The Rover Review

The Rover by Aphra Behn (400 pages)
My Rating: 3 Stars
Date Finished: 15 February 2015

Synopsis:
"We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues"When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples ‘in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin’. The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude to African slavery – while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.

This new edition of Oroonoko is based on the first printed edition of 1688, and includes a chronology, bibliography and notes. In her introduction, Janet Todd examines Aphra Behn’s views of slavery, colonization and politics, and her position as a professional woman writer in the Restoration.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

My Review:
I had to read this for one of my classes and I have got to say, I didn't really enjoy it that much. It got too hectic at times and the language kept tripping me up (which is weird because I am fine with Shakespeare which was written around the same time).

The characters felt very rushed for me. I know this was written a long time ago when it wasn't very accepted for women to write, but still, I wanted more from them. They didn't seem to have very good motivations for what they did other than that they wanted to do it.

This was very dark for a comedic play. There were a couple of instances of near rape and other not so good things that come up in life.