Alexander Pope & The Rape of the Lock

 Arabella Fermor

Frontispice.

Lud. Du Guernier inv.C. Du Boso sculp.

THE RAPE of the LOCK AN HEROI-COMICAL P O E M. In Five Canto's. Written by Mr. POPE. ——A tonso est hoc nomen adepta capillo. Ovid. The SECOND EDITION. L O N D O N: Printed for Bernard Lintott, at the Cross-Keys in Fleet-Street, 1714.

TO

Mrs. ARABELLA FERMOR.

Madam,
t will be vain to deny that I have some Value for this Piece, since I dedicate it to You. Yet You may bear me Witness, it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good Sense and good Humour enough, to laugh not only at their Sex's little unguarded Follies, but at their own. But as it was communicated with the Air of a Secret, it soon found its Way into the World. An imperfect Copy having been offered to a Bookseller, You had the Good-Nature for my Sake to consent to the Publication of one more correct: This I was forc'd to before I had executed half my Design, for the Machinery was entirely wanting to compleat it.

The Machinery, Madam, is a term invented by the Criticks, to signify that Part which the Deities, Angels, or Dæmons, are made to act in a Poem: For the ancient Poets are in one respect like many modern Ladies; Let an Action be never so trivial in it self, they always make it appear of the utmost importance. These Machines I determin'd to raise on a very new and odd Foundation, the Rosicrucian Doƈtrine of Spirits.

I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard Words before a Lady; but 'tis so much the Concern of a Poet to have his Works understood, and particularly by your Sex, that You must give me leave to explain two or three difficult Terms.

The Rosicrucians are a People I must bring You acquainted with. The best Account I know of them is in a French Book call'd Le Comte de Gabalis, which both in its Title and Size is so like a Novel, that many of the Fair Sex have read it for one by Mistake. According to these Gentlemen, the four Elements are inhabited by Spirits, which they call Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders. The Gnomes, or Dæmons of Earth, delight in Mischief; but the Sylphs, whose Habitation is Air, are the best condition'd Creatures imaginable. For they say, any Mortals may enjoy the most intimate Familiarities with these gentle Spirits, upon a Condition very easie to all true Adepts, an inviolate Preservation of Chastity.

As to the following Canto's, all the Passages of them are as Fabulous, as the Vision at the Beginning, or the Transformation at the End; (except the Loss of your Hair, which I always name with Reverence.) The Human Persons are as Fiƈtitious as the Airy ones; and the Charaƈter of Belinda, as it is now manag’d, resembles You in nothing but in Beauty.

If this Poem had as many Graces as there are in Your Person, or in Your Mind, yet I could never hope it should pass thro' the World half so Uncensured as You have done. But let its Fortune be what it will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this Occasion of assuring You that I am, with the truest Esteem,

Madam,  Your Most Obedient   Humble Servant,     A. Pope.

Discussion Questions from Tatianna:

1)     To what degree can this poem be described as “Sexual allegory”? Is Pope making a larger commentary on the tenuous nature of virtue and chastity with his sexually metaphorical language? Are “honor” and “chastity” merely interrogated via the character of Belinda?

2)     In what ways does Pope’s use of supernatural machinery (sylphs, gnomes, etc) highlight the satirical structure of “The Rape of the Lock”?  How do these characters comment on the triviality of the upper class world and of religion itself?

3)     “Transformed to combs, the speckled, and the white. Here files of pins extend their shining rows, Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux. Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms” (ii.135-140)

There seems to be an overarching theme of “transformation” within the cantos of “The Rape of the Lock”. While objects are metaphorically transformed (“i.e.” the “lock” transforms into a star, Belinda’s “petticoat” becomes a type of armor, “Beauty” itself becomes armed), characters become changed by this seemingly insignificant (yet transgressive) act. How are the characters emotionally transformed? In other words, does anyone truly learn the lesson on morality (as seen in Clarissa’s hyperbolic soliloquy) in the end?

Here is an article on the idea of woman as "other."  We will discuss the idea of women driving the mercantile/imperialist push in 18th-century England:
http://departments.knox.edu/engdept/commonroom/Volume_Two/number_two/cwestfall/

The Negative Images of Wome in Pope's "The Rape of the Lock"

By: Cassandra Westfall
Knox College Common Room: Volume 2, Number 2
April 14, 1998
URL: 

Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is a satirical and often demeaning look at the roles of women in 17^th century English society. While Pope pokes fun at the superficial character of aristocratic society, he seems to particularly focus on the rituals of womanhood and is highly condescending towards women. His humor is often offensive and points to a more widespread view and interpretation of the value of women in society. By focusing on a particular negative incident, not very serious by many standards, Pope dismisses the anger that the young woman should rightfully feel and turns the entire episode into a laughable charade. Pope manages to marginalize women, in particular Belinda, by turning this incident-the de-locking-into a mock epic, mocking Belinda and discounting her worth.
The traditional interpretation has noted that Pope wrote this story "in the hope that a little laughter might serve to soothe ruffled tempers" after a real-life incident involving a stolen lock of hair had taken place (2233). The editors of the Norton Anthology of English Literature suggest that because of ant through Pope’s mock-heroic epic style, the reader is forced to "compare small things with great" (2233). It is said that although Pope "laughs at this world and its creatures-and remembers that a grimmer, darker world surrounds it (3.19-24, 5.145-48)-he makes us very much aware of its beauty and charm" (2234). Unfortunately, I can not buy this argument because it does not seem that Pope at all takes this incident seriously. Instead, he uses it as an opportunity to criticize women and poke fun at traditional female thought and practices. I truly saw few moments when the superiority of malehood was in any way threatened or ridiculed.
Pope writes an epigraph, directed to the lady involved, Ms. Arabella Fermor, which suggests that the poem was published at her request, although in actuality the writing of this poem was suggested to Pope by one of his male friends (2234). By implying otherwise, Pope is making it seem as though Ms. Fermor enjoyed and even asked to be mocked. If Pope’s intent was to unite the two feuding families (Lord Petre and the Fermors) by providing a story over which the two could laugh together (Pope 2233), he is seriously disappointing. It is unclear whether or not Ms. Fermor enjoyed this story and ended her anger, but from a late twentieth-century perspective, it is highly unlikely that insulting someone so forcefully could have any positive impact.
From the story, one may gather that the aristocracy at this time lived a rather frivolous life. Women spent much of their day preparing themselves for social functions (5.19). Beauty becomes very important, as do appearances- both physical and social. The virtue of beauty in this poem can not be overstated. Pope writes, "If to her share some female errors fall,/ Look on her face, and you’ll forget ‘em all" (2.17-8). The beautiful woman Belinda is seen as more virtuous than others simply because of her physical features. Showing social grace and charm is more important for women than anything intellectual they could say. Despite our readiness to dismiss this life as useless and worthless, it is possible to see that these women took their roles and duties very seriously. It is also quite obvious that these types of behavior were expected of women and that a woman who did not conform would be an unwelcomed outcast. For example, the Sylphs are ready to go to war for Belinda to preserve her beauty and chastity, and great punishment is threatened for any fairy that does not protect these virtues (2.91-136).
A female’s self-worth and means of social freedom are to be found through the fulfillment of a culturally desirable social life, fraught with rituals and mores for behavior between the sexes. When describing Belinda’s beauty routine, Pope writes, "The inferior priestess, at her altar’s side,/ Trembling begins the sacred rites of Pride" (1.127-8). For women, pride is to be attained through the rituals of beauty. When Belinda is forced to deal with her sudden hair loss, she experiences a great deal of shame and public humiliation. She exclaims, "Oh, had I rather unadmired remained/ In some love isle, or distant northern land. . . There kept my charms concealed from mortal eye,/ Like roses that in deserts bloom and die" (4.153-158). She wishes she had been concealed from society and wants to hide her face in shame.
Belinda’s priorities might be out of whack with today’s society; however, the fact remains that this was the type of lifestyle afforded to her by her status. As a woman, the courtly lifestyle was the best opportunity for a happy life. Of course Belinda would and should be upset by such a "trivial" matter. Her sole means of livelihood and success has been shattered by the "rape of the lock." Like many rape victims and women socialized into society today, Belinda tries to rationalize this incident by blaming herself. She remembers how she was forewarned about her fate, but she chose to ignore reason. She says she should have known better (4.165-166). Here, the woman is not only blaming herself, but professing her own internalized stupidity and implying her inferior status. She cries out from the pain she is experiencing and shouts, "Oh hadst thou, cruel! Been content to seize/ Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!" (4.175-6). The sexual undertones here are not very difficult to see. It appears that Belinda would have preferred to be raped sexually, where she would have suffered only private humiliation, than to have a precious lock of her hair cut off publicly. By this incident, Belinda is defaced not only privately but also publicly. Everyone can plainly see that Belinda has this major defect. It is as though the Scarlet "A" has been branded on her chest. Her "flaw" has become obvious to everyone; hence, the victim is victimized again by society.
For these reasons, it is especially unfair of Pope to paint this sickening, one-sided picture of Belinda and this incident. From Pope, we see no female character development whatsoever, and all mentions of Belinda’s personality are negative. We see a picture of a male blinded by the unrequited love a supposedly coquettish woman. The male in this story is portrayed not as a rapist, as the title of the poem would suggest, but as a victim bitten by the love bug and stung by Belinda’s piercing eyes.
Like the tendency today to blame the rape victim, we blame Belinda for her coyness and cruel wit. It is her fault that men can not control themselves around her. She is just too beautiful and full of her sly seductiveness. Women are expected to remain chaste and pure in order to remain honorable, yet women who refuse men are seen as prudes and deserving of ill will.
The madonna/whore issue is played out throughout this story. Many mentions of Belinda’s virginity are made, just as her refusals are given full attention. Pope writes, "And she who scorns a man must die a maid;/ What then remains but well our power to use,/ And keep good humor still whate’er we lose? (5.28-30). The woman who remains true to her virtue should expect to be unhappy and without a mate. Likewise, according to Pope, a woman should learn to laugh at her own victimization and secondary status because it is natural and there is little she can do to prevent it. Because Belinda shows pride in winning the card game and beating out males in a male domain, morality dictates that she must be punished and set straight about her "rightful" place. The didactic lesson is clear. A woman should never expect to be equal to a man.
The male involved here, the Peer, shows no remorse for his actions. He tells Belinda, "’This hand, which won it shall forever wear’. He spoke and speaking in proud triumph spread the long-contended honors of her head" (4.138-140). He is mocking Belinda and belittles and victimizes her even more by his flagrant disrespect for her body as personal property. He values the lock of hair as a prize-a prisoner of war or war booty. This hair symbolizes that Belinda (all women) is (are) clearly a victim and a loser in this war between the sexes. Like rapists today, the Peer does not allow Belinda the right to possess her own body. By mocking this fact, Pope is excusing this man from his responsibility and showing that this type of violation is acceptable. When Pope invokes the fairies in the beginning of the poem, he has the sprite Ariel say, "Warned by the Sylph, O pious maid, beware!/ This to disclose is all thy guardian can: Beware of all, but most beware of Man!" (1.112-114). Man is to be regarded by woman with at least some bit of trepidation. Through this, men’s violent or irrational behavior may be naturalized and women’s role as victim and secondary Other may become expected, naturalized and internalized.
More generally, Pope turns this story around to show how the woman is at fault and loses in the battle of the sexes because of her strongly implied inferiority. Pope focuses on the flaws and weaknesses of woman and uses this as an explanation and justification for women’s secondary status in society. In Canto 5, as Pope details the battles of war, he judges the worth of men and women. He writes, "Now love suspends his golden scales I air,/ Weighs the men’s wits against lady’s hair;/ The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;/ At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside" (5.71-74). Pope bases his value equations on the intellect of men versus the beauty of women. Women are to be judged not for their brains but for their physical features- a fact which makes Pope’s mocking style even more disturbing. He mocks Belinda and other women for their rituals of beauty, despite the fact that this is how they are to be judged. Would Pope mock a man for reading a book or practicing his elocution skills? Surely not!
Pope’s attitude towards women is obvious before one even begins the poem. In his letter to Arabella Fermor, he writes, "I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a lady. . ." (2234). He also states that it is in the nature of "modern ladies’ to "let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance" (2234). This act is not so trivial when one considers the broader social implications of allowing this type of behavior. To give males free reign in society to abuse and assault the personhood of women is a gross injustice. Ms. Fermor is justified in being angry and defending herself against the predatory will of a self-centered man.
Unfortunately, Pope does not feel the same way. In describing Belinda’s anger, the author goes to great lengths to paint her as a witch with almost supernatural characteristics. Pope uses the Cave of Spleen, a sort of virtual reality hell, to explain the ensuing argument between Belinda and the Peer. He speaks in some detail of Thaletris-an Amazonian type woman who enjoys fighting. It is interesting that even Thaletris experiences some doubts about whether or not she should help Belinda who "burns with more than mortal ire" (4.93). Thaletris exclaims that she can already see that Belinda’s honor is lost and that she has become instantly defamed and deflowered by this act (4.105-116). To preserve their own social appearances, her friends must desert her or face this same type of degradation. Thaletris must examine whether helping Belinda is worth her while.
Thaletris tends to hold male characteristics and subscribe to some male-dictated norms, while rejecting males and other male-determined mores; therefore, she is the form of woman that is to be most feared and scorned by men. Thaletris, while not presented as such, represents the truly free female and is an early feminist character. Thatletris’ personality is divided among the other female characters and is used simply to portray the supposed vengeful, spiteful, and wholly illogical character of women. Her feminist standards may be rejected today, as she seems to reject femininity and scorns "feminine" females; however she represents the sole strong female role in the story. Thaletris’ militaristic notions about life and her unbridled sexuality lead her to consider Belinda a "prude" (5.36). She can not accept Belinda as a fellow sister, free to make her own personal choices, but must still reject her on certain grounds.
All in all, Pope’s characterization of women and his satirical telling of this incident paint a very negative picture of women. Women are shown as conniving, untrustful, illogical, and most importantly, inferior to men. Pope ridicules Belinda’s (Ms. Fermor’s) anger and does not seem to understand why women could get so angry over such a "trivial" matter. He does not respect female autonomy and buys in to the madonna/whore perception of women. The Rape of the Lock does a great injustice to women and only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes and generalizations about female character. 

More sources:

 Salma, Umme, "Women and the Empire in Pope's Rape of the Lock: A Re-Reading," Transnational Literature 4.1 (2011) [no pagination]
http://dspace.flinders.edu.au/jspui/bitstream/2328/25489/1/Woman_and_the_Empire.pdf 

Reviewing “Metamorphosis in The Rape of the Lock”

            Robert Folkenflik, in his critical review “Metamorphosis in The Rape of the Lock” attempts to critique and make connections amongst many of the transformations present in Alexander Pope’s text. As Flokenflik asserts, “The Rape of the Lock is Pope's most Ovidian poem. Pope creates, as has been remarked, a dazzling world of beautiful surfaces with which he is half in love himself; but he knows that one cannot simply love them, for, as he implies through his use of metamorphosis, they cannot last” (28). He spends much of his time positing that the metamorphoses present in The Rape of the Lock are means for Pope and his characters to attain some sense of immortality.

            Folkenflik suggests that there are many different types of metamorphosis present, and that each has a different end point and a different evolution throughout the text. In one type of transformation, “it seems to imply a conservation of matter – beautiful things merely change into different beautiful things, giving us a world of kaleidoscopic glitter; on the other hand we have permanent transformations: the vase shattered, the lock cut (the possibility of its growing back is deftly left out of consideration), virginity lost, beauty gone, death” (Folkenflik 28). The lock, though, seems to cover both of these transformation types. Its final evolution from a lock of hair to a star in the sky – seems to me – that it is one beautiful thing changing into another beautiful thing, but it also seems to encompass Folkenflik’s other transformation type, that of permanence.

            Folkenflik then goes on to delineate other metamorphosis present, that of unnatural and natural. “The unnatural metamorphoses, supernatural or artificial, while often attractive, are always delusive. The natural metamorphoses are permanent and hardly welcome, but they are real” (28). He spends much time explicating the slyphs and their transformations. Pope himself spoke plainly of their transformations from mortal women to that of supernatural beings. “As now your own, our Beings were of old, And once inclos’d in Woman’s Beauteous Mold; Thence, by a soft transition, we repair, From earthly Vehicles to these of Air” (Pope 47). These slyphs, who are responsible for much of Belinda’s own metamorphoses, are beings that encompass much of the transformation type of beauty transforming to another type of beauty, and yet, this is also another permanent transformation.

            Another transformation that Folkenflik attempts to analyze in that of the character of Belinda, especially in comparison with Pope himself. “Belinda is being invited to do on a human level what Pope does on an artistic level by turning her lock into a star (and by extension her being into his poem) : this metamorphosis with its Ovidian echoes turns the changeable into the timeless” (34). This aspect of the changing to the timeless seems to encapsulate Folkenflik’s thesis as a whole. Showing that the transformations Pope and his characters create – knowingly or unknowingly – make the change matter. That the change will and should be permanent is the reasoning behind consciously transforming oneself.

            An aspect of this article that I cannot seem to fully comprehend is in one of Folkenflik’s footnotes. When speaking of Clarissa’s hypocrisy of helping cut Belinda’s lock and then turning around and giving her advice, Folkenflik states,

There is perhaps something unpleasant in Pope's economical decision to have the woman who assisted the Baron point the moral. She is not in any way hypocritical, but in retrospect her action...smacks a bit of teaching Belinda a lesson rather than educating her. Pope trusts that the tone of her speech — its genuine sympathy — will carry its own weight. And since Clarissa existed merely as a bit player before Pope conceived her speech, her motivation as the Baron's accomplice may not bear too much looking into. (36)

Folkenflik simply brushes aside one of the most major transformations in The Rape of the Lock. For him to tell his readers that this does not “bear too much looking into” seems like an avoidance of an aspect of the story that he himself could not fully comprehend, explain or condone. In an essay critiquing metamorphoses of the text, simply dodging this major change seems to diminish his case as a whole.

            All in all, although Robert Folkenflik unveils many interesting theories on the metamorphoses in The Rape of the Lock, he seems to not delve deep enough into any of the transformations he begins to critique. Though labeling the natural, supernatural, evolving and permanent transformations seems to make sense, completely avoiding analyzing other major transformations downplays his earlier reviews. If one is going to delineate change in Rape of the Lock, it seems to me that they should include at least all of the major transformations.

Works Cited

Folkenflik, Robert. “Metamorphosis in The Rape of the Lock.” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature. University of Calgary Press 5.2 (April 1974): 27-36. Web. 26 October 2012.  

Pope, Alexander. “The Rape of the Lock.” Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1975. Print.