Assignment – 16th-17th c Drama: Aphra Behn’s The Rover

BA Hons (English) Semester II

1. Bakhtin has identified carnival’s “second life outside officialdom” as a necessary outlet for
the revolutionary energies of a highly stratified, rigid society. In the light of the above
statement, discuss critically Aphra Behn’s The Rover.

ANS: The idea that carnival becomes a “necessary outlet for revolutionary energies” in a
rigid society can be understood through the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin and its application in
The Rover by Aphra Behn. Bakhtin describes carnival as a kind of “second life outside
officialdom,” meaning a temporary space where all the strict rules of society regarding class,
religion, gender, are relaxed or even reversed. This becomes especially important in the
Restoration period, which, despite its reputation for pleasure and openness, was actually very
controlled and hierarchical underneath it all. Restoration society was rigid in many ways.
There was a strong patriarchal system where men had authority over women, especially in
matters like marriage. Women were often treated as commodities, their marriages arranged
for money, status, or political advantage. At the same time, men could openly express their
desire, which created a clear double standard among the two genders, men could pursue
desire freely, but women were expected to remain modest and obedient. This tension between
control and desire is exactly why something like carnival becomes necessary. It provides a
space where people can temporarily escape these restrictions and express what is otherwise
suppressed.
In The Rover, the carnival happening in Naples becomes that space. The carnival is not just a
setting; it is highly important to the plot and story of the play. Through the masks, disguises,
and mistaken identities, the characters were able to move beyond their fixed social roles. For
example, Florinda and Helena are both under the control of their brother Don Pedro, who has
already decided their future, wanting Florinda to marry Don Antonio, and Helena to enter a
convent and become a nun. In normal circumstances, they would not have been able to resist
their chosen future, but in the backdrop of the carnival the sisters were able to break the
boundaries and make their own future with help of the masking and hidden identities.
Helena uses the full advantage of the carnival to explore her freedom, she goes to the carnival
disguised as a gypsy, where she has an encounter with Willmore, engaging with him and even
pursuing him. This is a very important story line because it reverses the usual gender dynamic
where men are the one pursuing women. Helena is portrayed as a bold character under the
light of the carnival; she flirts with Willmore and even challenges him intellectually and by
the end of the play and ends up securing a marriage with Willmore on her own terms.
Through this, Aphra Behn shows how the carnival allows women to step outside their
imposed gender roles and claim some level of agency. This also reflects Bakhtin’s idea as
Helena shows the inversion of norms during the carnival, but temporarily since at the end she
has to conform to a traditional structure of marriage as her “happy ending”.
Florinda, on the other hand, uses her disguise to escape from her forced marriage, her
marriage has been fixed with Don Antonio by her brother, whom she does not want to marry,
and during the carnival under the hidden identities, she tries to escape her forced marriage
and reunite with Belvile, her lover. Yet through her character we see a dark side of the
carnival and she has been put in danger of sexual violence, even under the freedom of the
festival. She has almost been assaulted too many times, even by Willmore and her brother,
who fail to recognize her under disguise. This scenario shows that while men like Willmore
get to enjoy the carnival without any problem, women are still in a place of danger. It also
shows us how under the light the carnivals men allow their freedom to become even more
aggressive.
However, Angellica Bianca presents the most complex case of this. As a courtesan, she exists
outside the boundaries of the high society. Her body is explicitly commodified, coming with a
fixed price. During the carnival it becomes even more validated as desire and exchange are
dominant in the atmosphere. Angelica Bianca end up disrupting the system entirely due to her
emotional involvement with Willmore despite being a courtesan she fell in love, she
challenges the idea of her being a mere object of desire and transaction. At the same time, her
vulnerability exposes the limitations of the freedom during carnival that other benefit from.
Unlike Hellena, Angellica cannot achieve what she desires, which a respectability, as she is
not a woman of quality, her social position remains fixed as a courtesan. Her anger and sense
of betrayal highlight the emotional cost of a system that reduces women to objects. In her
case, Bakhtin’s idea is contradictory as the carnival becomes a space where the rules of the
restoration society is exposed not resolved even temporarily.
This all shows that the carnival does not provide equal liberty to everyone and it exposes that
the power structures can not be completely removed from the society. In the case of Willmore
who represents the carnival as a place to pursue pleasure without taking any responsibility.
His behaviour however highlights the double standard of the society as even in a space where
norms are supposed to be suspended, gender inequality is still present.
Another important aspect of the revolutionary ideas during the carnival is shown through the
use of stage devices like masks and mistaken identity. Through the masks and hidden
identities Characters are not portrayed as who they seem, and social distinctions become
blurred. However, this confusion also leads to problems, especially for women as the same
disguise which gives them freedom also puts them in danger. Behn uses the example of
Florinda and her almost harassments to show that the idea of freedom is not as simple as it
seems.
Hence, the carnival in The Rover works as both a space of rebellion and a form of control. It
allows characters to act outside social norms, but only temporarily. By the end of the play,
order is restored through marriages. Florinda end up marrying her lover, Belvile, and Helena
ends up with Willmore escaping her duty to go to the convent, and Angelica Bianca goes
back to being a courtesan expressing how despite it all, angelica being a courtesan does not
allow her a ending like Helena’s or Florinda’s and remains out of society. While this might
seem like a happy ending for the two sisters, it has a deeper meaning, showing how they had
oblige to the societal rules and brought back to the very structure they tried to break through
just toned down. This connects directly to Bakhtin’s idea that carnival is a temporary
solution, not a complete revolution.
The carnival provides an opportunity to provide a temporary suspension to social hierarchy
and control. However, Helena, Florinda, and Angellica Bianca show how this is limited and
uneven. Helena is able to gain agency and secure a socially acceptable future. In contrast,
Florinda’s experience shows that dangers still exist for women, and Angellica’s
commodification situation shows the limitations of a system that is still exploiting her. This is
how restrictive and liberating both the carnival and Behn’s work are. This reinforces and
supports Bakhtin’s view of the carnival to Behn’s work to say that it is not a radical social
change. Therefore, carnival liberates social order inversion, but does not change the order and
reinforces what it challenges.

Works Cited
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Hélène Iswolsky, Indiana
University Press, 1984.
Behn, Aphra. The Rover. Edited by Asha S. Kanwar and Anand Prakash, 2018.
Gallagher, Catherine. “Who Was That Masked Woman? The Prostitute and the Playwright in
the Comedies of Aphra Behn.”