The Rover

“What an impertinent thing is a young girl bred in a nunnery!”

Florinda, exasperated by her younger sister’s questions about love, opens the play with one of its central messages: the more tightly one tries to control a woman, the more brazen she will be. Hellena’s rearing in a convent has only made her more curious about the life experiences that she is being denied, and more determined to learn for herself.

“Now hang me if I don’t love thee for that dear disobedience. I love mischief strangely, as most of our sex do, who are come to love nothing else.”

Hellena is more rebellious than her sister, and she is excited when the more obedient Florinda, fed up with having her life controlled, has reached the point of rebellion herself. Hellena attributes a love of mischief to all women, suggesting that all women are itching to take agency in their lives, which is viewed as being troublesome.

“I hate Don Vincentio, sir, and I would not have a man so dear to me as my brother follow the ill customs of our country, and make a slave of his sister.—And sir, my father’s will, I’m sure, you may divert.”

Florinda draws the connection between a traditional custom that is socially expected for women—an arranged marriage—and slavery, which amounts to treating her like property to be sold. She is also pointing out that Don Pedro has the authority to save her from this fate, but Don Pedro decides instead to force her into the same circumstances with a seemingly more desirable husband, missing the point that the problem is the removal of her freedom.