The Rover Lesson Plan

Consider Willmore's actions in Act III. What have we learned about him as a character?

Many students might have come to find Willmore unsympathetic in Act III. He'd been portrayed as a flirtatious, fun-loving rogue, but his actions escalate darkly in this act. At first he's flirting with and making contradictory promises to two women, Hellena and Angelica, but by Scene 3 he's assaulting, and intending to rape, Florinda; in Scene 4 he fights first with his friends and then his rival, whom he gravely injures, and he runs away and leaves his friend Belvile to take the blame. Willmore is not simply flirtatious with loose mores for his time, he seems to have revealed himself to...