Like Cavendish, Behn represents her Amazonian heroines as fulfilling temporary roles. When these role reversals have served their purpose, the women are either killed or reintegrated back into their normal roles in society. The women assumed Amazonian dress as a means to an end in order to pursue their romantic agenda or to avenge the wrongs perpetrated against their lovers.
Chapter 5 examines the trope of the female warrior in a Restoration setting. By employing the image of the Amazonian warrior in a variety of contexts in both her plays, Behn raises the profile of the woman warrior and demonstrates that military engagement can be an option for women for a period of time and that fighting with weapons and entering the battlefield is not exclusively a male privilege.
Chapter 6 begins with an examination of the context of the Restoration settlement that made it possible for Charles to return from exile. This chapter introduces the third theme of the book—the representation of clemency and peacemaking, as it manifests in the work of Katherine Philips and Aphra Behn. The chapter argues that Katherine Philips’ play Pompey, which was produced in Dublin in 1663, and Horace, which was staged in 1668 and 1669 at the Theatre Royal, are important dramas, as both show the brutal impact of civil war and the need to move toward stable government. This chapter demonstrates that Philips’ personal circumstances presented an interesting challenge in the postwar era—in that she was a committed Royalist who had married James Philips, a staunch Parliamentarian. Philips successfully negotiated this situation and used every opportunity to promote peace and harmony in the postwar world. In her play Pompey, she raised crucial issues that had dominated the Civil War, namely execution, coronation, and restoration. She introduced a classical context to explore these emotive issues, and in airing them, she suggested a politics of clemency.
In Horace, Philips presented the Civil War between Rome and Alba Longa; the situation evokes the divisions of the English Civil War and it is told from the women’s point of view. The audience is shown that when the bonds of loyalty to one’s country are privileged over loyalty to one’s family, the results can be tragic. When Camilla’s lover Curiace is murdered by Horace, her brother, she completely rejects notions of patriotism and condemns Rome. She is murdered by her brother for speaking out.