Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, in his heroicomical poem "The Rape of the Lock", Alexander Pope demonstrates the unattainability of the ideal of beauty by illustrating how women vainly attempt to construct and sustain beauty and how men unsuccessfully attempt to procure it through women. The author points out that Pope emphasizes, through his use of language and imagery, Belinda's process of readying herself at her dressing table thus illustrating the way women generate an artificial image of beauty, which fails to allow them to obtain the ideal of beauty, which is presented in Clarissa's speech. The paper concludes that, in this poem, Pope generates a multifaceted conception of beauty, which is not typical of poetry written before the eighteenth century. The paper has several quotations from the poem.

From the Paper:

"Being that the lock is a critical aspect of Belinda's beauty, one would think that she would try everything in her power to retain it, yet she appears unable to do so. When the Baron is plotting to steal Belinda's lock, Pope depicts Belinda as seemingly unaware of what is about to happen: "O thoughtless mortals! Ever blind to fate,/Too soon dejected, and too soon elate:/Sudden these honors shall be snatched away,/And cursed forever this victorious day." Here, Pope refers to the "Sudden" snatching away of "these honors," which is an allusion to the baron's thievery of Belinda's lock, as "fate"."

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