Thoughts on "The Rape of the Lock"

I found Alexander Pope’s "The Rape of the Lock" a delightful, amusing poem. Throughout the poem, trivialities are compared with events and objects or consequence and the insignificant is treated with utmost importance. Its very title gives the reader an immediate clue; "rape" and all its connotations bring to mind a heinous crime of physical and spiritual violation. Perhaps this description could apply to the theft of a lock of hair, but only in a world where normal morals are perverted. This skewed scale of values is shown repeatedly throughout the poem, and supporting this alternate world are the sylphs. As the souls of former coquettes, the sylphs exist solely to preserve and perpetuate Belinda’s beauty and coquetry. As I read the piece, I was delighted by the absurdity of Belinda’s world and the effort expended by the sylphs in maintaining this environment of inconsequence.

Delightful in and of itself is the explanation of the sylph-forming process. Sylph Ariel says to Belinda, "Think not, when woman’s transient breath is fled, / That all her vanities at once are dead: / […] The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair" (1.52-53, 65). Thankfully, once a woman dies, the flirt lives on. We may all be assured of the miraculous triumph of the inconsequential. Ariel continues, "Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, / And love of ombre, after death survive" (1.55-56). Pursuing these temporal pleasures is not the only pastime of the sylph; maintaining the coquettish way of life is equally important.

Ariel refers to Belinda as "Fairest of mortals, thou distinguished care/ Of thousand bright inhabitants of air" (1.27-28). Belinda is the center of the universe for many sylphs; she is their charge. "Know then," Ariel says to her, "unnumbered spirits round thee fly, / The light militia of the lower sky" (1.41-42). Here, the word "militia" brings to mind an imposing, well-regulated army, rather than a gossamer grouping of sprites bent on protecting beauty and virginity.

It is sylph Ariel that foresees the "dread event" of the poem’s title. Ariel says to Belinda: "Warned by the Sylph, O pious maid, beware! / This to disclose is all thy guardian can: / Beware of all, but most beware of man!" (1.109, 112-14). Man, of course, is the coquette’s eternal adversary. A lady must be very careful; men may be allured and teased, but as prey they can be unpredictable.

Following this warning Belinda wakes and begins the transcendental toilet, one of my favorite scenes in the poem. Pope elevates Belinda’s morning preparations to the level of High Mass; a mystical, spiritual experience in which miraculous transformation takes place. In this ritual, however, "cosmetic powers" rather than cosmic powers are relied upon. (1.124). With the aid of the sylphs, Belinda begins her grooming:

And now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed,

Each silver vase in mystic order laid.

First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores,

With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers.

A heavenly image in the glass appears;

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears.

Here we see an example of the utmost importance of the superficial in the absurd comparison between holiness and vanity. Further example of religion’s place in Belinda’s scale of values is provided in the description of the objects before her: "Here files of pins extend their shining rows, / Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux" (1.138). The word of God seems only as important as love letters or accouterments of beauty.

Belinda is not the only one to succumb to such superficiality; the Baron seems rather trivial as well. Intent on the confiscation of Belinda’s beautiful hair, he builds an altar to Love, "Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. / There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves, / And all the trophies of his former loves" (2.38-40). Such sacrifices he made! Further religious mockery can be found in the next stanzas:

With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre,

And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire.

Then prostate falls, and begs with ardent eyes

Soon to obtain, and long posses the prize (2.41-44).

Such prostration, sighing and praying over hair is silly, and when garters, gloves, and billet-doux are involved, it’s just ridiculous.

As the Baron begins his preparations, so do the sylphs. Ariel "summons straight his denizens of air" and announces: " ‘This day black omens threat the brightest fair, / That e’er deserved a watchful spirit’s care" (2.55, 101-02). The sylphs prepare for "Some dire disaster" (2.103), whatever it may be. Ariel recounts the vast scope of the sylphs’ duties; the must be prepared, whether Belinda "stain her honor, or her new brocade, / […] / Or lose her heart, or necklace at a ball" (2.107-09). Being former coquettes, of course the sylphs realize that stained brocade is just as disastrous as stained honor. "To fifty chosen Sylphs, of special note," Ariel assigns "the important charge, the petticoat" (2.115-16). The sylphs are protecting that which they deem most significant and preparing for disaster:

Some thread the mazy ringlets of her hair;

Some hang upon the pendants of her ear:

With beating hearts the dire event they wait,

Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate. (2.139-142)

The dreaded day begins innocently enough; eventually, a game of cards is in order, and the mock epic’s war begins with a game of ombre. Belinda "Burns to encounter two adventurous knights, / […] /And swells her breast with conquests yet to come" (3.26-28). Ombre is a fitting game, as it is described in terms of war. Belinda’s knaves "Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain"; Her matadores "Move to war"; and the knave of clubs "unconquerable lord" (3.44, 49, 62). Midway through the game Belinda has the upper hand, and then "to the Baron fate inclines the field" (3.66). Without fail, the Baron moves himself into a position of sure victory, only to be disappointed by a twist of fate favoring Belinda.

Belinda’s celebratory exclamations are greeted with a somber warning of calamity to come (tragically, unheard):

The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky,

The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.

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. (3.99-104)

Here, too, we see the small made great. The glorious victory is only success at a hand of cards, and the dire warnings of fate refer only to the loss of a little hair.

Finally, the dreaded event comes to pass, and no guardian sylph can stop it. The baron snips the lock, and Belinda’s reaction constitutes my favorite lines in the poem: "Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, / When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last" (3.157-58). Such a delicious, terrible comparison, to give a husband the importance of a lapdog!

The Baron’s speech on steel is also funny, listing the many things that can be destroyed be steel: "the labor of the Gods", "the imperial towers of Troy", "the works of mortal pride", "triumphal arches", (3.173-176) and, of course, Belinda’s Hair.

Gnome Umbriel, an anti-sylph of sorts, descends to the Cave of Spleen to fetch the proper reaction for Belinda. Oh, and what a speech Belinda gives! With impressive coquettish talent, she manages to be vain and tragic at the same time:

Oh, had I rather unadmired remained

In some lone isle, or distant northern land;

[…]

There kept my charms concealed from mortal eye,

Like roses that in deserts bloom and die. (3.153-158)

Such a romantic image: a beautiful young woman in isolation, with no one to appreciate that beauty (but no one to mar it, either).

Belinda, I suppose, learned to move past her life’s tragedy, and hopefully thereafter her sylphs redoubled their efforts in guarding her locks. I liked this poem. I liked flamboyant exaggeration of little things and acts of little consequence, and the comparisons between things small and great. I enjoyed how the sylphs lived to perpetuate these ideas. If Arabella Fermor enjoyed it as much as I did, maybe even she learned to forgive.

Works Cited