Aphra Behns A Lucky Chance An analysis of the purpose of the female characters contained therein
... To this end, a well-known poet and playwright named Aphra Behn wrote a play called The Lucky Chance, in which the primary feminine characters were created so that the reflections of the preconceived gender notions of the time might be examined and judged in a critical and thought provoking manner. ... It is into this disproportionate arrangement that the poet and playwright known eventually as Aphra Behn was born. ... During the voyage by ship to the colonies, John Amis died leaving Aphra, her mother, and various siblings to care for themselves. Aphra grew up on a plantation and was predisposed towards the Arts at an early age by both the wild and boisterous lifestyle to be found in the colonies as well as by various forms of literature. ... Aphra Behn wrote many plays, but possibly the most historically overlooked play of her career was the play entitled The Lucky Chance (Duffy, vii). Written and produced late in the 17th Century (1686), it at first received a moral censorship from the cultural elite due to its controversial taboo topics which included such themes as sexual innuendo and women characters flouting the desires of lascivious older men through the act (implied and otherwise) of infidelity (Duffy I. ... In the face of this unarguable evidence, Aphra Behn felt compelled to add a Preface to her play in which she beseeches her readers that “… All I ask, is the Privilege for my Masculine Part the Poet in me, (if any such you will allow me) to tread in those successful Paths my Predecessors have so long thriv’d in, to take those Measures that both the Ancient and Modern Writers have set me, and by which they have pleas’d the World so well …” (Duffy I. ... With this statement, Aphra cunningly plays upon the prejudices of the male-dominated society of her time, claiming that all of her skill and drive to write poetry was motivated by a supposed male side of her personality. ... Now that one has an admittedly brief understanding about society’s initial reaction to the play, one can focus on the play itself and in particular the female characters contained therein. ... However, Aphra Behn (not satisfied with just another general run-of-the-mill morality play) eagerly and almost immediately plunges her readers into a maelstrom of sexual desire and infidelity. ... Interestingly, all three characters were based on a true-life affair that had captured the imagination of the public at the time of the premier of The Lucky Chance. ... The secondary and debatably more interesting plot that is woven throughout Aphra’s play is the tension-filled events that exist between Julia, her husband Sir Cautious, and her intrepid and predestined lover Mr. ... If this was the case, then one might inquire as to the specific purpose of the character of Julia. Some might argue that Julia was a direct representation of Aphra Behn’s conscious ideas of what a strong woman should be like; someone able to meet the world head-on and to vie with the privileged for an equal piece of the proverbial pie. ... Again, the fact that she won everything in the end can easily be attributed to a lucky chance indeed, for in no way was Sir Cautious obliged to give Julia his fortune after she declared that she was leaving him for Gayman. ... It is conceivable that Aphra was attempting to comment on the greed and avarice so transparent in the lives of London’s elite.