The Rover: Character Mind Map & Summary
Aphra Behn’s The Rover in brief: the key characters, the pairings at the end, a quick summary and the exam facts.
The Character Mind Map
Tap any name to open the details.
Willmore
An exiled English Cavalier and ship’s captain, charming, reckless and always chasing women. Arriving in Naples at Carnival, he is torn between the witty Hellena and the famous courtesan Angellica Bianca. In the end he gives up his wandering life and marries Hellena.
Ending: marries Hellena🌹 The Sisters
Escaping their brother’s plansHellenaThe witty younger sister
Role: Destined by her family for a convent, she escapes in disguise (as a gypsy, then a boy) to find love and chooses Willmore. She matches him wit for wit.
Marries WillmoreFlorindaThe elder sister
Role: Her brother wants her to marry a rich old man or his friend Antonio, but she loves Belvile.
Marries Belvile⛵ The Englishmen
Banished CavaliersBelvileAn honourable English colonel
Role: Florinda’s true love, loyal and serious.
Marries FlorindaNed BluntA foolish English country gentleman
Role: Robbed by a prostitute, Lucetta, and dropped through a trapdoor into a sewer. Comic, but also bitter towards women.
💰 Naples
Power & moneyAngellica BiancaA famous courtesan
Role: Displays her portrait and sells herself for a thousand crowns a month. She falls for Willmore, gives herself freely, is betrayed, and threatens him with a pistol.
Left aloneDon PedroThe sisters’ brother
Role: Controls his sisters’ marriages, a symbol of patriarchal power.
The Ending: Who Ends Up With Whom
A typical comedy ending in marriages, with one sharp exception.
Quick Summary
The plot in five lines.
Stage 1Carnival
- Hellena and Florinda escape their brother’s plans in carnival masks and meet the English Cavaliers, including Willmore.
Stage 2The Courtesan
- Willmore falls for Angellica’s portrait and wins her love for free.
Stage 3Two Women
- Willmore pursues Hellena as well. Blunt is robbed and dumped in a sewer.
Stage 4Confusion
- Mistaken identities, duels and a furious Angellica, who threatens Willmore.
Stage 5Marriages
- Florinda weds Belvile, Hellena weds Willmore, and Angellica is left alone.
Must-Know Exam Facts
Quick points for UGC NET, SET and PGT.
Full Title & Date
The Rover, or The Banished Cavaliers, first staged in 1677. A second part followed in 1681.
Source
Adapted from Thomas Killigrew’s Thomaso, or The Wanderer (1664).
Aphra Behn
The first Englishwoman to earn her living as a professional writer; also wrote Oroonoko (1688). Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own: all women should let flowers fall on her tomb, “for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds”.
Themes
Women’s freedom and choice in marriage, sexual double standards, money and marriage, and the exiled Cavaliers of the 1650s.
100+ Key Works of English Literature
All the character mind maps in one printed book.
