A Patriarchic Society in Aphra Behn's The Rover Essay

The Portrayal of the Plight of Women by the Author, In Their Particular Period of Time

Women were regard as a second class of people. They had neither legal right nor respect from their male counterparts. When the narrator's husband, John, a

This further develops Emilia’s character to the audience, as it displays her view of men, and how she believes that females are treated unequally in the world. Emilia’s view of men can be summed up in one of her very own quotes:

The role of the patriarchal society and its impact on the oppression of female characters

. . And I would not have liked to be a women.? (45, Ch 2) These two phrases are said by Ferula and her brother, Esteban Trueba, in a bicker about the care for their mother. Ferula is stuck in a position as a maternal figure, to care for the dying mother while Esteban?s masculinity allows him to enter the world carefree and to start a new life for himself. Free of the chains of Ferula?s obligation, her brother has the nerve to confess to her that he understands that women are not given equal opportunity while disregarding her dilemma for selfish purposes. His shallow point of view and strict desire for personal gain characterize Esteban as a careless exploiter of the male favored society and set a trend of irresponsibility that reoccurs in his disrespect for other lower class workers as well.

The notion that women belong to men, is a statement indicative of a female’s vulnerability. At many times within the novel, the idea that women are weak and feeble creatures is portrayed,

Presenting literature to the public that is meant to be a commentary on social or political issues, masked under the guise of entertaining and fictional, is a tool implemented by authors and activists for centuries. While not all satire is as overt as Jonathan Swift’s suggestion that we eat the babies, it does not diminish the eyebrow raising suggestions that are conveyed once the meaning has been discovered. In Aphra Behn’s The History of the Nun and Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, the established expectations of the female role within society are brought into question then directly rejected. These expectations establish that women should be deferential to men, morally unblemished, and virtuous at all times. Men, however, are not held to these expectations in the same way. The masculine roles assumed by Isabella and Fantomina demonstrate a private rebellion against the established patriarchal society as it warns against the under-estimation of women and proves that women exist independently.

Throughout the story we see the protagonist struggle with the gender roles placed upon her by her society; specifically the role she is supposed to play as

One of the most notorious topics of interest in the works of Shakespeare is the role women receive in his plays. The way Shakespeare wrote his plays, women were very submissive to men and had no will and choice of their own. Women were extremely reliant upon the men in their lives, believing that they were inferior and thus following their desire for the women’s lives. This included that marriages were usually arranged by a powerful male, instead of giving the woman the opportunity of choosing marriage for love. It is not surprising that Shakespeare portrayed women in a way that was familiar to him and the time era in which he lived. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew, both focus on the development of love and not, with

The elegant image of a bourgeois society with its emphasis on wealth and property, is only a mirage. Underneath it all is a different world of oppression—specifically, for women in the bourgeois class. In Henrik Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler and Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, both works depict female characters in the bourgeois class who face the societal oppression and cope with it in their own way. These oppressions are often set off by the male characters, constructed by the bourgeois society.

In the Middle Age literature, women are often presented or meant to come off as an unimportant character; which can also reflect on how the author wants the women character represent. Women are usually shunned, have no say or control in what they do; due to what men desire; like Ophelia and Gertrude did in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But these female characters that I will discuss are women with power, control, and a voice. Majority of the female character’s appearances are made to represent wickedness, evil, or a seducer who challenges a man belief; and does not symbolize perfect women.

Women have a specific role throughout the Elizabethan society and are known as inferior. In Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Nights Dream, women are told how to act by men, that reveals superiority towards men. This is portrayed by the characters-Hermia, Helena, and Titiana throughout the play. These characters were represented as powerless and blind because they fail to receive what they what and are told what to do countless amounts by the men in the play. Women's’ inferiority in the play makes it impossible for them to achieve true happiness attributable to the superiority the men in the play believe they have.

The novel “Oroonoko” is an eighteenth- century novel that focuses on the problems that occur with slave trade and how women are involved in it. The article “The Other Problem with Women: Reproduction and Slave Culture in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko.”, goes into great detail stating that women were viewed as property in this slave trade, focusing specifically on one of the characters in the book- Imoinda. Stated in the article, Imoinda was a “possession even before she was a slave” (Sussman 215). She was viewed as a piece of property as a woman because she was expected to do anything the king or Oroonoko asked of her before she was a slave.

The theme of female struggle against male dominancy is presented throughout the novel and the narrator,

In Gertrude Atherton’s Black Oxen, a man named Clavering falls in love with a woman who is not what she appears to be. When Clavering first sees Madame Zattiany, he views her as an object. He refers to her as “it” rather than “she” when he describes her at the beginning of the book. He states that, “in spite of its smooth white skin and rounded contours above an undamaged throat, it was, subtly, not a young face” (Atherton, page 45). Atherton is using Clavering as a vehicle to argue that men tend to see women as objects. It is easier to defend injustice if one can dehumanize the opposing side. It seems as if he is taking stock of her features, as if she were a cow being sold at a market, Clavering is observing her in the hopes of later devouring her. Clavering sees her and knows she is different because she draws attention to herself, she doesn’t just sit in silence. She simply isn’t behaving as Clavering believes a woman should. There is an uncertainty that comes when Clavering sees Mary disregarding the manners of the time. Then he observes her in great detail. His inspection reveals just how superficial Clavering is. He examines her so thoroughly, as if she was a prized mare at auction: “ her forehead was perhaps too high, but it was full, and thick hair was brushed back from a sharp point. Her eyebrows, thank Heaven, were many shades darker than her hair” (Atherton, pages 44-45). It is through these observations that Atherton emphasizes men’s obsession with the