Aphra Behn – Gender Economics in the Rover

TERM PAPER Gender Economics of a workforceds and Aphra Behn adit The recurrence era bothowed wo custody to amount into what was historically an essentially masculine space, that of literary and histrionics production. As women stepped on stage, they entered a market- they were commodities displayed to attract a larger tug towards the theatre of operations. so even though through writing or acting a woman could gain financial independence, un want men they werent interchange their work, they were ostensibly selling a part of themselves. A woman could non lead commodification even if she didnt enter this particular market matrimony and the nunnery were too means of buying and selling of womens w atomic number 18s. The hymen itself was a commodity, as a woman could only marry if she was a virgin.In circumstance arguably in Restoration Comedy no witty unwed was without property and a maidenhead. gum olibanum, arguably, a woman could not escape being a prostitute in the R estoration Period. As a woman author who thus reflected the trend of women actors entering the world of theatrical production, Aphra Behn was continually negotiating the dichotomy of economic freedom and control of women in this market-space. then her work would be the basel case study to understand the conjureual practice economics of the Restoration Period.In this circumstance, I would like to position Aphra Behns works, The bird of passage Part I and II, The Feignd Curtizans, The Luckey Chance, The Forced Marriage or The Jealous Bridegroom and The Golden Age to understand the place of women in the economics of the Restoration Era and how they negotiated in the market-space they were now stepping into. WOMENS PROBLEMATIZED INTRODUCTION IN THE MARKET The restoration of Charles II to the throne brought a al or so deliberate reversal of the previously prevalent Puritan ethic. There was a modfangled kind of apparent lettered freedom.He introduced the practice of actresses pe rforming effeminate roles. However, actresses earned far less than actors, thus had to resort to being mistresses. Also, make by the women was tantamount to prostitution. Typically, the Restoration comedies portrayed the lives of hedonistic young men who filled their leisure hours with drinking, whoring, theatre and wit. They needed money nevertheless had no inclination to actually earn it and preferred procuring it through hymeneals to an heiress. As in the typical Restoration comedy, men seek sex and money, the girls want a say in the choice of a coupling partner.Thus evidently the heroine is allowed freedom of thought save her freedom of action is curb to ensuring that she is a virgin when she gets married to the man of her choice. As a happy professional playwright, Aphra Behn definitely wrote plays which are typical of the Restoration, yet she manages to comment on a topic which touched her very closely the true berth of women in the society as they begin to participa te a wee much actively in the constructs of gender economics. POSITIONING APHRA BEHN The prologue of The bird of passage, adopted to be indite by A person of quality, states As for the author of this cozy climax playI asked him what he thought fit I should say (pp 4) It was only in the third issue of the commencement ceremony edition in 1677 that Aphra Behn authorship. This was because she was always attacked for track d take in on the territory of male playwrights. In fact, as quoted in Angeline Goreau, Reconstructing Aphra (New York The telephone dial Press, 1980) Aphra Behn formerly famously said The Woman damns the poet Indeed, the fact that Aphra Behn could earn a living writing for the theatre was precisely what condemned her. The muckraking satirist Robert Gould wrote ypical stander in a short piece addressed to Behn that concluded with this couplet For touchwood and poetess agree so Par, You cannot be This and not be That. Robert Goulds verse, with its equating of poetess and punk, provides some evidence of the culture of gender in Restoration England. In her case, however, the view of professional writer indicated immodesty the author, like her texts, became a commodity. Thus one notices that she stages this relationship between young-bearing(prenominal) creativity and prevalent realm or between what Robert Gould, in euphemisms, refers to as this and that, in her works. THE pure COMMODITY AND FETISHDowry system among propertied classes had been in place since 16th century, nevertheless by the end of the 17th century the women to men ratio was 1310, thus cash portions had to grow to attract worthy suitors. The quantify of women deteriorate by almost 50%, wedding party by choice, became almost unthinkable. Thus in economic terms, women through spousal had evident exchange value that is, the virgin became a commodity not only as breeder of the legal heir and for her portion. Women in the seventeenth-century mating market took on the phantasmagoric destiny of commodities they depended no more than fair games or things.The issue arises repeatedly in plays and verse of the period not only are marriages loveless, but, once married, women lose both independent identity and control of their probabilitys. Womens omit of access to institutions of knowledge spurred protest from writers as it reduced them to things, rather than better individuals. Also the cultural narrative of portion, jointure, and legal dependency in which the women of this succession is written about is clearly not as subject but as object of exchange.Also, as discussed earlier, when Aphra Behn wrote her seventeen play (1670-1689), the theatrical hierarchy, like all cultural institutions, was ancient in control and participation. Aristocratic or upper-class males generally wrote the plays, purchased tickets, and formed the coteries of critics and witlings whose disruptive presence is remarked on in countless play prologues and epilogues. Also , in its machinery and properties, the Restoration stage was now arguably more dreamlike, seductive, and commodity intensive. Here the mind of a fetish becomes important.A fetish, by Freuds description is the male impulse to eroticize objects or female proboscis parts, which derives from a disavowal of a sensible lack (of the penis on the m early(a)s body). The second under stand of the word is through Marxs account of the felicitation of the commodity at the moment of exchange, the commodity appears to be separate from the workers who product it the special social character of private labours disavowed. This idea is relevant because on the stage, the Restoration actress, is nothing but an ornament in the male gaze.This attitude is apparent as Thomas Shadwell links the new phenomenon of female performers with painted theatrical scenes, both innovative commodities for audience white plague Had we not for yr pleasure found new wayes You still had grey-haired Arras had, and thredb are playes Not Scenes nor Woomen had they had their will, But some with grizld Beards had acted Woomen still. What this actually meant in the cultures sexual economy is perhaps more accurately suggested by meta-theatrical references in plays prologues and epilogues.The actress playing Flirt in Wycheleys The human Dancing master satirically invited the good men o th Exchange from the pit into the backstage tiring-room You we would rather see between our Scenes Thus rather than producing a performance, the actress emerges as a spectacle unto herself, a painted prototype to lure the male stunner. In her professional duplicity, in her desirability, in her lots human race status of unploughed mistress, she is frequently equated with a prostitute, thus getting the definite status of a commodity.APHRA BEHNS PARTICIPATION IN COMMODIFICATION AND FETISHISATION The spider (1677) and The Second Part of The scouter (1681) are Behns only plays to punctuate a character a courtesan. In he r wholly original The misrepresent Curtezans (1679), virgins impersonate famous Roman courtesans and near-debauches occur, but marriages settle the confusion of plots and the financial stink of prostitution is hastily cleared away. However it is germane bill that even if courtesans figure by name in only leash plays, the commodification of women in the marriage market is Aphra Behns first and most morose theme.Beginning appropriately enough with The Forced Marriage or The Jealous Bridegrom (1670), all of Behns seventeen known plays deal to some extent with women plump for by dowries or portions who are forced by their fathers into marriage in exchange for jointure, an agreed-upon income to be settled on the wife should she be widowed. Aphra Behn change state on exposing the exploitation of women in the exchange economy, adding vividly to contemporary talk of on the oppressions of marriage. Who would marry, asks Behns Ariadne (The Second Part of the Rover), who woud be chided thus, and interchange to Slavery? In the context of fetishization, it is easy to subscriber line the metonymic connection between the painted actress and the painted scenes in the theatre, therefore it is not surprising that the first woman to earn money locomote her own representations had a (somewhat combative) relationship with the theatre apparatus. Aphra Behn, more than any different Restoration playwright, explores the fetish/commodity status. She utilizes the conventional objects of Restoration plays the marriage market, sexual intrigue, masquerade, flamboyance even as she condenseals their contradictory meanings for women.It is ostensibly a contradiction of all feminist expectation to discover that Aphra Behn contributed to that visual pleasure by choosing to exploit the fetish/commodity status of the actress. The stage offered two playing spaces, the forestage used especially for comedy, where actor and audience were in intimate proximity, and the upstage or sceni c stage, with wing-and-shutter settings, producing the exotic pictures needed for husking scenes of heroic tragedy.Writing mostly comedies, Aphra Behn might be expected to follow mirthful convention and use the forestage area, but as Peter Holland notes, she was positively obsessive about discovery scenes. Holland counts 31 discoveries in ten comedies, most of which are bedroom scenes featuring a female character in leach. Thus displayed, the female performer becomes a fetish object, affording the male spectator the pleasure of being seduced by and, simultaneously, of being harbored from the effects of sexual difference.Thus, in Behns texts, the conflict between (as she puts it) her defenceless womans body and her masculine part(of being a writer), is staged in her insistence, in play after play, on the equation between female body and fetish, fetish and commodity-the body in her scenes. Like the actress, the woman dramatist is sexualized, circulated, denied a subject position in the theatre hierarchy. This unstable, contradictory protrude of agency emerges in as early as Behns first plays prologue (to The Forced Marriage, or The Jealous Bridegroom, 1670).In this, an actress who, pointing to the Ladies praises both them and presumably the woman author Can any see that glorious mussiness and say A woman shall not prove Victor straight off? The glorious sight, is, once again, the fetishised representation of the female, standing on the forestage, session in the pit, and soon to be inscribed as author of a printed play. THE ROVER The Rover is a fascinating study in the context of this paper as it not only thematises the marketing of women in marriage and prostitution, it demonstrates (quite literally) the ideological contradictions of the apparatus Behn inherited and the society for which she wrote.Prostitution of both genders In Angellica, Hellena, Florinda and Lucetta Behn shows the plenty and inescapable commodification of all women. However the id ea is also problematized and even false on its head. The man is also equated to a commodity in this bazaar world. Angellica equates dowry to prostitution money, thus saying that a man sells his own self in the marriage market, for a womans fortune Pray tell me, sir, are you not guilty of the same promoter crime?When a lady is proposed to you for a wife, you never ask, how fair-discreet-or virtuous she is but whats her Fortune-which, if but small, you cry-she will not do my pipeline-and basely reelect her, thou she languish for you-say, is not this as poor. (pp 38) Thus we see that Angellicas prostitution image is cross gendered, for men are designated mercenary in negotiating sexual contracts between husband and wife. Indeed, Willmore himself appears prostituted in accepting five carbon crowns from Angellica, and in the subplot, Blunts barbarous treatment by Lucetta parallels Angellicas by Willmore.The Portrait of Angellica The first references to Angellica situate her beyond the market in which we expect her to function. She is not behind an exotic vizard, or discovered in her bedchamber after the parting of the scenes, but is first seen as a portrayal. She is introduced by Belvile, as A famous courtesan, thats to be interchange (p. 23). For a opinionful audience, this immediately raises a question, to be sold by whom? Released by the earlier keepers death, Angellica and Moretta are two women who seem to be in business for themselves.At this point, however, Blunt reminds us again of the object status of the woman, as of her painted signs Im sure were no chapmen for the commodity (p. 28). On the other hand, Angellicas self portraying has been compared to that of a Petrarchan mistress who attempts to turn her sexuality into an alternative form of power, since she has been excluded from the married marketplace. Wilmores appeal of love attracts her and not unlike ladies in matrimonial market, she gives up herself and her gold. If one analyzes this sit uation, it can be said that this was an inescapable band.As Angellica watches men gaze upon her portrait, she is, first and foremost, a sight, an object to be claimed. Only in Behns text is this phenomenon made so evident, the paintings here function as fetishes, as substitute objects for the female body. Indeed, the portrait which advertises her charms is arguably a sign of submission to the male spectator, offering up the female figure as an eroticized object which exists to serve his pleasure. Thus evidently Wilmore can reduce Angellicas representation from an icon of authority to a pornographic image (a fetish) and claim the right of possession, which I will maintain.He is responding to something very real in the portrait. The same sense of power of a transcendent male authority is also registered by Willmores gaze and the stealing of the potrait. In effect Angellica is then doubly commodified-first because she puts her body into exchange, and second because this body is equate d with, indeed mutual with, the art object. Thus then the woman thats to be sold is then even sold by theatre itself, which, like the portrait equates woman with an art object to be displayed and attract an audience. Like Willmore, the theatre operates with the kings patent and authorization.The masquerade of portraits and discovery scenes, do not demonstrate freedom, but to flaunt the charms that guarantee and uphold male power. In fact in the wooing/bargaining scene with Wilmore it becomes clear that Angellica wants to step out of the exchange economy symbolized by the painting Canst thou deliberate these yielding joys will be entirely time, / without considering they were mercenary? (p. 39) By eliminating her value-form, Angellica attempts to return her body to a state of nature, to take herself out of circulation in the market. However, s Aphra Behn poignantly points out through her texts, Angellica will fail due to the ecomonic organize which circulates all women as marketab le objects. The Virgins This brings us to the other two hint women in the play, both virgins and of high birth, Hellena and Florinda. Ironically, the virgins first costume, the gypsy masquerade, represents their actual standing in the marriage market exotic retailers of fortunes (dowry and maidenhead). Their masquerade defers but does not alter the structure of gender economics which sold a womans body.On this level, as often discussed by critics, the play presents a dramatic world dominated by the two principal venerable definitions of women, the sporting lady and the virgin, but in which the boundary separating one category from the other has become blurred. First there is the elder born, Florinda. The properties which sustain Florindas status as an autonomous subject free to distinguish her own marriage partner are largely those for which the men in her family want to protect her it is her beauty, rank and fortune that make her such a prized asset on the marriage market.It i s Floridas rebellion against the commodification of forced marriage that destabilizes her position inwardly patriarchy, for a while. However, she seeks to maintain this position as it gives her the agency to somewhat choose her husband. This is why Florinda remains inscribed within male discourse and chides her baby for being curious in a discourse of love scorn being a maid designed for a nun. At the same time, she is degraded to the level of an object, a commodity, however precious, in a coercive structure of exchange.Because her self-esteem derives entirely from her status as a lady, she is able to measure her human value only by patriarchal standards. Her near rapes show this predicament. Men (Wilmore, Blunt, her own brother) seem to be chronically incapable of accepting the Florindas No as something which means No. On this level, the scenes are written with Behns male spectators in mind and accommodate the most complacent of responses to Florindas predicament. Then there is Hellena.The idea of Hellena being a female Rover is highly problematized as she is a woman and can be a Rover only in her words and not actual action. In fact all Behn attempts to do through her is minimize the difference between the status of the virgin and the whore as both Hellena and Angellica as advertise themselves in a way. tally to the critic Nancy Copeland, Hellenas self-blazon in the first scene functions like Angellicas pictures hung out of lure buyers of her body (Angellica advertises herself publicly Hellenas self advertising takes place within the privacy of her home).This difference is eroded, however, when Hellena is blazoned at the reservoir of Act V. Also, We learn that Hellenas portion derives from her uncle, the old man who kept Angellica Bianca thus the gold Willmore receives from the courtesan has the same source as that which he will earn by marrying the virgin. It is not only through Hellena and Angellica that parity between virgin and whore develops. For instance, both Florinda and Lucetta also advertise themselves publicly.Florinda passes a jeweled miniature of herself (another portrait) to Belvile, who then circulates it among his companions. Lucetta, the cunning whore, parades herself provocatively before her propective new dupe This is Stranger, I know by his gazing if he be brisk, heI venture to follow me and then if I understand my Trade, hes mine. Also at night in the garden in undress, Florinda, carrying a little box of jewels-a double metonym for dowry and maidenhead, is also clearly reducing herself to an object of exchange.Thus while Angellica attempts to step out of the surface, material and exchange connotations of a painting, the virgins of the marriage plot are talking business and learning the powers of deferral and unveiling. CONCLUSION A woman then, arguably, was nothing more than an object. She seemingly couldnt escape being bought, sold, bargained for, fantasized about, fetishized and gazed at. However, contradi ctorily, even though her kept hymen (or virgin heart), portion (or gold) made her a valuable commodity-it made the man a commodity too as he sold himself for dowry or generally money and sex.Yet in some manner the Restoration man remained in the subject position, in both the marriage market and the world of literary and theatrical production. This is what puts a woman in a no-win situation in both the private and the public sphere and Aphra Behn brings out this very discrepancy of norms and attitudes in her texts. Her texts expose the fugly bias in the celebration of new found sexual self-reliance in her time. Here she shows that the gender economics of the Restoration era are complicated but they definitely squarely position the woman as a commodity.Aphra Behns women may, to a limited extend, try to escape this fate she does not gloss over the fact that these women will fail to do so till the entire market is restructured. BIBLIOGRAPHY Behn, Aphra. The Rover. Prakash, Asha S K anwar & Anand. The Rover Worldview decisive Edition. Delhi Worldview Publications, 2000. 6-108. Diamond, Elin. Gestus and Signature in Aphra Behns Rover. (1989). JSTOR. Web. 28 Feb. 2012. Gallagher, Catherine. Who was that Masked Woman? The sporting lady and the Playwight in the Comedies of Aphra Behn. Womens Studies (1988). Pancheco, Anita. 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