The idea that gender difference is socially
constructed is a contested view. The society and culture create gender roles
that are adhered to by the individuals. They are considered ideal for a person
of that gender. Looking at one side, it’s clear how gender has been constructed
by the patriarchal world. Gender roles are assigned to women by the male
dominated world where women are to remain submissive. Aphra Behn’s the rover
presents a male dominated world where the father and the brother decide the
suitable husbands for the daughters and sisters and the women are to remain
silent about their desires. Florinda is considered a property that can be
traded for in the marriage market. She is not allowed to love but to consider
Don Vincentio’ “fortune” and the “jointure” he’ll make” to Florinda as his
wife. Hellena, too, is “designed” to be a nun, thus when she sides with her
sister against her brother, Don Pedro silences and expels her to “go to her
devotion”. For the time when Florinda asserts her individuality and escapes
from her brother’s protection, she faces a greater vulnerability as she twice
becomes the victim of attempted rape. Anita Pacheco points out in her essay
‘Rape and the Female Subject in Aphra Behn’s The Rover’ the only two
“patriarchal definitions” of women: either that of a lady or a whore. We see
both of these in the major characters- Florinda, Hellena and Angellica. There
seems to be no middle ground in terms of the way women are perceived. Pacheco also
talks about how the boundary separating the two has become blurred; how the
line of distinction between a “maid of quality” and a whore is “blurred” in the
play. For instance, in the garden scene where Willmore tries to rape Florinda,
he considers her to be just another “errant harlot” who had her “cobwebs door
set open at this time of the night”. Willmore says so as Florinda was no longer
under the protective shield of her brother. She is also the victim of an attempted
rape in the scene where Blunt seeks revenge upon her for the false accusations.
The language used by men in the play is
that of trade. In the beginning of the play when Belvile is lost in thoughts of
Florinda, Fredrick points out that Belvile has no possibility of “gaining” her
upon which Belvile argues that his “rival” the Viceroy’s son is more “powerful”
as he is a “man of fortune”. For the women, the woman is a prized possession
that is to be won, To Don Pedro, who refused to give him Florida, Belvile says
that he “won her by my sword” and that she is his by “conquest”. Male characters,
in fact, celebrate their power by boasting of their strength. Willmore wins the
love of the courtesan Angellica as she admits he has a “power too strong to be
resisted”
Despite the fact that male characters try
to define and restrict them, the women characters resist such unjust exercised of
authority and challenge the male gender by asserting a new code of conduct
based on a more individual choice. “Power”, writes Judith Lowder Newton, “is the
ability to impose one’s self on another or to defend one’s self from imposition.”
Behn’s female characters refuse to be submissive and often defy the social norms
and codes built for them. In the opening
scene of the play, we are introduced o a space where women can express their ideas
and comments on the world of men and criticize the ills of the society.
Behn, a female writer working in the domain
of men creates her female characters as the ones that cross the boundaries of
social codes, thereby deconstructing the gender roles assigned to them.
