Pope’s Attitude toward Women & Men As Fashionable in “The Rape of the Lock”

The epigram of Martial prefixed to the poem implies that Pope wrote: “The Rape of the Lock” to heal the rancor of a lady named Mrs. Arabella Fermor. Yet to praise a lady for her charms or console her over the loss of a lock of hair in the simplest terms was not Pope’s sole object or business.

A drab monody or a politic laudatory piece could not fit his ironic mentality. This poet, whose soul capital was well and good sense were ever ready to laugh at the upper-class society. He mainly found the woman of fashion amusing with cards, parties, toilets, lapdogs, and the other artificial vanities.

Moreover, this particular frivolous incident of cutting hair only provided Pope with fresh impulses to vent to his mockery. Pope had ironically set Belinda and the whole of her type of fashionable 18th-century society in the pillory.

The poem’s full satirical effect is achieved at the expense of Belinda and the gay of the fashionable world. It exposes all values and idiosyncrasies exceedingly trifling and artificial ones.

Pope Identifies Contemporary Society’s Morals in “The Rape of the Lock”

The background of the poem is the confusion of society’s values, its criticism, and its ethical judgment. Belinda, the forefront, is presented with a graceful and lively character. In the background, Pope magnified society’s stifles and its real triviality using epic proportions.

Thus Pope’s approach to Belinda and women, in general, was twofold. It was laudatory to Belinda personally, her type, and her social manner.

Besides, it was condemnatory to Belinda at the general level. Furthermore, the notion extended to her class and society with manners and trivialities.

Pope Illustrates Belinda As An Aristocratic And Divine Lady

We find Belinda portrayed by Pope as a beautiful aristocratic lady on a personal level. Early in the poem, she is compared to the sun (also at the beginning of Canto II). The brightness of her eyes surpasses the brightness of the sun.

The poet invests Belinda almost with the character of divinity. If she has any fault, they would be hidden by her graceful care and sweetness in a prideless manner. If she suffers from any female errors, the beauty of her face will make us ignore them.

Belinda has a carefree disposition and frivolous manner. At one point, the praise of her attraction may be a mere mark for Pope’s satiric attack on her personality as a coquette. Yet at another, it is praise which no irony can entirely undermine.

Pope’s mild humor and the natural beauty of honor, Arabella Fermor in his mind, would no doubt for this reason Pope entertained mercy and sympathy.

Pope Delineates Faults in Belinda Apart from The Beauty

All the same, except for being a beauty, the faults of Belinda are many. The poet fully reveals to us her petty pleasure-seeking nature. This Belinda is not an individual but representative of her type and class. She suffers from all the vanities, laziness, follies, and lack of moral scruples of the aristocratic ladies.

In this level, Belinda’s manner and characteristics are excessively dignifiable. Everyone treats her as an object of mockery, ridicule, and even condemnation. People judge her for shallowness, superficiality, and lack of any intellectual interest or moral elevation in her life.

The lazy woman sleeps till the hour of twelve in the day. This is because up to the deed of the night in the day, she joins and enjoys heedlessly the fashionable parties, plays cards, games, and the like. Her dog licks her, and she gets up.

Belinda’s Excessive Ornamentation Projects Her Superficial Nature

Belinda is proud to be secretly in life with the Baron from all her prophesied purity. Nonetheless, a thousand spirits of the air rush to her to guard her.

That is why just waking Belinda’s first thought is about the love letters addressed to her and about self-decoration. Next, she gets ready for her toilet and her days begin at noon. She takes the help of “Cosmetic power,” and her maidservant Betty assists her in the sacred ceremony of the toilet.

Belinda dresses beautifully with ornaments like pins, puffs, powders, patches, and Bibles. By this, she projects her superficial nature and lack of moral awareness. Her rendezvous is the Hampton Court, where the fashionable girls and men of upper-class society gather.

Pope Describes Belinda’s Spiritual Shallowness And Moral Deficit

But Belinda is in the limelight and it attracts the attention and lives of more. Toilet gossip, ombre card, coffee drinking occupy much of Belinda’s time in the day. She does not seem to have any intellectual interest. After the cutting of her lock, we find another side of her. She grows furious; reputation was to her more important than chastity.

Spiritual shallowness and incapacity for moral awareness are remarkable in Belinda. She has transformed all spiritual exercises and emblems into a coquette’s self-display and self-adoration. The cross is used as an ornament. She is thus as coquette injured innocent, sweet charmer society belle rival of the sun of the murderer of millions.

These are the facts with Belinda and with all the fashionable women of the day.

The Gentlemen Are Equally Shallow As Women in “The Rape of the Lock”

The gentlemen of the brilliant set are as facetious as the ladies. Lord Petre and his fellows represent the contemporary fashionable society. They are all empty-headed and flirtatious men, mainly being idle.

The battle between the ladies and gentlemen shows the emptiness and futility of their lives. They visit clubs and coffee houses, and there they indulge in empty scandalous talks.

In “The Rape of the Lock,” the ladies and gentlemen meet in the Hampton Court ‘to taste awhile the pleasure of a court.’ In various talks, the instructive hours they passed that gave the ball or paid the visit last one speaks the glory of the British queen, and one describes a charming Indian screen.

After indulging in this kind of ‘instructive talk’ for some time, the lords and ladies play cards, and the poet describes the game in detail because card games seem to occupy an important place in the daily activities of fashionable ladies and gentlemen of the period.

Sir Plume is another fashionable gentleman excelling all others in his vanities and utter emptiness.

“Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain

And the nice conduct of a clouded cane”.

The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope

Pope’s Satire Targets A Ridiculous Society in “The Rape of the Lock”

Pope’s satire on these fashionable women, men, and vainglorious society. The cast of such elements forms a convincing plot in which various characters make themselves appear ridiculous by their thought, speech, and action. The invocation we get at the beginning of the poem presents the perversity and meanness of society.

In this society, flirtation and vanity have taken the place of genuine affection of love. Pope’s using the supernatural machinery in the poem secures the poem much of its satire effect.

Since spirits (sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and salamander) were once enclosed in women’s beauteous mold, their motives and mentality represent different aspects of the goddess-like protected heroine or the women of different temperaments. The Sylphs indicate very charm which Belinda and her world pass.

Conclusion

Love to this society is not of importance. Belinda is seen as more concerned with her lock lap dog, brocade, and jewelry than anything else.

For her, inner dignity and chastity are like fine porcelain, something brittle useless, and easily broken. Belinda’s world has few positive values, and this negative side is picturesquely caricatured through the activities of the goddess of the cave of spleen.

Pope shows that human virtues are distorted and neglected.

Leave a Comment