Restoration Comedy, contemporary morality, and representations of gender

Hmm, it surprised me that the story to which Jeremy was referring was about Sandra Bernhard, because I think of her as someone who is really supportive of women's rights in general. There's a link to this story on her own website, which has her refuting the claims about this performance.

What you're pointing out, though, is the difference in attitdues between Restoration England and the contemporary United States. We talked about how, in Charles II's court, the possible impending rape of Florinda in Aphra Behn's The Rover was a comic situation. Now, it would be very difficult to stage the play as a comedy because that scene is incredibly dark.

One thing that should be clear from this class is that each play offers its own interpretive challenges when thinking about staging, and how to deal with the rape scene is one of the main problems of producing this play for a contemporary audience. As we discussed in class, the conventions of "comedies of manners" rely on satirizing the behaviors and social gestures of the upper classes. Also taking into account that Aphra Behn was a woman and that women were allowed to perform these characters, it's interesting to note her take on the way men behave in that culture with regards to women. One can also look at how women circumvent the social roles to which they are relegated.

Another thing that's interesting about this play in its different attitudes toward sexual mores is its representation of prostitution as a legal and condoned activity. Note that Angellica is very public about what she does for a living and not ashamed of it, while Hellena is not content with the lifestyle of a nun because it requires her to be celibate. (And compare this with the implied attitudes about marriage and sexuality in Romeo and Juliet or West Side Story). One other thing to note is how women treat each other in this play, as compared to how the men treat them.

Getting back to the idea of self-representation vs. representation by someone who is not a member of the identity group being portrayed, I'm interested in whether you think Behn writes women characters who are more complicated than the others we've read so far. And are the men she writes more stereotypical than others? Is there a way that Blunt and Frederick's behavior in that scene is an indictment of the kind of behavior that is condoned in men? Are there ways in which she seems to be satirizing the men and empathizing with the women through her depictions of them and their interactions?