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Soliloquy
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
As in much of her work, Behn's style in the The Rover can first and foremost be called anti-conventional—especially given that she was a female writer. Her language is clever and complex, and she does not shy away from filling the play with wordplay in the form of puns, double entendre, metaphors, euphemisms, and irony. Although this bold use of language is quite standard in Restoration comedies, it was unusual at this time for women to address sexual relationships, immorality, and debauchery as explicitly and playfully as she does in the play. Behn's gender doesn't deter her from writing explicitly about erotic themes and other topics that people would have found improper for women to address.
However, it would be wrong to claim that she simply writes like a man, given that her characters, plots, and commentaries on society are clearly informed by her experiences as a 17th-century woman. In The Rover, she combines her feminine vantage point with what was seen at the time as a masculine boldness.
Additionally, Behn's style is satirical, as she uses the play to comment on the Restoration period and to critique the members of upper-class society that would have comprised a large portion of her audiences. In line with this, Behn makes it clear throughout The Rover that she's aware of her audience. She includes, in addition to the derisive play's prologue and epilogue, a number of soliloquies and asides to create a bond between the characters and the audience. Behn clearly wants the audience to recognize themselves in the play's characters and to feel implicated by its events.
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