Jessica Ready

Professor Margaret McDermott

March 8, 2008

“The Rape of the Lock”: An Essay in Frivolity

Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock,” is a satirical poem based on true events. Pope’s use of the mock-epic literary style trivializes the incidents in the story by describing them in grandeur fashion. Using epic conventions such as heroes and heroines, battles, the underworld, and sprites, Pope ridicules all involved by treating petty situations with great gravity. He successfully reveals the skewed values of the upper middle class in the 18th century. The word rape in the title is the first example of adding serious moral implications to a superficial situation. The first instance of the mock-epic style also occurs immediately in the first stanza, when the author introduces love, war, and a muse.

“What mighty contests rise from trivial things,” (line 2). Pope sets the tone for the piece in this line, diminishing epic conventions by using them ironically to describe trivial grievances. He introduces the reader to the heroine who suffers the insult, in the second stanza, calling her a Goddess. “Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel/A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle?” (lines 7-8) Again, Pope exaggerates the incident by comparing the cutting of hair to an assault or rape. Guarding the heroine,

Belinda, are sylphs. Sylphs are the spirits of women who were “light Coquettes,” in their lifetime, such as Belinda is. The inclusion of sylphs, gnomes, salamanders and nymphs in the fourth stanza represent the four elements, air, earth, fire and water. These creatures mimic the Greek and Roman gods, an example of supernatural machinery. Pope uses the sylphs to describe Belinda indirectly. She is superficial as she takes “joy in gilded

Chariots,…”(line 55), leads men on, and is conceited of her looks “Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face,”. (line 79) Pope exalts Belinda in this fashion of comparison but in reality, she deserves no more praise than a horse with lustrous locks.

Canto 2 continues with the description of Belinda’s physical prowess, but in a militaristic manner. Pope amplifies man’s need for Belinda’s locks. “Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare.” (line 127) Her curls are a trap ingeniously designed to ensnare the enemy. Belinda’s nature is extremely paradoxical here as Pope describes it in terms of warfare. Belinda wants to capture men with her beauty, yet men are the enemy. Her petticoat serves as the counterpart to her tempting tresses to keep her virtue in tact. Pope even goes as far as comparing the undergarment to the Shield of Achilles. The satire here focuses on the locks of hair as a justification and prize for waging war.

Another episode in which Pope compares to an epic battle is the card game in

Canto 3.

Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band

Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand;

And part-colored troops, a shining train,

Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain. (lines 41-44)

The imagery in those four lines is yet another example of satirical embellishment. It depicts an army in full garb heading towards the battle field, which realistically is a felt table. Throughout this section, Pope uses words such as “saber, chief, armies, rebel, engage, fights, and warlike to imply that the participants in the game posses as much fervor and solemn commitment to winning their cause as men who fought for worthy causes.

The crux of the story also occurs in Canto 3. The Baron, armed by Clarissa with a pair of scissors, an epic engine thrown in by Pope, commits the most dastardly of crimes.

Although a valiant solider, the sylph Ariel, is unable to outmaneuver the Baron and he takes the bait. Seizing the locks for himself, Belinda is aghast and Pope pens these hilarious lines:

Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes,

And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies.

Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast,

When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last; (lines 155-158)

This is perhaps the most satirical moment of the poem, when Pope compares the anguish

Belinda feels when a single lock of hair is cut from her head, to the shriek of a dieing man. The imagery of the alliterative phrase “living lightning” in line 155 is astounding.

However, not as astounding as the pettiness exhibited by Belinda in this scene. Pope embellishes her reaction flawlessly as he reflects on the catalyst for his humorous, overly- exaggerated poem.

“The Rape of the Lock,” is a wonderful exhibition of human nature and how the world gets wrapped up in trivial matters. Pope takes triviality and frivolousness and dramatizes it to such great extremes that the reader can’t help but evaluate their lives and what they take for granted and blow out of proportion. Pope’s grounded view on inconsequential matters in the grand scheme of life should make everyone reflect on what is truly important in this world, not on things that regenerate, but things that fade and can not afford to be taken for granted.