: “Flowers of every night” (16).
A new group enters, including Florinda, Hellena, and their cousin Valeria, dressed as gypsies; Callis and Stephano; Lucetta, a sex worker, and Sancho, her pimp; and Philippo, Lucetta’s lover, all in costumes and masks. Hellena spots Belvile and alerts Florinda, noting the attractive Willmore at his side. Willmore goes immediately to flirt with Hellena and is surprised by her wit and intelligent repartee. They banter about Hellena’s virginity, and whether she ought to have sex with Willmore before she becomes a nun. Hellena tells him that since she has never been in love, she will most likely develop strong feelings when she does. Willmore strongly desires her, hoping that her face beneath the mask is as attractive as her personality.
Meanwhile, Lucetta and Sancho watch Blunt, deciding that he is the right target for her. Noticing Lucetta’s seductive glances, Blunt is immediately enamored. Florinda, in her gypsy costume, pretends to read Belvile’s palm. She is unable to reveal herself under Callis’s watchful eye, and Belvile gets bored with the game. Before he can walk away, Florinda blurts out a question about his devotion to her. Belvile’s attention is caught by Florinda’s name, although he doesn’t recognize her, and she tells him to meet Florinda at her garden gate tonight to help her escape her brother. Don Pedro enters, so Florinda hands him a letter and exits. Frederick warns Belvile that this might be a trap set by Don Pedro, but Belvile refuses to listen. Willmore and Hellena plan to meet later. The women exit except Lucetta.
Belvile recognizes Florinda’s handwriting in the letter and enlists his friends to assist him in helping her escape. The men watch Blunt and Lucetta, joking about how they hope Lucetta will humiliate him. Willmore asks why the group hates Blunt, and they explain that he acts like a spoiled child, but they keep him around because he has money. Willmore is jealous of Blunt for meeting Lucetta, and Frederick asks what happened with the gypsy girl (Hellena). Willmore says that he liked her, but based on her educated speech, she’s obviously “a person of quality” who would take too much effort to seduce.
Frederick tells Willmore that they have come to town to see the famous beauty Angellica, who was recently the mistress of a dead Spanish general. Men have been gathering to stare at her and attract her attention. She is now selling her services as a courtesan by the month at an extremely expensive rate. The idea of payment kills any interest Willmore had in her, but he still wants to go and see her. As they exit, they promise Belvile that they will be there to help him save Florinda later.
Prologue-Act I Analysis
In the Prologue, Behn refers pointedly to the figure of the playwright using masculine pronouns. Although Behn wrote anonymously at this point, certain circles would have known who she was, and her name was certainly passed through word of mouth. The use of masculine pronouns plays with the audience in an era when a female playwright is still a rarity, and it sets the tone for a play that is just as bawdy and risqué as any play written by a man.
The Rover clearly demonstrates Behn’s perspective as a woman in a patriarchal world. By beginning the play with Florinda and Hellena’s respective dilemmas, Behn highlights how the religious-centered social structures in Naples are oppressive, particularly to women. There are essentially three proper trajectories for a woman, as represented by the three women introduced in Act I. They can marry respectably (Florinda), join a nunnery (Hellena), or become a sex worker (Lucetta), and their fitness for each is based on virginity as a quantifiable construct and the patriarchal control of the men in their lives. For women, belonging to the upper class means the double-edged sword of more respectability but less autonomy. Women are viewed as property, and upper-class women are valuable property. At the start of the play, both Hellena and Florinda are on the eve of being condemned to irrevocable life paths that are contrary to their personal desires: Hellena desires love and sexual experiences, not a nun’s vocation, and Florinda wishes to marry the man she loves instead of the old man her father has chosen for her. In choosing to defy their brother and father, they are also rebelling against the societal norms for women.
The Carnival mask is an equalizer, in which women (and men) can discard their identities and pretend to be whoever they want. Naturally, two upper-class women like Hellena and Florinda are not permitted to participate, as their virginity is a commodity that can only be protected by the respectability granted by their family name and status. The perplexed attitude of the men as they interact with masked women who may or may not be real courtesans demonstrates that class, virtue, and being a “person of quality” (2) are only social constructs and a poor means of differentiating one woman from another. The men—particularly Willmore, who is desperate for sex—search for clues to know how to appropriately speak to the women they see. Belvile does not recognize the woman he loves while she is masked and independent of her usual social context. Willmore, although more worldly than Belvile, only discerns that Hellena is upper class because she is witty and therefore apparently educated.
By the end of the act, the main characters create three different types of couples. Florinda and Belvile are the traditional virtuous lovers, seeking to be united within the patriarchal system by secretly marrying after he rescues her. Hellena and Willmore are an illicit pairing; they are tempestuous and equally matched, flirting with the impropriety of non-marital sex. In the pairing of Lucetta and Blunt, Lucetta is a woman who is entirely manipulative and able to control a man.
The first act also presents a dichotomy between royalist Cavaliers and the foolish Ned Blunt. Belvile, Willmore, and Frederick—who have sacrificed their fortunes and property to stay loyal to the monarchy—are depicted as intelligent and manly heroes. Ned has maintained his riches by staying in the good graces of the English Commonwealth; he is arrogant, unattractive to women, and easily duped out of his money by his “friends” who secretly despise him.
