Three
Excllent Short Essays on Aphra Behn's The Rover
I
Desexualized and Penniless: The Fall of Blunt in Aphra Behn’s The Rover
By:
Eric R. Gerson
ENG 579
MW 3:00 – 4:15 p.m.
Dr. John Morillo
Sept. 23 2005
The male characters in Aphra Behn’s The Rover demonstrate three dominate personality traits of male sexual desire. Unfortunately, these characteristics desexualize the men, causing them to become the subject of female dominance. In Act III scene ii, Blunt is presented as innocent, inexperienced, naïve, and anxious, thereby conforming to the concept of a virgin. As such, Blunt is easily fooled by Lucetta, and loses not only his economic status over the other characters, but his innocent perception that women are perfect (III.ii.129). Upon falling into the sewer drain, Blunt undergoes an anti-baptism, forcing him to realize the truth that some women are as underhanded as men. Additionally, rather than becoming pure, Blunt becomes sullied and dirty, leading to sin rather than redemption, as seen in his attempted rape of Florinda. Belvile and Willmore also adhere to the women’s desires and advances, while exhibiting the two additional sexual traits, with Belvile the sensitive, caring male, and Willmore the insensitive, aggressive member of the trio. Since the women seek their desires regardless of the patriarchal or societal influences that attempt to sway them otherwise, they are granted the dominate personalities of the story. Though the play concludes by adhering to the Renaissance romantic comedy’s formula of multiple marriages, the matrimonies are only conducted once the men adhere to what the women desire of them; the men must change and mature to conform to the female standard of what a mate should be. Since Blunt is incapable of conforming, he remains the only major character left alone at the play’s conclusion.
Blunt’s fall begins in Act III scene ii where he is anxiously awaiting sex with Lucetta. The dialogue between the characters is such that Blunt speaks with multiple asides to convey his emotions. The asides are his manner of expressing how enticed he is by Lucetta’s charms: “I am transported … Kind Heart! How prettily she talks” (III.ii.6, 17). Blunt’s “virginity” is made apparent in his statement, “this one Nights enjoy- / ment with her, will be worth all the days I ever past in Essex” (III.ii.31-2). In referring to his life in Essex as days that were past, and since one night with Lucetta will make up for all his lost time seems to infer that his nights were lonely while his days were spent working rather than having sex. As a virgin, it is not surprising that Blunt is easily hoodwinked by Lucetta, especially since his financial greed leads him to hastily attempt to sleep with her without stopping to logically access the situation. Blunt is the only character with money in the play, “you / have been kept so poor with Parliaments and / Protectors … but I thank my Stars, I had / more Grace than to forfeit my estate by Cava- / liering” (I.ii.62-4, 65-7), and as such, he relates his greed with his desire to have sex, assuming that since he is financially secure, he can possess a married woman. He is so arrogant about his stature in society that he believes Lucetta is willing to betray her husband to have sex with a man she just met, “Now we are safe and free; no fears of the / coming home of my Old Jealous Husband … at first sight of that sweet Face / and Shape, it made me your absolute Captive” (III.ii.1-2, 16-7). His arrogance is further noted in thinking that, though he is a virgin and therefore inexperienced at sex, he is still such a man that he will force Lucetta to forget her husband, move to England with him, and ignore her right to his settlement; or living will, as seen in Blunt’s aside beginning at line 17:
Egad I’ll / shew her Husband a Spanish trick; send him / out of the World and Marry her: she’s damnably in Love with me, and will ne’re mind / Settlements, and so there’s that sav’d.
The combination of his arrogant greed and annoying innocence yields little to no sympathy for him as Lucetta performs her coup. Additionally, the irony of Blunt’s character is that he believes he is a caring, giving, sensitive man, when he is actually the stingiest character of the play. Blunt separates himself from the idea of someone cruel and money-hungry, like Jews were considered at the time, in his proclamation, “what dost thou take me / for? A Jew? An insensible heathen” (III.ii.53-4). He tries to convince himself, and Lucetta, that he is different from such people, when in fact, the entire situation, along with his later attempt to rape Florinda, do nothing more than further elaborate upon his childishness.
Blunt’s monologue as the bed descends into the sewers is a testament to his naivety. When he is unable to find Lucetta in the sheets, he thinks she is playing a humorous trick on him that they will later laugh at, “a pretty Love-trick this — how / she’l laugh at me anon” (III.ii.69-70). The realization that he is being truly tricked never occurs to Blunt because of the arrogance and overconfidence he has for his manhood. However, the scene itself desexualizes him, observed not only by Lucetta tricking him, but by the very act of the bed descending into the sewers. The bed is supposed to be the means of confirming Blunt’s stature in male pride, but rather than experiencing an orgasm that will allow Blunt to touch the sky, he experiences a ruse that throws him into the sewers. When Blunt finally understands what has happened, he calls out for his heroes of male promiscuity, the “Dogs! / Rogues! Pimps” (III.ii.78-9), that he previously tried to distance himself from by stating that he would not be false or cruel (III.ii.53-57). Additionally, the notion of Blunt’s greed and need for social approval is apparent when Lucetta and her men rummage through Blunt’s belongings. The amount of wealth that he carries on his person is far too much for a normal man to have if not trying to seek social, and even sexual, approval of those he encounters:
A rich Coat! … a / Gold watch!—a Purse … Gold!—at least / Two Hundred Pistols!—a bunch of Diamond / Rings! And one with the family Arms!—a Gold / Box!—with a Medal of his king! … the Wasteband of his / Breeches have a Mine of Gold! (III.ii.90-98).
Upon losing all his wealth, and thus his only means of pretending to be a man, Blunt rises from the sewers. Having now experienced a type of anti-baptism, he realizes the truth that his inexperience has thus far shrouded; the reality that “what a Dog [he] was … / to believe in Woman” (III.ii.128-9). He further comes to understand that he has perceived the world with the eyes of a naïve child when he refers to himself as a “cursed Puppy” (III.ii.132), rather than a dog as he initially did when coming to understand his ignorance. Blunt’s only folly in this situation is that regardless of the epiphany that he undergoes, rather than attempt to redeem his person, he seeks revenge on an innocent woman, thus becoming even more despicable than before.
In his attempted rape of Florinda, Blunt has developed into a cruel-minded and spiteful individual, now referring to women as “a she Creature” (IV.iv.34) rather than adoring names like “sheartlikens” (III.ii.11) or “sweetest” (IV.ii.68) as he had during his courting of Lucetta. The only reason that he does not condemn Florinda to his vengeance is due to his fear of the repercussions of raping a “Maid of quality … [rather than] a Harlot” (IV.iv.171-2). In this way, Blunt is still in the same state of mind, and has not matured or grown as a man, but rather sunk lower than he had previously. The same attributes can be attached to Willmore for attempting to rape Florinda, but even in the act, Willmore is drunk, and thus not of a sound mind. Additionally, though Willmore is such a disgraceful man to try to rape Florinda, and spend his nights trying to bed a whore without paying the fee, as seen in his courting of Angelica in act II, scene ii, he does change his manners to win the heart of Hellena. At first, Willmore desires only to bed Hellena, without the prospect of a long-term relationship. However, in the end, to appease her desires and express his true affection, Willmore exhibits how much he has matured, and agrees to wed Hellena, “I adore thy Humour and will marry thee” (V.i.581). Willmore’s metamorphosis is also shown in his realization that he has loved Hellena even when thinking her only a gypsy, “since I lov’d her before I either / knew her Birth or Name, I must pursue my / resolution, and marry her” (V.i.640-2). This same type of sacrifice for the heart of a woman, regardless of what benefits one would have for courting her, cannot be performed by Blunt. It is for this reason that though everyone else is coming to find their life-partner in the end, with Belville and Florinda, Willmore and Hellena, and Antonio and Angellica, Blunt remains alone. His is a notion entirely built from the idea that a true man is only that which has acquired great wealth, sexual experience, and the approval of society. Since all of these things are taken from him by women in the play, the story concludes with Blunt desexualized, penniless, and emotionally broken, testifying to one of the play’s morals: a true man is one who is willing to sacrifice everything they are and have for the love of a woman, regardless of what that women is capable of providing him.
Blunt’s fall is his own fault as he is incapable of seeing the realities of his situation. With Lucetta, his overwhelming anxiety to finally lose his virginity leads to a horrible ordeal that, for another more experienced, less greedy man, would have been an easily predictable ruse. The trick on his promiscuity only led to more trouble with his metaphoric anti-baptism. Having been thrown into the sewers, and learning the truth that some women in the world are as corrupt as he, he develops into a rapist that will accost the first woman who happens along his path. Even when he is in the midst of vengeance, the only saving grace for Florinda is Blunt’s fear of what the other men would think of him should he hurt a fine woman, rather than the whore he thought her to be. Ultimately, Blunt is incapable of growing or conforming to the standard of a descent man, and therefore remains isolated from the true love that his peers are capable of finding.
Works Cited
Behn, Aphra. “The Rover” Restoration Drama: An Anthology. Ed. David Womersley.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000. 337.
Nicole Ackermann
Dr. Morillo
English 579
Paper #1
23 September 2005
Exchangeable and Interchangeable:
Representations of “Property” in Aphra Behn’s The Rover
If nineteenth century England can be characterized as the age of encroaching, demoralizing industrialization, the period known as the Restoration (1660-1722) christened a new consumer-oriented era of exciting colonialism and technical innovation that laid its foundation. The feudalist, subsistence-based society of the past began to give way in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to one of capitalism. And as English society embraced the opportunity to benefit financially from expanding markets, their values simultaneously shifted from those “stabilizing ethic[s] of rational benevolence, community, and common sense” to “faulty [ones] that drive commerce – self-interest, novelty and impermanence, profit and loss” (Mackie 31). This emerging shift in values can be interpreted in Restoration Theater; especially in Aphra Behn’s The Rover, which explores the issue of “property” symbolically or (arguably) inadvertently as a result of changing priorities. The Rover not only portrays budding excitement over increased wealth and therefore, property during the Restoration, but also English society’s inexperience with these things as they encroach upon many facets of everyday life.
Aphra Behn’s The Rover seems to interrogate the increasing distinction between male-public and female-domestic spheres which were created by a growing awareness of the corruptibility and/or imposition of capitalism, beginning in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. English society during this time became culturally conscious of gender differences which we see explored from the opening scene of The Rover as its characters constantly engage in discourse concerning “male” versus “female” roles. Therefore, by analyzing the play’s three main female characters, Florinda, Hellena and Angellica, it is possible to interpret a sense of exchangeability and interchangeability about them – perhaps consciously incorporated by Behn to represent the changing ideal of what constitutes “property” for the play’s male characters, specifically Don Pedro, Belvile and Willmore.
One particular issue of property is raised immediately in the love story plot considering that the play opens with the betrothal of Florinda and banishment of Hellena to nunnery by their father (who is never present in the play itself) and their brother, Don Pedro, who is charged to look after them. Though it was traditional for a male family member to make arrangements for his sister or daughter’s “well-being” in life, Behn turns this ideal radically upside-down for her time by equating marriage and nunnery with a kind of imprisonment because it is imposed. An explicit example of this occurs as an aside made by Hellena towards Don Pedro in Act I, Scene I: “I’st not enough you make a Nun of me, but you/ must cast my Sister away too? Exposing her to a/ worse confinement than a Religious life” (123-125). According to Hellena, marriage without love is a fate worse than being desexualized by nunnery. This picture of figurative imprisonment by arranged-marriage or literal imprisonment by nunnery, keeps in line with the evolving values of the Restoration by highlighting the issue of ownership not just in terms of gender relations but also capitalism. The wife, or sister is Hellena’s case, becomes an object to barter, to gain, to exploit in an unequal male-dominated relationship. Don Pedro “commodifies” Florinda very specifically in this way in Act II, Scene I when he challenges Antonio to a duel:
PEDRO. We are prevented; dare you meet me to
Morrow on the Molo?
For I’ve a Title to a better quarrel,
That of Florinda in whose credulous heart
Thou’st made an Int’rest, and destroyed my hopes.
ANTONIO. Dare! (254-259)
This so-called “better quarrel” between Don Pedro and Antonio – realistically only a display of manhood – highly representative of the issue of ownership in terms of property and the objectification of women when one considers that their disagreement originally began over another objectified woman, Angellica – the literal embodiment of “commodification” as a prostitute.
The “true love” that Florinda and Hellena find at the end of The Rover with Belvile and Willmore is largely untraditional for the Restoration period and would have seemed somewhat fantastical in reality considering that they both “disobey” their brother: Florinda marries whom she pleases and Hellena abandons religious service to marry a man of her choosing also. It can be argued that Aphra Behn is largely radical by presenting sexually empowered female characters like Florinda and Hellena; she finds novelty in projecting and exploring the questions of objectivity. However, in considering the overwhelming social norms of the time as before-mentioned as male-public, female-domestic along with the rising shift in values away from community and towards consumerism, the ending of Behn’s play reaffirms the certainty of traditionalism while also displaying the unavoidable intrusion of new ideals. For example, the matches made by Florinda and Hellena are ultimately confirmed by their brother, and overseer, Don Pedro – projecting a traditional, familiar “blessing” despite the girls’ undutiful behavior. Outwardly he validates their marriages joyously, but inwardly he sees their marriages as a sort of trade, a deal man-to-man in which responsibility (in effect ownership) has to be passed: “(Aside) -Come – there’s one motive induces me-/ take her [Hellena] – I shall now be free from fears of her/ Honour, guard it you now, if you can, I have/ been a slave to’t long enough/” (5.1.656-659). Again, there is the idea of imprisonment elicited, but in Don Pedro’s case, as a man, his confinement is defined by another dominating force – the valuation of honor and sexuality as negotiable or tradable, alongside an awareness of status or reputation.
More abundant opportunities for self-improvement, created by expanding markets and technological advancements during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, essentially carved out a space for ambition, and alternatively jealousy, in English society. The importance of one’s “status” became dependent upon personal wealth instead of personal charity or lineage. Therefore, Aphra Behn not only cautiously explores a relatively new idea of property defining male and female roles in The Rover, but she also considers how real, literal property can be representative of other, more abstract ideas such as love or reputation. An example of the way in which Behn takes issue with this concept is apparent in the significance of mere stage props – a ring and a picture. In Act IV, Scene IV Florinda finds herself under the unusual and accidental control of Blunt, (who has sworn to take advantage of her to punish all woman-kind with the aid of Frederick) after she mistakenly took refuge in his lodging from what she thought was her brother’s pursuit. To stop her “attackers” Florinda produces the diamond ring that Belvile had given her as a token of his love:
FLORINDA. Sir, if you find me not worth Belvile’s
care, use me as you please, and that you may
thank I merit better treatment than you threa-
ten – pray take this present –
Gives him a Ring; he looks on it
BLUNT. Hum – a Diamond! why ‘tis a wonderful
Virtue now that lies in this Ring, a mollifying
Virtue; adsheartlikins there’s more perswasive [sic]
Rhetorick in’t, than all her Sex can utter.
FREDERICK. I begin to suspect something; and
‘twould anger us vilely to be trussed up for a
rape upon a Maid of quality, when we only
believe we ruffle a Harlot (4.4.161-172).
The ring’s presentation in this scene is meant to elicit two very different kinds of ownership. Florinda uses the ring to identify herself as Belivile’s in order to convince Blunt and Frederick that she is spoken for by another man – their friend no less. In this sense Florinda confirms herself as property, suggesting to Blunt and Frederick that abusing her would be to directly steal her owner, her fiancé. In this case the ring signifies her heart, her love, her trust, and essentially her chastity as well as Belivile’s acceptance of those responsibilities and agreement to protect them. Florinda’s desperate presentation of the ring also suggests a plea of status though. Frederick notes that abusing a “Maid of quality” would be quite different than abusing the common “Harlot” that they immediately assume Florinda to be. And in this sense, she effectively appeals to Blunt and Frederick’s appreciation for wealth and respect for reputation on the part of herself and themselves.
The picture of Angellica is yet another example of Aphra Behn’s incorporation of property as a kind of signifier of her increasingly capitalistic Restoration world. Angellica’s picture takes on the quality of advertising her profession and simultaneously the fact that she is, quite literally, “for sale.” As a prostitute her heart is negotiable until purchased, and even then it is impermanently bound. When Willmore steals Angellica’s picture he effectively steals her heart for his own, taking her “off the market” literally and figuratively – especially since she comes to truly admire him. And in Act V, Scene I when Angellica pulls a gun on Willmore, not only does she reverse gender roles by controlling the situation with her arguably phallic weapon, but she argues that loving him forced her to relinquish her prized reputation: “-But when Love held the Mirror, the undeceiving Glass/ Reflected all the weakness of my Soul, and made me know/ My richest treasure being lost, my Honour,/” (5.1.356-368). In love, she began to value herself as more than just an object for exploitation; she began to assume a status above her own. However, because Willmore was not equally in love with her, another man, Antonio, must overtake her newfound power – again, literally by snatching her pistol and figuratively by reaffirming her as a commodity.
Symbols like Florinda’s diamond ring or Angellica’s picture represent the exchangeability or interchangeability of women when reduced to nothing more than their status. Like these objects, the social traditions of Restoration England such as honor or gender roles represent the objectification of women within a property-owning and property-defined society. What is unique and intriguing about Aphra Behn’s The Rover is that it explores these emerging ideas in such a way that aspects of them remain familiar while the role of commerce upon social institutions like that of love and marriage is highlighted. The changing values of the period are reflected in the play’s character interactions as they attempt to find self-interested purpose appropriate to the gender and station. New, uncertain values are interrogated within the context of the play’s plot along with symbols of the period’s foundation for capitalist culture.
WORKS CITED
Behn, Aphra. “The Rover.” Restoration Drama: An Anthology. Ed. David Womersley.
Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. 337-384.
Mackie, Erin. “Cultural and Historical Background.” Introduction. The
Commerce of Everyday
Life: Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator. By Mackie. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 1998. 1-46.
Dr. J. Morillo
English 579
23 September 2005
Could I have that in Writing?
Love
as a Contract in Behn’s The Rover
Act I of Aphra Behn’s Restoration Comedy The Rover begins with an unmistakable benchmark of a tragedy, as there is an interaction between the characters that translates to the audience as “not quite right.” Unhappiness and dissatisfaction are, literally, the first emotions expressed by both Florinda and Hellena, who are clearly subjects in their father’s kingdom. At first perusal, it appears as if the patriarch is pulling strings from afar as he maintains absolute authority in the destinies of his daughters and is negotiating their futures without their input. However, in teaching his daughters literacy he has essentially created two women in Florinda and Hellena who are capable of entering into their own contracts, without the interference of their father. In manipulating their own futures and participating in their own acquisitions, the ladies of The Rover are dismissing the societal charge that they leave this business to a male agent, and in doing so, they enter into contractual love, and agree to marriages that more resemble mercantilism than sacred unions. Just as the prostitute in the play, Angellica, trades her flesh for profit, Hellena and Florinda barter their bodies in acts of pure rebellion in an effort to maintain absolute control over their own destinies. In their marriage choices, however, they both exhibit an obvious lack of good negotiating skills, which ironically will leave them both morally and physically bankrupt as they vend their futures to men with no “fortune.”
Although the women undoubtedly have the most to lose by tackling powerful negotiations in which they are not adept, it is clear that the men in the play also are not exactly brilliant rhetoricians. The absent patriarch sends his son, and the women’s brothers, to negotiate on his behalf, transforming him into a parody of a Christ-figure [‘Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works’ (John 1.14)]. Although Don Pedro is attempting to ensure Hellena’s matriculation into the nunnery, he is not in agreement with his father when it comes to the future of Florinda; he believes she should marry one of his friends:
“As for you, Florinda, I’ve only try’d you all this
while and urg’d my Father’s will; but mine is,
that you wou’d love Antonio, he is Brave and
young, and all that compleat the happiness
of a Gallant Maid” (I.i.198-202).
Not only is Don Pedro neglecting to carry out the “good works” of his father, he is changing his father’s wishes completely. He is not the best negotiator for his father to employ, and this creates a discord from the beginning and calls into question the right thing. In the same scene, Callis, the governess of the women, also is unwittingly entered into a contract by Don Pedro: “Callis, make it your business to watch this Wild Cat” (I.i.196-7). She takes her new employment about as seriously as does Don Pedro—she neglects to fulfill her end of the bargain when she allows the young women to go carousing at the carnival: “I have a Youthful itch of going myself” (I.i.242). At this point in the play, the audience cannot be sure whom to trust, because everyone appears to have their own ends in mind; perhaps this is the reason the two women must negotiate on their own behalf. No one else in the play seems to have the character to fulfill his or her obligations, and as a future trophy-wife and nun, they will be better served to manipulate their own bartering then putting their lives in the hands of those of such weak character.
After the realization that they must choose their own fates, the sisters begin to interject on their own behalf. Enter Hellena, the first of the sisters to take up the business of negotiation, and while gypsy-clad. In her first interaction with Wilmore, the arrangement they discuss has all of the markings of an entrepreneurial exchange: “The First I guess by a certain forward
Impu- / dence, which does not displease me at this time, / and the loss of you Money will vex you, because / I hope you have but very little to lose" (I.ii.180-4). Hellena, rather than speaking the high discourse of chivalric love, is using language commonly reserved for commodities trade. She employs words like “money”(I.ii.182), “bus’ness” (I.ii.189), “prevail” (I.ii.213), and “Purse” (I.ii.193). She is not using the Aristotelian language of a noblewoman; she instead resembles an attorney arranging a financial deal. Wilmore responds with the candid truth: “Nay, then thou dost deal with the Devil, / that’s certain” (II.ii.194-5). This impending marriage is nothing more than an arrangement to be discussed by persons with a vested interest in their own outcomes, although the merger at stake is a wedding, rather than a conglomerate. This “loving” exchange is at best, a discourse on high finance, and at worst, a job interview. Hellena is outlining for Wilmore some ideal qualifications for an employee: “Can you Storm?” (II.ii.222). “What think you of a Nunnery Wall? For he / that wins me, must gain that first” (II.ii.224-5). In lieu of the language of the courtly lover, both Hellena and Wilmore are speaking the language of the law—an absolute parody of Petrarchan love, and an example of how the Chain of Being has been demolished, beginning with the failures of the “Only Begotten Son” in Act One. The aspects of love are enumerated and laid out as if part of a legal document where love is nothing more than a barter arrangement with actual flesh being the acquisition, and declarations of courtly love are clauses in a contract. Although the intended language is that of love, it is disguised (as is the ‘gyspsy’ speaking it, as the O.E.D. defines ‘gypsy’ as ‘a cunning or deceitful woman’), the goal is to get to the bottom line—and that bottom line is, “credit for a Heart” (I.ii.251).
While Hellena is busy negotiating her way out of a lifetime of abstinence, Florinda is looking for an adequate substitution for Don Vincentio’s aged marital bed. She has a particular fellow in mind, who is young and handsome; however, in her contractual discussions, she overlooks a fundamental element of mercantilism—money. For although Belvile is attractive and enamored of her, he is regrettably also, “without fortune.” The contract between Florinda and Belvile has, in a manner, been prearranged. They are aware of one another through a previous meeting, and the stage is already set to continue negotiations, rather than to start them. Florinda and Belvile clearly have an existing agreement of some sort, and this is evinced in Belvile’s language: “Oh charming Sybil stay, complete that joy / which as it is will turn into distraction” (I.ii.297-8). Belvile is not interested in renegotiating; he simply is desirous that Florinda fulfill a contract that has previously been formulated. Unlike her sister, who seems to settle relatively quickly on a mate, Florinda tends a bit more towards the selective. She knows what she wants, and as an agent of free will, she pursues it until it is hers. However, she still ends up married to a man of few resources, calling her judgment into question—she has bartered her flesh in exchange for escape from another man. It is clear that Florinda does love Belvile, but one may question her motives upon rushing into marriage within two revolutions of the sun, and whether it is love, rebellion, or escape that motivates her urgency:
“With indignation, and how near soever
my Father thinks I am to Marrying that hated
Object, I shall let him see, I understand better,
what’s due my Beauty, Birth and Fortune,
and more to my Soul, than to obey those
unjust Commands” (I.i.25-9).
By marrying Belvile, Florinda’s accomplishments are three-fold. She is escaping an unhappy marriage to a wealthy, but much older, man, she is denouncing the interference of a controlling patriarch, and she is blatantly dismissing one disloyal and meddling sibling. Both young women are, in effect, escaping what they perceive to be prisons in the forms of undesired institutions—Hellena, the institution of a Nunnery, and Florinda, the institution of a loveless marriage. However, in a time when women needed the financial backing of men in this institution, Florinda needs to be somewhat more selective in her pursuits, rendering her a pretty poor negotiator, just as are her sister and brother.
There are even more unsuccessful negotiations made by Angellica, the prostitute. Although she is the only player who acts as an agent of passion, she is ultimately the biggest loser in the play. A dabbler in the flesh trade and a self-supporting entity, Angellica should be an expert negotiator. She has managed to support herself with her body of work for quite some time, she is a woman of ample means, and she is certainly not devoid of business. Her mistakes, however, are quite different from those of Hellena and Florinda, for Angellica is not searching for an quick escape from an unpleasant situation. Her dealings with Wilmore begin with a simple financial transaction: “And will you pay me then the price I ask?” (II.ii.166). These dealings end, however, with a barter of a different sort: “The pay, I mean, is but thy Love for / mine” (II.ii.173-4). Ironically, the only character in the play that is honestly and passionately speaking the language of chivalric love is Angellica, whose entire life is represented as one large commodities trade. To her detriment, however, she finds that Wilmore “cannot credit [her]” (II.ii.140), which accomplishes two things: primarily, it enlightens the audience, if they did not know already, to Wilmore’s financial status, and secondly, it implies that he will only love his way out of a debt. Angellica is directly opposed to Wilmore in that Wilmore wants Hellena to “give [him] credit for a Heart” (I.i.251), while Angellica is more than willing to take a heart for credit. In their own way, Angellica and Wilmore have entered into their own contract, and one that on the surface appears quite clear cut. Likewise, the language of this contract is clear, and when these negotiations end in Act V with the appearance of a pistol, the assumption can be made that the clauses of this contract were violated—and by the person on the wrong side of the gun. Angellica emerges as the enforcer of the contract. She is the only character who holds others accountable for their words. Furthermore, she is the only person who equates herself with any real value: “—Love, that has rob’d it of its unconcern, / Of all that Pride that taught me how to value it” (V.i.314-5). Angellica may barter her body daily in exchange for financial independence, but she makes a clear distinction between her body and her heart, and as the voice of passion, condemns those whose words are material rather than genuine: “Oh that thou wert in ernest!” (V.i.378). Not only has Angellica’s profession made her wise to the ways of the world, but she is also wise in the ways of the heart, which expands upon the common theme of the “charitable prostitute.” In this mercantilist society, the one who ends up without a mate is also the one who devalues materialism, making her the character that although heartbroken and deceived at the end of the play will be much better off in the long run than her disguise-donning associates.
What is the moral of this Restoration Comedy that bares great resemblance to a Tragedy? Passion has no place in the business of mercantilism, and in the long run, everyone gets what they pay for. Florinda marries the poor Belvile in Act V, and Hellena’s marriage at the end of the play hangs in the balance upon the word of a man with really bad credit. Although each of the women have the ability to make decisions for themselves, these decisions do not necessarily contribute to happy endings. Free will, although an inalienable right, does not ensure good “fortune.” The characters in the play who are motivated by controlling their own negotiations are inept at doing so, while the cast members who are capable send someone else to do the dirty work. The entire fiasco could probably have been avoided had one absent father not employed an unreliable messenger, whose only goal was to manipulate one sister while taunting the other. There are three choice words for this family of freel-willding, incapable individuals---Bankrupt, Bankrupt, Bankrupt!