The Rape of the Lock, or The Girl Who Lost Her Power

The Rape of the Lock, an epic poem written by Alexander Pope during the Restoration period in England, focuses on the trivial yet monumental interactions that occur between people on a day-to-day basis. The basis for the narrative—a man who steals a lock of hair from a pretty girl—actually happened. Pope was encouraged by his friend, John Caryll, to write a satire about the incident as a way to laugh the two quarreling families back together. Since then, contemporary feminist critics have approached the poem in terms of ideological and cultural assumptions about women and their status in Pope’s society. He wrote a soft satire about culture and relationships, but he also presents the reader with a female heroine who loses her only asset: beauty. In a male-dominated society, beauty was the only reliable source of power that women held over men, but Pope employs irony and sardonic humor to demonstrate the superficial limitations of a woman’s beauty, and therefore power, by it’s quick and easy defeat in The Rape of the Lock.

Canto I devotes an entire stanza to Belinda’s ritualized dressing routine because this is the most important part of her day, the part when she adorns herself with “protective armor”. Pope turns this scene into a joke because he compares a girl getting dressed to an epic hero dressing himself for battle, but Belinda’s narcissistic attitude is a genuinely important part of her survival in a male-dominated society. Vanity is an illustration of Belinda’s desire for power and status, a power that’s contained in her beauty. She harnesses “Cosmetic pow’rs” (I, 124), a “heav’nly image” (I, 125), and “the Wonders of her Face” (I, 142) when she dresses herself everyday, which all supply Belinda with an impenetrable power over men. Well, at least, until it is penetrable. Further elaboration on Belinda’s religious narcissism can be found here.

Belinda’s only asset, her only power, is her beauty. She is constantly developing and nurturing it because it gives her opportunity in a world where very few opportunities are presented to women, but the tragic flaw with her beauty is it’s inherent limitations. Clarissa—Belinda’s female rival—spends the beginning of canto V explaining the limitations of beauty to Belinda and to the other women at the party, but most importantly, to the reader:

But since, alas! frail Beauty must decay,

Curl’d or uncurl’d, since Locks will turn to grey;

Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,

And she who scorns a Man, must die a Maid,

What then remains but well our Pow’r to use,

And keep good Humour still whate’er we lose? (V, 25-30)

This passage unveils one of the ironic aspects of the narrative: Belinda is beautiful and this gives her (and other beautiful women) power over men, but beauty unravels as time goes by, which means Belinda is going to lose her influential power as she ages. Clarissa presents humor, sense, and wit as three other qualities women should adopt before their beauty fades because these qualities will “preserve what Beauty gains” (V, 16). This passage is also interesting because Pope illustrates the contrast between Clarissa and Belinda. Clarissa is the only other main protagonist, but Pope sets these two women against each other as the “prude” and the “coquette” rather than connecting them in autonomous womanhood. At first glance, it may seem like the story is about a rivalry between Belinda and the Baron, but this theory is disproved in canto V when Ariel reads Belinda’s mind:

He watch’d th’ Ideas rising in her Mind,

Sudden he view’d, in spite of all her Art,

An Earthly Lover lurking at her Heart.

Amaz’d, confus’d, he found his Power expir’d,

Resign’d to fate, and with a Sigh retir’d. (III, 142-6)

Here, Ariel discovers that Belinda wants a romance “in spite of all her Art” (III, 143), which means the Baron and Belinda are on the same side, not against each other. In the end, who supplies the Baron with the scissors to perform the rape? Yes, it’s Clarissa. It appears that Clarissa is the female protagonist who successfully harnesses power by employing wit and sense rather than beauty, but in canto V, when she finishes delivering her moral speech, “no Applause ensu’d: Belinda frown’d, Thalestris call’d her Prude” (V, 35-6). It seems that the irony in The Rape of the Lock cuts deeper than Belinda’s superficial power: if a woman doesn’t have beauty, then she doesn’t have anything at all (even if she actually does have wit and sense).

A woman’s only source of control is in her wily, womanly features, but who decides which features are wily and elegant enough to deserve any attention? Yes, it’s the men. A woman is cast aside if she’s not beautiful and she’s labeled a prude if she tries to speak about a topic other than vanity and flirting. Pope accentuates the rivalry between these two women when Belinda frowns after Clarissa’s speech. The real power behind these women is autonomous unity, support, and community, but these women don’t share any of these qualities. Instead, they’re against each other. Ironically, their rivalry perpetuates the disintegration of womanhood, which traps Belinda and Clarissa in secondary positions in society. The Rape of the Lock illustrates the different paths women take to find power in a world where they have none, but these paths intersect and women drag each other down, which prevents anyone from establishing a serious position in society. Pope’s narrative attacks women because he elaborates their flaws, but he’s also sending a message: work together not against each other.

During my research for this topic, I stumbled upon a website that posts illustrations of rare books. Here is a link to a post about The Rape of the Lock. Aubrey Beardsley, an artist during the 19^th century, made illustrations that were published in a 1897 version of the mock epic poem.

The Rape of the Lock can be read here.

Questions? Discussion topics? Please post!