Karla Heinen
ENG 579
Dr. Morillo
Sept. 19, 2008
Feigning Control and Maintaining Madness in Behn’s The Rover; Or, The Banished Cavaliers
In Act III, scene i, of Aphra Behn’s The Rover; Or, The Banished Cavaliers, the prominent Restoration feature of disguise amidst a playful critique of serious problems in gender relations reveals the underlying themes of madness and desire for control within sexual relationships. In particular, Hellena struggles for control over her seemingly mad love for Willmore. Despite her willfulness and atypically strong language, Hellena physically hides from view and disguises her identity in her quest for a lover who defies all reasonable qualifications for a husband. At the same time, the men, Willmore, Belvile, and Frederick, struggle to understand one another, taking language for granted and misreading the visual cues of the women, confusing signs—the women’s disguises—with the actual identities of the women. In this scene, Behn continuously complicates traditional binaries of reason and madness, and language and image, as the characters seek sexual power and struggle with its elusiveness.
Through language, Hellena discovers the inexplicable madness associated with falling in love. Hellena speaks with a newfound sense of experience in this scene, a departure from her exchange with Florinda and Pedro in the play’s first scene, in which she asserted that she would find love as a means of revenge against her brother (and father) for plans to send her to a nunnery. She explores her own shift from an understanding of love as “a very pretty, idle, sill kind of pleasure to pass one’s time with” (III.i.69-70) to the complicated emotions of jealousy, fear, and anger. Hellena’s intent had been love for sport, but she begins to change her perspective in this scene, ironically feeling trapped by feelings of love, instead of the real confinement of a forced religious life.
Hellena’s female friends, along with the audience, must consider the sanity of their usually willful friend in her desire for Willmore. When Willmore does not arrive at their designated meeting, Hellena says, “he has not kept his word with me here—and may be taken up. That thought is not very pleasant to me. What the deuce should this be, now, that I feel?” (III.i.26). Hellena, despite the fact that she speaks a great deal in this play, and in this scene in particular, does not have the language to articulate the complexity of the jealousy she feels inside herself. Because she lacks the language of love, she relies on Valeria to fill in some of the gaps. Valeria, who has earlier teased Hellena for being in love prompts her to describe her feelings, and asks her, “What is’t like?” (III.i.28). Despite her teasing, Valeria listens and interprets Hellena’s feelings, helping her to classify and distinguish them.
Hellena relies on her friend’s prompting as she tries to decipher her new, complex, emotions. She responds, “I cannot choose but be angry and afraid when I think that mad fellow should be in love with anybody but me” (III.i.29-32). Hellena on some level recognizes the folly of choosing Willmore, already referring to him as “mad,” yet she resigns herself to the uncontrollable feelings of love for him. Frequently, though, the audience must weigh Hellena’s genuine concerns in her discourse on trust with the knowledge of Willmore’s less appealing motives, an unabashed and unmitigated sexual desire. Here, Hellena struggles for the control over her own jealousy as well as control over the language to interpret those emotions. Her loquaciousness does not eliminate the need for inter-communication and reliance on her female supporters to discover her own emotions. For Hellena, control comes not in language or image alone, but in a community of female supporters; but ironically, not the female community of the nunnery to which she was destined.
In addition to contemplating uncontrollable jealousy, Hellena cynically reflects on a woman’s path toward romantic and platonic relationships. She says to Willmore, “I am as inconstant as / you, for I have considered, Captain, that a / handsome woman has a great deal to do whilst her / face is good, for then is our harvest-time to gather / friends; and should I in these days of my youth / catch a fit of foolish constancy, I were undone...” (III.i.209-214). Hellena’s exchange with Willmore sounds like more than the simple flirting of an adventurous lady before she enters the confinement of the nunnery; instead, she appeals to larger questions about a woman’s role in society and her need to maneuver through societal double standards, which call for the women to marry young and remain faithful to a husband, despite his actions. Hellena reflects here on the necessity of female friendships, suggesting that those relationships are more reasonable and stable than sexual relationships, which she considers a “fit of foolish constancy.” Hellena equates constancy with foolishness and inconstancy with reason, further commenting on societal gender norms in which women, considered less rational than men, are inherently disposed toward constancy in love.
While struggling for linguistic domination, the main female characters use physical disguise as means of feigning control in their respective sexual relationships. Hellena remains masked in this scene through much of her discussion with Willmore until she chooses to reveal her face, in order to affect him. She times that revelation to have the greatest possible impact and, as a result, Willmore is taken aback. He says, “By heaven, I never saw so much beauty!” (III.i.231). Behn complicates traditional notions of masculinity and femininity through Hellena’s use of feminine beauty, which is traditionally thought to bewitch men, but Hellena also uses wit (coded masculine) in order to decide when to reveal that beauty. In that way, Willmore appears spellbound by the visual overload of Hellena’s physical revelation. He says, “... those / soft round melting cherry lips! And small even / white teeth! Not to be expressed, but silently / adored! Oh, one look more! And strike me dumb...” (III.I.234-237). Attuned to every small detail of her features, Willmore focuses exclusively on visual signs controlled by the women (specifically, Hellena in this instance). He willingly sacrifices language for a fleeting, and sometimes inauthentic visual stimulus.
Florinda conceals her identity in a conversation with Belvile in a way that is parallel to Hellena’s exchange with Willmore; however, Florinda uses reason and visual control in different ways than Hellena. After tempting Belvile with her love, while disguised as another woman, Florinda only reveals her true identity to him in the form of a picture after she leaves, as opposed to Hellena’s well-timed revelation of her beauty. Florinda reveals her identity in an image—a reflection of herself, but not her actual self, in the same way that Hellena shows her face and wit, but reveals nothing about her background. The woman have both disguised and revealed different parts of their identity; neither woman has revealed her entire self.
Both men and women in this scene profess madness in the face of various linguistic and visual disguises, which hinder their ability to maintain control of relationships. At Hellena’s explanation of her erupting love, Florinda twice questions her sanity, “Art thou mad to talk so?” (III.i.45) and “What a mad creature’s this?” (III.i.82). Florinda should commiserate with her sister’s wish to assert independent choices about her love life, considering her own wish to marry Belvile instead of her brother’s choice for her, Vincentio. However, Florinda’s language reflects the same patriarchal control she herself wishes to avoid when she wonders to Hellena, “Who will like thee well enough to have thee that hears hat a mad wench thou art?” (III.i.45-47). Hellena responds to Florinda’s charge, “Like me! I don’t intend that every he that likes me shall / have me, but he that I like.” Florinda should relate to Hellena’s language of independent power and choice because she has expressed the same desire for control in the play’s opening scene, in which Hellena first connects the relationship between the nunnery and an arranged marriage. While Hellena constantly pauses over their like situations, Florinda does not see, or validate, the similarity.
Florinda
seemingly has made the sounder choice of husbands in Belvile, who is more faithful
than the other men. However, instead of feelings of admiration, Belvile draws a
kind of ambivalence from the other characters who focus on his weakness and
inability to see through disguise. Frustrated by his missed opportunity with
Florinda, Belvile seeks consolation in his friend. However, Willmore, always
misinterpreting the events around him, responds, “Why, dost thou know her?”
(III.i.330) assuming that Belvile is referring to Hellena when, actually,
Florinda is the one on his mind. Belvile and Willmore are talking to each other
about different women, desiring them for different reasons, and uninterested in
each other’s success. Belvile’s response to Willmore’s question about “her”
identity epitomizes the misunderstanding between them. He responds by saying,
“I understand thee not. I’m mad” (III.i.335). These men have very little
concern for each other’s ultimate well-being, similar to, but on a grander
scale than Florinda’s lack of sympathy for Hellena. The men seek their own
pleasures, often at each other’s expense.
This particular scene in The Rover highlights a struggle for control, not just control of sexual relationships but control over the language necessary to influence those relationships and the power to control one’s own identity in the battle of manipulation and disguise. Behn never allows the audience to settle on a consistent portrayal of what control looks like; it is often fueled by a (feminine) madness, more explosive and more entertaining than (masculine) reason. Near the end of the scene Belvile, refers to “our design,” (341) his plan for outmaneuvering Pedro to marry Florinda, a plan in which he enlisted the assistance of his inconstant friends. However, the scene repeatedly suggests that control is impossible without a mastery of linguistic and visual power, without some reliance on trustworthy friends, and without an acceptance of uncontrollable madness.