Symbols in 'Rape of of the Lock'

 Academic Information 

Name : Dangar Rinkal Nathabhai

Roll no.20

Enrollment no.4049206420220007

Batch : M.A (2022-24)

Paper Name : 

Paper code : 2239

Paper no.102

Topic : Symbols in 'Rape of of the Lock'

Submitted to : S.B.Gardi Department of English M.K.U Bhavnagar 

Submitted on : 07/11/2022

Symbols in 'Rape of the Lock'

Before we go for Introduction of Symbols in 'The Rape of the Lock' let's have an introduction of writer and the poem itself.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, and for his translation of Homer.

Pope was inspired by classical Greek writer and was writing in a great satirical way.

Rape of the Lock 

The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope.One of the most commonly cited examples of high burlesque, it was first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellaneous Poems as a five-canto version  accompanied by six engravings. 

Pope boasted that this sold more than three thousand copies in its first four days. The final form of the poem appeared in 1717 with the addition of Clarissa's speech on good humor. The poem was much translated and contributed to the growing popularity of mock-heroics in Europe. 

This poem is a satire on the aristocratic people of Augustan age.

Characters of 'Rape of the Lock'

Poem is developed by its characters Ariel

Character Analysis

• Ariel 

Belinda's guardian sylph. At the opening of the narrative, he explains to Belinda through a dream that he is tasked with protecting her beauty and chastity. He feels that some great disaster is looming in the near future and warns her to "beware of man." Later, as Belinda is sailing to Hampton Court, Ariel calls up an army of sylphs to defend various parts of her, including her hair, her earrings, and her fan. In the vital moment before the Baron snips off Belinda's lock of hair, however, Ariel gives up helping Belinda. When he gains access to her inner thoughts at this moment, Ariel spies "An earthly lover lurking at her heart," meaning she is perhaps not as chaste as she ought to be. Even though Ariel seems to want to protect Belinda, there is definitely something a little sinister about him, too. If he is so interested in Belinda's chastity, why does he choose to send her a dream at the beginning which includes a young man.

• Baron 

The antagonist of the poem. Based on the historical Lord Petre, the Baron snips Belinda's lock on account of his infatuation with her remarkable beauty and refuses to give it back. Readers learn that, earlier that day, he created a bonfire to the god of Love made out of, among other things, books containing romantic stories, love letters, and tokens from past romantic attachments, in order to pray for success in winning Belinda in some way, and settled on "raping" her lock. And while his cutting of the lock is not equated with rape in the modern sense in the context of the poem, it means "theft" or "pillaging"-Pope is still using the word to connote injustice, and to unequivocally state that he has taken what he had no right to take. The fact that the Baron is only referred to by his title, revealing his masculinity and his station but nothing else, or else is satirically figured as a "knight," the height of courtly masculinity, allows Pope to metonymically cast a kind of witty judgment over all noblemen, and to question the contemporary assumption that they were the intellectual and moral leaders of their day.

Thalestris 

A courtly lady who befriends Belinda, and laments the loss of the lock with her. Like Belinda, she is subject to the "Sighs, sobs, and passions" dumped out of Umbriel's bag, which prompts her to take to the fight to regain the lock so aggressively. However, her name does recall that of the mythological queen of the Amazons, a group of fierce female warriors, which suggests that Pope might be teasing the reader here again with the question of how much the characters' actions are their own. Thalestris's name suggests she might herself be innately war-like, even without the influence of Umbriel.

The Queen of Spleen

Queen of the subterranean Cave of Spleen. A personification of the concept of spleen itself, she bestows hysteria, melancholy, and bodily dysfunction on women. She provides Umbriel with a bag of "Sighs, sobs and passions'' and a vial of "fainting fears, / Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears," which he pours over Belinda and Thalestris, allowing Pope to once again suggest that the mortals are not really in control of their own feelings or actions.

Clarissa 

A lady at court who lends the Baron her scissors to chop off Belinda's lock of hair. She later finds the whole incident frustratingly trivial and delivers a speech about how physical beauty is ultimately fleeting and that instead women should concentrate on being as morally upright as they possibly can. Looks might prove attractive to the eyes, Clarissa declares, but virtue is most attractive to the soul. While her speech obviously makes good sense, it is typical of a more traditional style of poem which would be primarily concerned with didacticism, or simply telling the reader what the moral is. Pope subverts the conventions of this style of writing by refusing to end the poem here and instead concluding with the absurdity of the courtly battle. But Clarissa's name, meaning "clarity." hints that the reader might do well to take her wise advice.

⚫ Symbols in ' The Rape of Lock'

an artistic and poetic movement or style using symbolic images and indirect suggestion to express mystical ideas, emotions, and states of mind. It originated in late 19th-century France and Belgium, with important figures including Mallarmé, Maeterlinck, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Redon.

• Belinda's Lock 

Belinda's lock of hair comes to symbolize the absurdity of the importance afforded to female beauty in society. Pope offers a hyperbolically metaphorical description of the two locks in Canto II, humorously framing the locks as alluring enough to virtually incapacitate any man who looks at them. The locks are "labyrinths" in which Love "detains" "his slaves" by binding their hears with "slender chains," thus poking fun at the idea that Belinda's beauty is truly powerful enough to make such a deep impact. This absurdity only grows as the poem progresses and after the Baron has snipped Belinda's lock. Under the influence of Umbriel,Thalestris laments the loss of the lock as the symbolic loss of Belinda's reputation in society, exclaiming. "Methinks already in your tears survey,/Already hear the horrid things they say." In Pope's day, the respectability of a woman in society depended upon her having a spotless reputation and being perfectly virtuous, and, in particular, sexually pure. Thalestris then is essentially saying that the loss of Belinda's lock is a rupture which damages all of the rest of her beauty, and the Baron's having taken it in so intimate a fashion compromises the idea that she is chaste, and that people will think she in some way allowed him to violate her body. 

Obviously, this makes very little sense, allowing the Pope to satirize the idea that beauty and virtue are so closely related. 

The lock's final ascension into the heavens is the most absurd part of the whole thing, and Pope's choice to cap off the whole poem with the transparently silly idea that the lock is too precious to remain on earth. that no mortal deserves to be so "blest" as to possess it, emphasizes the ridiculous amount of emphasis placed on female beauty in society.

• Playing Cards 

In the poem, the playing cards that Belinda, the Baron, and another gentleman use in their game of ombre symbolize the trivial nature of life at court. Pope describes the playing cards in the terms of an epic battle, where kings, queens, and nobles battle one another, accompanied by "particolour'd troops, a shining train, Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain." While epic heroes engaged in huge battles, where real kings, queens, and nobles' lives would have been at stake, this trio of modern figures at court-Belinda, the Baron, and the other gentleman-only come as close to epic battle as a game of ombre, where the cards make for a silly substitute for the lives which might be lost in a real battle. By infusing the card game with mock-seriousness, Pope consequently suggests that life at court for Belinda and her peers is likewise empty, trivial, and mockable.

• The Bodkin

Near the end of the final battle, Belinda draws "a deadly Bodkin from her side" and threatens the Baron with it. A bodkin is a pin for putting up hair. Like in the epics of the Greek poet Homer (9th or 8th century BCE), this weapon has a history. 

Belinda's great-great-grandfather wore rings that were melted down after his death to make "a vast Buckle for his Widow's Gown." It was reformed again into Belinda's "infant Grandma's Whistle." Then it became the bodkin it is now, which was first worn by Belinda's mother. Therefore, the bodkin symbolizes the storied swords and spears used by heroes in epic poems. 

• Rape 

The eighteenth century is an age of psychological insight. Every writer as well as his work is being analyzed in psychological terms. Modern psychology has proved that it is the sex psychology which determined the superiority of a sex. Sex is the nucleus of human life and its all activities. It is not the product of conventions, rather, it is just a natural instinct, which is reduced to some discipline by accepted social convention, morals, laws, etc. Sex is at the root of all moral and physical health. So it may be disciplined, but if it is curbed and suppressed, it leads to drastic consequences.

The lock in "The Rape of the Lock" is a symbol of the female organ and the rape of the lock symbolizes the rape of Belinda by the hands of Lord Peter. In fact, the poem projects a synthesis between sex and religion. The boys and the girls were allured to have relations and were in favour of free sex but religion did not allow it. Besides, they were also afraid of their social disreputation. So they had to suppress their natural instinct sometimes. 

Resultantly,established relations with others secretly. Belinda's grief was not the loss of chastity but her social disreputation. That's why she repented that Baron had cut the lock of hair.

Conclusion : 

That is how symbols are affecting the poem even the name Clarissa is itself significant which means clarity and Clarissa is the only one character with the mind in overall poem and all other characters events are also having their own meaning in the poem 'Rape of the Lock'.