FREE ESSAY ON ALEXANDER POPE'S THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

ALEXANDER POPE'S THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

The Rape of the Lock: Serious Stuff
Alexander Pope's mock heroic epic The Rape of the Lock appears to be a light subject
addressed with a satiric tone and structure. Pope often regards the unwanted cutting of a
woman's hair as a trivial thing, but the fashionable world takes it seriously. Upon
closer examination Pope has, perhaps unwittingly, broached issues worthy of earnest
consideration. The Rape of the Lock at first glance is a commentary on human vanity and
the ritual of courtship. The poem also discusses the relationship between men and women,
which is the more substantial matter in particular. Pope examines the oppressed position
of women. Infringement on a woman's personal space, her person and her pride by an
aggressive male (the Baron) are certainly problems not to be taken lightly. In today's
society, these things translate to sexual harassment. Pope also raises the issue of
conflicting love, the opposition between spiritual and secular love. The poem portrays
men and women as more concerned with social status, material values, and physical beauty
than the development of the spirit or of the character. Pope suggests that the former is
the morally wrong path, and criticizes (through satire) his characters for their vanity
and lack of morality.
The significance of a woman's outward beauty (specifically Belinda's) has direct
consequence for her role in society. The place of woman... is shaped by social [and]
economic... forces. Women are routinely subordinate... in the 'public' sphere, partly
because of their confinement to roles associated with being wives.1 Belinda is an
unmarried upper class woman. Maintaining her position in high society will depend on
marriage; though not one necessarily of her choosing. Her marriage will not ultimately
depend on her intelligence, or her personality, as women were not valued as objects of
individuality but as beautiful objects to possess: The adventurous Baron the bright locks
admired,/He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspired. (II, 29-30) Therefore, Belinda's
power lies within her outward beauty. Belinda's strength is her physical appearance. Pope
mocks the importance placed on appearance as he compares a hero's donning of armour to
Belinda's being made up at her dressing table; 
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet doux. 
Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms... (I, 137-39)
We see a woman ready to go into the battle of the sexes whom the Baron (her opponent)
already regards as a threat. Specifically, her beauty is a threat in that it empowers
Belinda and means he may have to compete with other men for her affection. The idea of a
woman holding power of any sort over a man attacks the male ego or at least threatens the
Baron's ego. He is
Resolved to win, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover's toil attends,
Few ask if fraud or force attained his ends. (II, 31-33)
The Baron will either have the lock, or destroy any power she possesses with it. 
The war Pope illustrates between men and women continues with the playing of the card
game. Instead of fighting on the traditional battlefield Belinda plays cards against the
Baron, eager to meet him on his own terms:
Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,
Burns to encounter two adventurous knights,
At ombre singly to decide their doom,
And swells her breast with conquests yet to come. (III, 25-28)
The playing of the game and the use of the word conquest could also represent the idea
that Belinda is fighting for survival in her societal circle. She could view the playing
of the game as a battle to win suitors, knights. Regardless, Belinda wins the card game
and offends the Baron's pride. Out to take his revenge, to reclaim his dignity and steal
hers, the Baron cuts Belinda's prized lock of hair:
 Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine,
The victor cried, the glorious prize is mine!
... So long my honour, name, and praise shall live! (III, 161-170)
The Baron has taken away Belinda's power. He cuts from her a symbol of her beauty,
stealing what she regards as her honour. This disempowerment is not unlike an actual
rape. Chastity is regarded as honour for many men and women, yet Belinda values her lock
of hair as her source of honour. Hence, the Baron takes away her virtue. Belinda is
reproached by an older woman of the court, who has lost her own beauty and advises
Belinda to rely on inner grace,  Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. (V,
34) Yet, no applause ensued. (V, 35) While the comment strikes a stinging chord with
Belinda, the court does not find merit in the idea that a woman's inner values are
important. Clarissa, the dame, sounds a little feminist for her time. The idea that the
woman's beauty existed in character was not yet a popular notion. Still, Belinda is
belittled by Clarissa. She attacks Belinda's sense of worth as a woman by not accepting
the Baron's trick with more grace. If the Baron's ego hadn't been inflated enough by
claiming Belinda's lock, Clarissa only confirms the Baron's (and Belinda's) misguided
values by attacking Belinda's inner beauty, in essence, her value system (morals) as
well. Belinda has been insulted twice in the course of the action.
Pope writes of a world whose value system is confused. Clarissa almost takes on the role
of Pope when she admonishes Belinda for her lack of elegance and sense of humour. The
Baron throughout seems intent on not winning Belinda's favour but on claiming her honour,
the prized lock of hair. This is a rather twisted goal. The 'civilized' thing to do would
to have honourably courted Belinda. Instead, the Baron is only interested in the fame the
claiming of the lock will bring. It's another trophy of another conquest:
...to Love an altar built,
Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt.
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves,
And all the trophies of his former loves. (II, 37-40)
Other than displaying a lack of courteousness and civility, the desire for the lock seems
more like a worshipping of the lock. The Baron even swears by the lock:
But by this Lock, this sacred Lock I swear
(Which never more shall join its parted hair;
Which never more its honours shall renew,
Clipped from the lovely head where late it grew),
That while my nostrils draw the vital air,
This hand, which won it, shall forever wear.
He spoke, and speaking, in proud triumph spread
The long-contended honours of her head. (IV, 132-139)
The lock is now a sacred lock, which possesses honours. It is a long sought after prize,
indicating the Baron's mind has been on the frivolous and cruel prank of clipping
Belinda's hair. Morally, the Baron should have been thinking of more spiritual, less
flighty things. Yet, in worshipping the lock, the Baron makes it a spiritual thing, which
goes against the ideals of Christianity. Material things are not intended to be
worshipped as sacred objects.
Pope takes the worship of materialism to a higher level earlier in the poem when Belinda,
not just her beauty, is likened to a goddess with a priestess:
The inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil. (I, 127-132)
The priestess in line 127 is Belinda's maid, and the alter is the dressing table, covered
in offerings to the goddess Belinda. The rites are those of Pride, which to Christians,
is one of the deadly sins. Beauty is clearly worshipped in The Rape of the Lock, but so
is Belinda herself. Belinda is so obsessed with material objects and beauty she prizes
her hair, as does the Baron, above all else. She even wishes that he had cut hairs less
in sight (V, 176), that he had not tampered with her visible beauty. If there was any
doubt Belinda is a materialistic creature, it is confirmed when the Sylphs read her
thoughts (presumably where any source of inner worth might be found) and discovers 
The close recesses of the virgin's thought;
As on the nosegay in her breast reclined,
He watched the ideas rising in her mind,
Sudden he viewed, in spite of all her art,
An earthly lover lurking in her heart. (IV, 140-144)
Belinda's mind is distinctly dwells material and secular matters, not those spiritual and
holy. The Sylph suggests that her virginal, beautiful appearance is only an image she
portrays, not a truth. Indeed, Belinda is likened to a painted ship, if not literally
called a painted vessel (II, 47) without the metaphor. 
Pope, through the Baron's unseemly behaviour, suggests that society has granted men the
right to do what they want; women are expected to support, or tolerate, men's
aggressiveness because they have no socially-sanctioned right to protest whatever men
choose to do. The rape of Belinda's honour is sanctioned because women are valued only as
objects of beauty. In the same turn, Belinda, the Baron and the society they represent
are obsessed with material things (such as the lock) and self-worship. Pope suggests that
attention to spiritual matters, the strengthening of character, and the development or
value of inner beauty are matters to which society does not properly attend. This lack of
attention to the immaterial and tendency to give in to worldly temptations indicates a
frivolous aristocracy, who lack virtue and morality. This is Pope's concern and
criticism. 
_______________________________________-
1. Held, Virginia; Rights and Goods-Justifying Social Action; The University of Chicago
Press, 1984
Works Cited
Pope, Alexander; The Rape of the Lock; The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th
Edition; W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996
Held, Virginia; Rights and Goods-Justifying Social Action; The University of Chicago
Press, 1984