Paper -4 Assigment

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject:-Literature of the Victorians

• Topic:-Discuss the theme of "Jude the Obscure"?

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :-asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

• Department :- The Department of English

 [1.]Discuss the theme of "Jude the Obscure"?

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy  (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was a n English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

Jude the Obscure:-

Thomas Hardy published his fourteenth novel, Jude the Obscure, as a magazine serial in 1895. It was released in book form in November of that year. Hardy's previous novels and short stories had been extremely popular, with the exception of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which caused some mild controversy due to its relatively explicit sexual content. Similarly, Jude the Obscure scandalized critics and readers with its sexual content and scathing critiques of Christianity and marriage. The Bishop of Wakefield publicly burned copies of the book, and several circulating libraries pulled the novel from their shelves - a move that severely limited the book's readership, since many at this time procured their reading material from libraries. Hardy received hate mail from all over the world, and was so devastated by the novel's reception that he gave up prose fiction entirely, writing only poetry and drama for the rest of his life.

In the years following the book's 1895 release, it became very difficult to obtain uncensored copies of the novel, especially outside of Great Britain. When Jude was published in America in Harper's Magazine, most of the controversial elements were removed, and through the 1920s, copies of the unbowdlerized text were extremely hard to find in the United States; furthermore, complete texts were expensive. In 1912, Macmillan published the definitive Wessex editions of Hardy's novels, and this edition of Jude the Obscure is the one that is usually read today. 

Session videos :-

Jude the Obscure Themes :-

[1.] Marriage :-

It could be argued that the rejection of marriage is the central didactic point of this novel. Hardy repeatedly emphasizes that marriage involves making a commitment that many people are emotionally unequipped to fulfill - this sentiment comes from the narrator, but it is also expressed by Sue, Jude, Phillotson, and Widow Edlin at various points in the novel. Whether the institution of marriage can be saved is open to interpretation. Jude and Sue are clearly a good match for each other, so Jude wants to get married. Sue, however, feels that marriage will poison the relationship. The narrator does not seem to favor either side; it is left up to readers to decide how the problems with marriage might be solved.

[2.]Education:-Hardy highlights many kinds of education in Jude the Obscure. Most obviously, we have Jude's desire to get a university degree and become an academic. However, Hardy also emphasizes the importance of experiential education. Because Jude is inexperienced with women and with social situations more generally, he is especially susceptible to Arabella's seduction. In the novel, the level of traditional education one reaches is closely tied to the class system, and if someone from Jude's class wants to learn, they must teach themselves. Although the narrator seems to admire Jude's willingness to teach himself, he also points out the limits of autodidacticism, noting that despite Jude's near-constant studies, he cannot hope to compete on the university entrance exam against richer men who have hired tutors.

[3.]Social class:-In addition to his points about education, Hardy also criticizes the rigidity of social class more generally. Jude is limited in his career options because as a working-class man, he cannot hope to be promoted beyond a certain level, even in fields like the clergy that are supposed to be open to all. However, Jude and Sue also benefit from their low social class in that their respective divorces are processed quickly and without inquiry and they can get away with living together unmarried for quite some time. Even this is a mixed blessing - they are caught eventually, and the reason they weren't caught sooner is that they are unimportant to the people around them.

[4.]Religion :-As Jude the Obscure can be interpreted as critical of the institution of marriage, Hardy is equally as possessed with the church. Throughout their relationship, Jude and Sue have many conversations concerning religion, the former being initially more devout than his intellectually curious cousin. At a diorama depicting Jerusalem, the major characters' feelings on religion crystalize. Sue wonders why Jerusalem rather than Rome or Athens is deemed important, Phillotson counters that the city is important to the English as a Christian people, and Jude is utterly absorbed by the work - though he also strains to agree with Sue. Later, Sue mentions a friend who was the most irreligious but also the most moral. Hardy points out that these concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Jude's faith is tested by Sue. He realizes his sexual attraction to her makes him a hypocrite. Rather than suppress his natural physical desire, he burns his books, marking his break with Christianity. This makes Sue's reversal later in the novel all the more shocking. Jude likens her conversion in the wake of her children's death to his partaking in alcohol during difficult times. Here Hardy calls into question the motivations behind faith. Through Sue's self-punishing adherence to her Christian duties despite her true nature, Hardy suggests those motivations are not always pure.

[5.]Women's rights :-Sue Bridehead is a strikingly modern heroine in many ways - she lives with men without marrying them; she has a rich intellectual life; she works alongside Jude. Hardy criticizes the social conventions that prevent her from fulfilling her potential as an intellectual and as a worker. However, he also reinforces some of those social conventions unintentionally; by portraying Sue as anxious and hysterical, Hardy perpetuates a common Victorian stereotype about women being especially emotional. Also, we are expected to accept Sue having lived with the Christminster undergraduate because they were not having sex; despite his professed liberalism, Hardy upholds traditional values by offering this piece of information and (apparently) expecting it to color our judgment of the character.

[6.]Old versus new :-The narrator of Jude the Obscure often laments the ways that old things are replaced by the new, especially when it comes to urban architecture. Likewise, the Widow Edlin suggests that older, more laid-back attitudes toward marriage are better than prudish Victorian norms. Nineteenth-century British society was, in many ways, more conservative than the historical periods that preceded it, so Hardy's admiration for the older aspects of English culture ties in to his social liberalism and his reverence for intellectual inquiry.

[7.]Disappointment:-

Disappointment crops up over and over again in this novel: Jude is disappointed by his career; he is disappointed in his marriage to Arabella and then his cohabitation with Sue; he is disappointed by Mr. Phillotson, who never achieved his dream of getting a university degree. Even Time's assertions that he never asked to be born suggest a certain disappointment with life. Since most of the novel's tragedies come as lost opportunities, the ways that the characters deal with disappointment contribute to their characterization. For example, Phillotson takes a relatively mature perspective when he is disappointed in his marriage to Sue, and allows her to be with Jude. Arabella, in contrast, deals with her disappointment in Cartlett by spying on Jude and scheming to get back together with him.

[7.]Itinerancy:-

Jude the Obscure features many kinds of nomads. Some of these are minor characters, like the traveling laborers in Shaston. However, Jude himself is a kind of nomad, and the novel's structure reflects this. It is not divided into arbitrary chapters or thematic groupings, but rather is divided into sections based on the characters' location. This geographical mobility speaks to the new freedom - but also rootlessness - that came with the advent of rail travel, which revolutionized the lives of working people like Jude, who could now travel long distances affordably.

Reference :-

1. Hardy, Thomas. (1994). The collected novels of Thomas Hardy, volume II. The Modern Library.

2. Lind, Abigail. McKeever, Christine ed. "Jude the obscure Themes". Gradesaver,30 November 2012 web.15 February 2021.
3. Millgate, Michael. "Thomas Hardy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Feb. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hardy. Accessed 15 February 2021.

Thank you

Dilip Barad sir

Words :-1603

Paper -3 Assigment

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject:-Literature of The Neo-Classical period

• Topic:- critically analyze Frankenstein as a Gothic scientific fiction

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :- asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

[1.] critically analyze Frankenstein as a Gothic scientific fiction?

Mary Shelley :-

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher, educator and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the first child of the philosopher, novelist and journalist William Godwin. Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever shortly after Mary was born. Godwin was left to bring up Mary, along with her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, Wollstonecraft's child by the American speculator Gilbert Imlay.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft.

video lecture on Frankenstein :-

Frankenstein :-

The plot begins with a Captain Walton waiting for passage into Russia. He discovers an emancipated man on the ice in his journey and this man is Victor Frankenstein. Victor introduces himself and starts his story beginning with his childhood. Victor was born in Naples where he lived with his parents and brothers. Their parents adopt Elizabeth whom Victor falls for later on.
Some weeks before Victor leaves for University, Elizabeth and his mother contract scarlet fever and his mother’s condition deteriorates. Grief-stricken Victor tries to find ways to handle this problem using science. He starts by developing a way to reanimate non-living matter. He extends his research further and decides to create a human. Putting together parts of different bodies, he succeeds, but his creation turns out to be hideous. The creature wakes up, and Victor runs away, disgusted.
He runs into Henry, his friend on the street and decides to take him back to his apartment. Victor fears what Henry will have to say when he sees what he had created, but when they get there, the creature had escaped. Henry becomes ill after this and is nursed back to health in four months. Henry receives information that his youngest sibling had been killed and returns home. Henry spots the creature from a distance in the crime scene and becomes certain that it had done it.

Victor goes to hide in the mountains, but the creature finds him. The creature pleads with Victor to create another that looked like him so it would not be alone. The creature argues that if Victor made him a companion, they would retreat into the wilderness and if not he would destroy victors family.
Victor starts on the female companion but in fear, destroys it, convinced it would be the eviler than the former.  The creature vows vengeance and kills Henry, then plants the body to ensure victor was blamed for the murder. The creature goes on to kill Elizabeth, and Victor vows to take revenge on the beast. He follows it to the north pole where he falls due to hypothermia and exhaustion. Walton resumes his story from here. Walton saw the creature and pursued it only for the ship to get stuck in ice. He takes Victor’s story as a warning and turns the ship around. He then finds the creature mourning over Victor’s body. He vows to kill himself and retreats in the darkness.

Gothic fiction :-

The term Gothic fiction refers to a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and very high emotion. These emotions can include fear and suspense.

This style of fiction began in the mid 1700s with a story titled, The Castle of Otranto in 1764, by Horace Walpole. This story was about a doomed family and is filled with death, desire, and intrigue. This story is considered to be the first of the Gothic fiction tales, since it encompassed many of the characteristics of the genre. The term Gothic actually originated as a term belittling the architecture and art of the period, which was dark, decaying, and dismal.

The settings were often old, dilapidated buildings or houses in gloomy, lifeless, fear-inducing landscapes The Fall of the House of Usher, mentioned later, is a great example of the use of nature and setting as a fearful element. Much of the literature involved monsters, such as vampires, who brought suffering and death to the forefront. There were also stories that simply displayed these elements of fear and suffering in the settings themselves.

Gothic fiction, sometimes Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a genre of literature and film that incorporates horror, death and at times romance. It is said to originate with the English author Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Early contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. It tends to stress emotion and a pleasurable terror that expands the Romantic literature of the time. The common "pleasures" were the sublime, which indescribably "takes us beyond ourselves." Such extreme Romanticism was popular throughout Europe, especially among English and German-language authors. Its 19th-century success peaked with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and works by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens , and in poetry with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Also well known was the later Dracula by Bram Stoker. The name Gothic spread from the Goths to mean "German". It also conjures up the Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, where many of the stories take place. Twentieth-century contributors include Daphne du Maurier, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice and Toni Morrison.

Frankenstein as a Gothic Novel :- 

The first Gothic horror novel was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1754. Perhaps the last type of novel in this mode was Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, published in 1847. In between 1754 and 1847, several other novels appeared using the Gothic horror story as a central story telling device, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1794) by Ann Radcliffe, The Monk (1796) by Matthew G. Lewis, and Melmouth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Maturin.

Gothic novels focus on the mysterious and supernatural. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses rather mysterious circumstances to have Victor Frankenstein create the monster: the cloudy circumstances under which Victor gathers body parts for his experiments and the use of little known modern technologies for unnatural purposes. Shelley employs the supernatural elements of raising the dead and macabre research into unexplored fields of science unknown by most readers. She also causes us to question our views on Victor's use of the dead for scientific experimentation. Upon hearing the story for the first time, Lord Byron is said to have run screaming from the room, so the desired effect was achieved by Mary Shelley.

Gothic novels also take place in gloomy places like old buildings , dungeons, or towers that serve as a backdrop for the mysterious circumstances. A familiar type of Gothic story is, of course, the ghost story. Also, far away places that seem mysterious to the readers function as part of the Gothic novel's setting. Frankenstein is set in continental Europe, specifically Switzerland and Germany, where many of Shelley's readers had not been. Further, the incorporation of the chase scenes through the Arctic regions takes us even further from England into regions unexplored by most readers. Likewise, Dracula is set in Transylvania, a region in Romania near the Hungarian border. Victor's laboratory is the perfect place to create a new type of human being. Laboratories and scientific experiments were not known to the average reader, thus this was an added element of mystery and gloom.

Just the thought of raising the dead is gruesome enough. Shelley takes full advantage of this literary device to enhance the strange feelings that Frankenstein generates in its readers. The thought of raising the dead would have made the average reader wince in disbelief and terror. Imagining Victor wandering the streets of Ingolstadt or the Orkney Islands after dark on a search for body parts adds to the sense of revulsion purposefully designed to evoke from the reader a feeling of dread for the characters involved in the story.

In the Gothic novel, the characters seem to bridge the mortal world and the supernatural world. Dracula lives as both a normal person and as the undead, moving easily between both worlds to accomplish his aims. Likewise, the Frankenstein monster seems to have some sort of communication between himself and his creator, because the monster appears wherever Victor goes. The monster also moves with amazing superhuman speed with Victor matching him in the chase towards the North Pole. Thus, Mary Shelley combines several ingredients to create a memorable novel in the Gothic tradition.

Reference :-

1. Seymour, Miranda. Mary Shelly. Faber, 2011.
2. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851. Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus : the 1818 Text. Oxford ; New York :Oxford University Press, 1998.
3. WASSON, SARA, and EMILY ALDER, editors. Gothic Science Fiction: 1980–2010. 1st ed., vol. 41, Liverpool University Press, 2011. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vj98n. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Thank you 

Dilip Barad sir

Words :-1560

Paper -1 Asssigment

 

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject:-Literature of The Elizabethan &Restoration Periods

• Topic:-What is Restoration comedy ? Justify The Rover as a Restoration Comedy? 

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :- asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

• Department :- The Department of English.

[1.]  What is Restoration Comedy? Justify ‘The Rover’ as a Restoration Comedy?
Ans :-

• Aphra Behn :-

Aphra Behn, a favorite of feminist literary critics, is considered to be the first woman to have made a living through her writing. There were other women writers before Behn, but few of them enjoyed financial success. Behn turned to her literary talent after the death of her husband, and she quickly proved her merit as well as her perseverance. Behn suffered from the biases of her time against women writers in general and women dramatists in particular. She was assumed by many of her contemporaries to be a prostitute; because of her connection to the theater and because at the time, women who sold their writing were seen as selling themselves. In her prefaces, Behn sometimes commented on her unique status as a woman writer and asked to be taken seriously as a writer, with equal right to freedom in what she wrote.

session video :-

•  Restoration comedy.

" Restoration comedy " is English comedy written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym of Restoration comedy. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime.

• The Rover as a Restoration Comedy :-

Restoration comedy, like most other literary genres, was deeply influenced by its historical context. With the abolition of the monarchy, England entered a period of puritan repression call the Interregnum or Commonwealth led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell's rule was fraught with problems between himself and Parliament. Tensions arose over the nature of the constitution and the issue of supremacy, control of the armed forces, and debates over religious tolerance. In 1653 Cromwell dissolved Parliament, appointing himself Lord Protector. After Cromwell's death in 1658, and the failure of his son Richard's short-lived Protectorate, the army invited Charles I's son, Charles, to become King. The restoration of the exiled Charles II to the throne of England in 1660 put an end to the claustrophobic Cromwellian regime and its preoccupation with hard work, at the expense of leisure.  This gave rise to an atmosphere of euphoria and a deliberate reversal of the Puritan ethic. People were determined to enjoy their newly regained luxury and there was a general spirit of Carpe Diem. King Charles II brought with him a sense of the fun and frivolity of the French court where he had resided in exile. The king had a hedonistic character - he had numerous mistresses and illegitimate children, and loved racing and gambling - which constituted a considerable influence on the art and literature of the time. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, the theatre companies were reopened and cast aside the Puritan restrictions of the previous eighteen years. The theatre of the time reflected the political and social changes brought by King Charles II's return to English soil. King Charles II’s most notorious mistress was Nell Gwynne, who was also one of the most famous actresses of the day. The unsentimental or "hard" comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege reflected the atmosphere at Court, and celebrated with frankness an aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. Thus, sexual promiscuity, systematic frivolity and unabashed materialism were evident characteristics of the restoration period. However, viewing the age only in terms of its Epicureanism would amount to having a rather narrow perspective of the times, as Bonamy Dobree points out in the essay ‘Restoration Comedy’. Great emphasis was, in fact, laid on taste and cultural refinement, with men from all sections of society striving to prove themselves as ‘wits’. All these features are reflected in the writings of the period, especially Restoration comedy plays, with Aphra Behn’s The Rover both conforming to the genre, as well as cleverly subverting it.

Socio- economic changes in England led to the rise of writing as a profession, with more and more writers becoming free agents, who wrote for the market. This greatly influenced their writings as the text now became a commodity, subject to criticism by the consumers, and vulnerable to being shaped by the same. In such a milieu, Aphra Behn was not only one of the first professional writers, but the earliest woman writer. Her very act of writing for money was a subversion of societal norms and expectations.  In fact, it coincided with the introduction of women actors into English drama. Behn was thus a subversive entity herself, a woman operating in the world of literature, the domain of men. She exercised her wit- and made her women characters do the same- in a time when the predominant mindset decreed that women were sentimental creatures, “antagonistic to intellect”. There was a growing tendency, in theatre, to serve the interests of the audience slavishly by playing to their commodity fetish. The audience mostly consisted of market-oriented, pleasure-seeking individuals who watched plays not for contemplation, but merely for leisure. Behn, in many ways, played the same role as other playwrights, allowing the watcher to act as voyeur and serving him with a heady mix of eroticism, sex antagonism and materialism. However, what sets Behn apart is that she made sure her plays offered a critique of her times even while conforming to them. The fact that critics sometimes question Behn’s positionality while mocking the belittling of women, when she herself was ‘putting herself out there’ as a published author, only serves to throw more light on the double standard accorded to the judgement of women since times immemorial. As Shyamala A. Narayan says in ‘The Rover as a Restoration Comedy’, “The Restoration aristocrats prided themselves on their bawdy wit. The male playwrights were applauded for it, but Aphra Behn, being a woman, was vilified for it.” It is a function of the same society that refused to pay equal wages to women actresses and criticised the same when they were forced to become mistresses for fear of poverty.

The Rover submits to many Restoration comic tropes but also flouts them, primarily by setting the text within the carnival- a space characterised by licentiousness and short lived ness. This heightens the spirit of Carpe Diem- Seize the Day- and the flouting of rules in true Restoration style, but also serves to problematize behaviours as all acts can be explained away as part of the masquerade. In Florinda and Helena we have the stock figures of the aristocratic virgin and the witty heroine, respectively. Florinda is afraid to outrightly rebel against her brother and has to resort to entering the carnival to achieve her desires. She is aware of the value of her virginity and protects it to the very end to present to her beloved in marriage. The image of the youthful dame getting repulsed by a rich decrepit old man is also rather typical of the comedies of the time. The subversive aspect of Florinda’s behaviour is that she uses wanton means to achieve her ends. Florinda in the garden in a state of undress with a box of jewels in her hands is her moment of empowerment where she not only asserts that she will settle for no less than what she is ‘worth’ but also that her sexual desire, contrary to her brother’s expectations, is a force to be reckoned with.

Helena’s wit is a significant tool for setting up the battle of the wits. With her intellect, she becomes the sole match for Willmore, who despite his Casanova nature is drawn repeatedly to her. Her wilful pursuit of Willmore becomes the subversive element in this case, with her admiration for his inconstancy becoming a threat to the patriarchal notion of women as sentimental beings. Of the Rover women, Helena fares best because, although she is lustful, her power is based not in her sexuality but in her wit for adventure. It is true that both women- like many other characters in the play- return to the folds of society towards the end by seeking legitimacy from the institution of marriage. Women are almost always at the receiving end in Behn’s plays, especially since Restoration literature sought to be realistic. However, the fact that her women put up a mighty fight against restrictive norms mirrors her own sense of agency. Angellica Bianca’s romantic longings and her act of gifting her sexuality as well as money to Wilmore not only disrupts the usual transaction in the space of the courtesan’s house, but also acts as a facilitator of the general vocabulary of commerce used in the play. 

Also many Restoration Comedies include a character “disappointed in love or fortune” who was written in especially to provide the extreme passion of despair . The rich prostitute Angelica Bianca, without chastity and modesty, thinks it is her privilege to seduce whomever she fancies. Behn’s radical awareness of the double standards of morality, by which men and women are enjoined to live, sounds most clearly in The Rover when Angelica points out that men effectively prostitute themselves in the marriage market when they marry a woman for her money and not for love. She tries to claim equal status with the men by using her sex as her power. Sadly, all her courtesan’s wealth cannot save Angelica from the bondage of “submissive passion” in which her true love for Willmore snares her.

Willmore, after whom the play is named, is the quintessential philandering rake, much like the model set by Charles II himself, imitated enthusiastically in many Restoration texts. However, Willmore is an alienated figure- an outsider, not tied down by any social roles- not because of deep cynicism or an active disregard for norms, but simply because of his free spirit and epicurean tendency. It can even be said that his fickleness arises from his natural attraction to charming women. Readers in more recent times may be more aware of the inappropriateness of Willmore’s behaviour, with our awareness of the feminist movement against the double standards that society uses to judge women. Yet, in order for the play to succeed, the audience must enjoy Willmore. We do not need to approve of him; in fact a critique of his licentiousness is built into the structure of the play as his chaotic sensuality almost destroys the happiness of the other characters, and does destroy Angelica. Antonio, for example, is a scheming, dishonourable two-timer who marries for money, betrays Florinda the day before her wedding and inveigles Belvile to fight his duel for him. By contrast, Willmore is neither calculating nor corrupt. He is naive. He assumes that everyone is motivated by the same indomitable, sensual Will as himself. His evil is more a blind spot than active malice. Willmore lives completely in the present tense. This frees him from the dominant motivations of greed and politics which Behn loathes in social relations. Willmore tells Don Pedro, “A Woman’s Honour is not worth guarding when she has a Mind to part with it”. By accepting Hellena at face value without her fortune and despite her warnings of intended inconstancy, Willmore roves outside the conventional Restoration fears of cuckoldry and material poverty. It is this spontaneity and honesty of spirit that Aphra Behn loved in him and which the audience must grasp at the same time that they see his shameful, dangerous sexism is unacceptable. The two rovers, Willmore and Hellena, share the same propensities; both are frank about their temperaments. Hellena’s attitude to female sexuality is as natural as that of Willmore. She has a natural urge to have a man who she likes. In fact she appropriates masculine discourse in her attempt to escape the nunnery. Willmore is undoubtedly the rakish hero, a Cavalier and flirts with women without any qualms of conscience, but it is Hellena who seems to be the real rover in the play.  Behn wants to crown her with success in her revolt against the father’s decision to confine her to a life of nunnery.

Crisis in the aristocracy- of which Pedro’s character is a function- is also turned on its head by his ultimate acceptance of Florinda and Belvile’s marriage. At this point, it may be argued that the Belvile-Florinda romance itself, though very generic and typical of comedies, is problematized through the repeated attempts at the rape of Florinda, which Belvile reacts to a little too mildly, considering he has been set up the ‘knight in shining armour’. Belvile’s friends act as typical rakes by mocking his love for Florinda and claiming that women could only be used for sexual needs. Blunt initially seems to be purely a stock figure- one often found in Restoration comedies. He is an English country gentleman, rich but foolish, a ‘country bumpkin’, fooled by a wily prostitute. His attempts at projecting himself as a wit evoke much laughter from the reader. However the same character later become a mouthpiece for violent, horrific misogyny and his speech directed at Florinda where he threatens to rape her, beat her up and hang her from a window, disrupts the harmless bumpkin stereotype.

It cannot be refuted that the play ends in rather typical ways, with the prostitute returning to her trade, and the virgins being awarded with marriage- a proverbial ‘happy ending’. However, all men, women and institutions pass through the marketplace and are valued, just as the text, and even its author, is. Through the carnival, Behn gives space to her characters to explore their true natures, albeit behind masks. To quote Anand Prakash in his essay, ‘“Designing” Women Socially and Market- Wise: Glimpses of the Restoration Strategy in The Rover’, “ … Behn is not attempting in The Rover a typical Restoration comedy with fops and wits in the fray out to merely titillate us but a representation that focuses upon serious issues of freedom, identity and physicality, particularly with respect to women.”

Reference :-

1. Butler, Sally. Suduiko, Aaron ed. "The Rover Summary". GradeSaver, 21 May 2015 Web. 15 February 2021.
2. Fujimura, Thomas H. 1952. The Restoration Comedy of Wit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3. Hoyt-Disick, Gabrielle. "The Rover." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 11 Aug 2015. Web. 15 Feb 2021.

Thank you ,

Dilip Barad sir

words :-2413

The Rover

 

1. Aphra Behn's The Rover: Evaluating Women's Social and Sexual Options:-
   
   
   

The Rover was Performed in 1677, Aphra Behn’s play, The Rover, speaks to this double standard, which limited her female peers’ sexual desires to the realm of convent, brothel, or home. Set loose in the topsy-turvy world of Carnival, her characters demonstrate the active, complicated game required of women seeking to secure personal happiness.  The dangers of the chase and the play’s tidy conclusion, on the other hand, suggest at how ladies neither could nor should stray too far into the masculine roles of wooer and possessor.  Late Stuart society, Behn seems to lament, offered no place to the sexually free, libertine woman.

session videos "The rover":-

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 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 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 crucial to a sexual ideology that insists on the indivisibility of feminine chastity from feminine identity” .  By appropriating 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 nun nor transgressive prostitute met Puritan expectations for women.

Hellena and Angellica also take on the appearances of men during the play.  Such costumes permit them to alter their lovers’ choices and lives.  “Dressed in man’s clothes,” Hellena can punish Willmore for his infidelity with “something do to vex him”.  She interferes in a meeting of Willmore and Angellica by informing the courtesan of “a young English gentleman” who wooed another woman and then “paid his broken vows to you”.  Seeking revenge an act later, Angellica Bianca dons “a masking habit and vizard” and threatens Willmore with a pistol .  Her choice of weapon—guns were used almost exclusively by men during Behn’s time—is “symbolic of her attempt to usurp phallic control” of her own sexual desires .Instead of feminizing her lust, Angellica masculinizes herself.  By masquerading as men, both women demonstrate how ladies may take ownership of rights associated only male Cavaliers, romance, justice, and sexuality.The “obligatory happy ending” of The Rover reveals the unfairness of the libertine system and the demand indeed, the unquestioned assumption that women would fit into the socially set role of prostitute or wife.  Florinda and Hellena’s attempts to challenge their brother’s arrangements are successful; the former marries her lover and the latter escapes a future as “handmaid to lazars and cripples” in the nunnery .  However, their enterprising boldness in chasing men leads them into the same wifely duties of most women.  Their challenge to “the repression of their autonomy and desires” still leads to the hierarchical man-woman relationship of Puritan wedlock .

Angellica’s attempt to unite her sexuality with true love fails.  She is initially immune to “the general disease of [the female] sex…that of being in love” .  She can sleep with whomever she wants and has found a way around Behn’s observation that women need reliable male support.  However, her life lacks the romantic passion of the hedonistic lifestyle.  Moreover, Angellica’s sexual liberation, for which lovers must pay to experience, contributes to her inability to snag Willmore’s long-term affection.  His lust could have been satiated with her portrait since someone else would “have the thousand crowns to give for the original” .  Her relegation back to courtesan shows how transgressive, premarital sex and proper marriage cannot mix.  As a sexual female, Angellica has no place in world when in the throes of libertine love: she can be neither indifferent courtesan nor devoted wife.

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.  Sex may be used, as Hellena shows, as a bartering chip to obtain a promise of marriage; when loosed for a young woman’s pleasure, however, sexuality keeps her from happiness.  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 had found a career of 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.

Whatever professional activity women in the theatre performed – whether playwright or actress - they soon lost their good reputation. It was seen as immoral to be an actress and thus, an actress was always assumed to be a prostitute when she displayed herself on-stage. This meant that women in the theatre were regarded as sexually available and no actress had "effective protection against male advances". In fact, many of the actresses during the Restoration period were actual prostitutes off-stage. In this way, they tried to handle the libertine belief of men that all theatre women were fair game and to retain at least some kind of reputation. If they were not prostitutes, actresses could achieve a good position through sexual patronage.

Female playwrights, however, were considered to be intruders on male territory as literature and poetry were exclusively meant for men. Women's writing existed but was rather restricted to writing letters in private. As soon as a woman published her works, she violated a woman's virtue of modesty, i.e. to be passive, quiet and cautious. Modesty was equated with chastity. Thus, women who published literary works were seen to making themselves public and therefore shameless, characteristics which were assumed as leading to eventual sexual excess and promiscuity. Being a female playwright was even worse because drama represented the most public literary genre, which meant that whatever opinion the playwright had it was made known to the public as soon as the play was shown on-stage. Hence, displaying a woman's opinion in public was the highest violation of modesty and therefore it was not worth regarding that woman as being respectable.

Aphra Behn's play The Rover subverts the traditional concept of women as the property of men and as being modest and thus, presents a new type of woman - the female rake. The following chapters will show how language manifests sexual domination. The next chapter presents different characters of the play and also looks at the characters' way of speaking and behaving. The third chapter then will examine how those different characters act when they meet. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn as to whether there is a relationship between language and sexual domination.

• The Sexual Politics of Behn's "Rover": After Patriarchy - Stephen Szilagyi :-

Each woman begins the play bound one of the three fates: Florinda to marriage, Hellena to the nunnery, and Angellica Bianca to well-paid prostitution.  Through Carnival, however, these women abandon their prescribed positions with disguises to “be mad as the rest, and take all innocent freedoms,” including to “outwit twenty brothers” . The masquerade serves multiple purposes.  First, disguise equalizes the class distinctions, “and even the difference between the categories available to women” . When lost in the festivities, the ladies join all that “are, or would have you think they’re courtesans,” the most sexually liberated women .  Their initial costumes as gypsies allow them to approach men in a feminized, desirous way.  Gypsies already occupy the role of outcast on the liminal edge of society; by taking on their looks, Florinda and Hellena put themselves and their sexuality outside the confines of cultural expectation.  Their decision implies Behn’s opinion that her peers should seek to escape the restrictions that define them.

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” .  Over the course of the play, each takes upon herself the position of active wooer.  Maidenly Hellena openly vows to do “not as my wise brother imagines but to love and to be beloved” by reeling in a husband .  Her virginal sister, Florinda, and the sexually liberated courtesan, Angellica Bianca, adopt similar goals in pursuit of passion.  They are nothing like the subordinate females of Puritan propriety, but witty, competent matches for the men they meet.  Through their strong personalities, Behn suggests at early British women’s potential to feel and act confidently on sexual feelings, thus “desire” and “ the construction of woman as a self-policing and passive commodity”

Thank you

Dlip Barad sir

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