➡️The rape of the lock :- summary and characteristics :-
✿. About the outher "The rape of the lock":
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》➢Born:-
21 May 1688 O.S.
London, Englanl
》➢Died:-
30 May 1744 (aged 56)
Twickenham, Middlesex, England
》➢Resting place:-
St Mary's Church, Twickenham, Middlesex, England
》➢Occupation:-
Writer, translator
》➢Genre:-
Poetry, satire, translation
Literary movement
Classicism, Augustan literature
》➢Notable works:-
The Dunciad, The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Criticism, his translation of Homer
》➢Signature:-
➡️ The Rape of the Lock Summary:-
At the opening of the poem, Belinda, a beautiful and wealthy young woman is asleep. Ariel, her guardian sylph, watches over her and sends her a dream which highlights what the role of the sylph is—namely to protect virtuous young women, though at times he makes the whole thing sound a tad sinister by suggesting that sylphs might control the action of mortals or get them into trouble. He is worried that some disaster is close at hand, though he is not sure what form it will take. He instead warns her through the dream to “beware of man.” Belinda then awakes and begins dressing herself for a day of social engagements. With the help of her maid Betty and that of her attendant sylphs, Belinda then completes the elaborate process of beautifying herself.
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The Rape of the Lock Summary
At the opening of the poem, Belinda, a beautiful and wealthy young woman is asleep. Ariel, her guardian sylph, watches over her and sends her a dream which highlights what the role of the sylph is—namely to protect virtuous young women, though at times he makes the whole thing sound a tad sinister by suggesting that sylphs might control the action of mortals or get them into trouble. He is worried that some disaster is close at hand, though he is not sure what form it will take. He instead warns her through the dream to “beware of man.” Belinda then awakes and begins dressing herself for a day of social engagements. With the help of her maid Betty and that of her attendant sylphs, Belinda then completes the elaborate process of beautifying herself.
Looking exceptionally beautiful, Belinda then sails from London to Hampton court, and dazzles the crowd as she sails along. The two locks in which she has styled her hair look especially attractive, and the Baron eyes them in admiration—he has resolved to take one for himself, either by force or by theft. Before sunrise that morning, he had prayed for success to the God of love. As a kind of sacrifice burned a pyre made up of “French romances” (i.e., love stories), garters, gloves, and all the tokens of his romantic past, including love letters. Meanwhile, back in the present Belinda’s boat is still gliding along and Ariel is still troubled by the feeling that something horrible is going to happen. He summons a huge army of sylphs out of the air, and explains that he feels disaster is going to strike at any moment, though his idea of disaster is actually quite silly—that at worst Belinda might lose her virginity, but that it might also be something as trivial as a new dress getting stained, losing a piece of jewelry, or her lapdog dying. He instructs a number of sylphs to man different stations, including her fan, her lock, her watch, and her dog.
The boat arrives at Hampton Court and the lords and ladies disembark, ready to enjoy the pleasures of a day at court, in particular, gossip. Belinda soon sits down with two men to play a game of ombre. With a little help from her band of sylphs, Belinda begins the game well, declaring that spades are to be trumps, and quickly gaining the upper hand. The Baron, however, is quick to fire back and begins to dominate the game, and Belinda is close to being beaten. At the very last second, though, Belinda is able to win the final play, and reacts triumphantly.
Coffee is then served, which the smell of which revives the Baron and reminds him of his plan to steal the lock. Clarissa draws out a pair of scissors, like a lady equipping a knight for battle, and the Baron seizes them and prepares to snip off the lock. A whole host of sylphs descend on the lock, trying to twitch the hair and Belinda’s earring to gain her attention and alert her to the danger. And, although she looks around three times, the Baron simply evades her glance each time and then moves closer again. At this moment, Ariel accesses Belinda’s inner thoughts and sees that she has feelings for an “earthly lover.” He feels that this ill befits the “close recesses of the virgin’s thoughts.” Resigned to the fact that she is not as pure as he had hoped, Ariel gives up on stopping the Baron from snipping off the lock. The Baron crows with delight and Belinda screams in horror at what has happened.
While Belinda is sadly considering the wrong done to her, Umbriel, a gnome, flies down to another realm, the Cave of Spleen. Here, he encounters a number of unpleasant things, including the East wind which was thought to cause migraines, the figures of Ill Nature and Affectation, all kinds of horrible phantoms and contorted bodies (women turned into objects, men who are pregnant), and the Queen of Spleen herself, a kind of magical being who touches women with melancholy and hysterics. He asks her to affect Belinda with “chagrin” and she obliges, presenting him with a bag of “the force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs and passions, and the war of tongues” and a vial containing “fainting fears, / Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.”
When he returns, he finds Belinda in the arms of Thalestris, and promptly tips the bag over them. Thalestris is accordingly hugely distressed at the lock’s loss and Belinda’s now tarnished reputation. She goes to her own suitor, Sir Plume, and demands he confront the Baron, which he does to no avail, with the Baron declaring that he will not give up the lock while his nostrils still breathe air (i.e., while he is alive). But Umbriel, not content with having stirred up enough trouble already, then opens the vial over Belinda, who appears to give a long lamenting speech about the loss of the lock, wishing she had stayed at home or at least headed Ariel’s warning.
Still, the Baron is unmoved. At last, Clarissa quiets the group and makes her own speech, which essentially argues that this whole debate is silly—that everyone, including women themselves, places too much value on transient female beauty, and that women should instead invest their time and energy in being the best moral beings they can be. But her good sense is lost on the assembled company, and Belinda calls the women to arms.
Download this Chart (PDF)
The Rape of the Lock Summary
At the opening of the poem, Belinda, a beautiful and wealthy young woman is asleep. Ariel, her guardian sylph, watches over her and sends her a dream which highlights what the role of the sylph is—namely to protect virtuous young women, though at times he makes the whole thing sound a tad sinister by suggesting that sylphs might control the action of mortals or get them into trouble. He is worried that some disaster is close at hand, though he is not sure what form it will take. He instead warns her through the dream to “beware of man.” Belinda then awakes and begins dressing herself for a day of social engagements. With the help of her maid Betty and that of her attendant sylphs, Belinda then completes the elaborate process of beautifying herself.
Looking exceptionally beautiful, Belinda then sails from London to Hampton court, and dazzles the crowd as she sails along. The two locks in which she has styled her hair look especially attractive, and the Baron eyes them in admiration—he has resolved to take one for himself, either by force or by theft. Before sunrise that morning, he had prayed for success to the God of love. As a kind of sacrifice burned a pyre made up of “French romances” (i.e., love stories), garters, gloves, and all the tokens of his romantic past, including love letters. Meanwhile, back in the present Belinda’s boat is still gliding along and Ariel is still troubled by the feeling that something horrible is going to happen. He summons a huge army of sylphs out of the air, and explains that he feels disaster is going to strike at any moment, though his idea of disaster is actually quite silly—that at worst Belinda might lose her virginity, but that it might also be something as trivial as a new dress getting stained, losing a piece of jewelry, or her lapdog dying. He instructs a number of sylphs to man different stations, including her fan, her lock, her watch, and her dog.
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The boat arrives at Hampton Court and the lords and ladies disembark, ready to enjoy the pleasures of a day at court, in particular, gossip. Belinda soon sits down with two men to play a game of ombre. With a little help from her band of sylphs, Belinda begins the game well, declaring that spades are to be trumps, and quickly gaining the upper hand. The Baron, however, is quick to fire back and begins to dominate the game, and Belinda is close to being beaten. At the very last second, though, Belinda is able to win the final play, and reacts triumphantly.
Coffee is then served, which the smell of which revives the Baron and reminds him of his plan to steal the lock. Clarissa draws out a pair of scissors, like a lady equipping a knight for battle, and the Baron seizes them and prepares to snip off the lock. A whole host of sylphs descend on the lock, trying to twitch the hair and Belinda’s earring to gain her attention and alert her to the danger. And, although she looks around three times, the Baron simply evades her glance each time and then moves closer again. At this moment, Ariel accesses Belinda’s inner thoughts and sees that she has feelings for an “earthly lover.” He feels that this ill befits the “close recesses of the virgin’s thoughts.” Resigned to the fact that she is not as pure as he had hoped, Ariel gives up on stopping the Baron from snipping off the lock. The Baron crows with delight and Belinda screams in horror at what has happened.
While Belinda is sadly considering the wrong done to her, Umbriel, a gnome, flies down to another realm, the Cave of Spleen. Here, he encounters a number of unpleasant things, including the East wind which was thought to cause migraines, the figures of Ill Nature and Affectation, all kinds of horrible phantoms and contorted bodies (women turned into objects, men who are pregnant), and the Queen of Spleen herself, a kind of magical being who touches women with melancholy and hysterics. He asks her to affect Belinda with “chagrin” and she obliges, presenting him with a bag of “the force of female lungs, / Sighs, sobs and passions, and the war of tongues” and a vial containing “fainting fears, / Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears.”
When he returns, he finds Belinda in the arms of Thalestris, and promptly tips the bag over them. Thalestris is accordingly hugely distressed at the lock’s loss and Belinda’s now tarnished reputation. She goes to her own suitor, Sir Plume, and demands he confront the Baron, which he does to no avail, with the Baron declaring that he will not give up the lock while his nostrils still breathe air (i.e., while he is alive). But Umbriel, not content with having stirred up enough trouble already, then opens the vial over Belinda, who appears to give a long lamenting speech about the loss of the lock, wishing she had stayed at home or at least headed Ariel’s warning.
Still, the Baron is unmoved. At last, Clarissa quiets the group and makes her own speech, which essentially argues that this whole debate is silly—that everyone, including women themselves, places too much value on transient female beauty, and that women should instead invest their time and energy in being the best moral beings they can be. But her good sense is lost on the assembled company, and Belinda calls the women to arms.
A kind of mock courtly battle ensues, with fans, silks, and the ladies’ scowls for weapons, much to Umbriel’s delight. Belinda rushes at the Baron and blows snuff into his nose, with the help of the gnomes, fulfilling his earlier comment that the lock could only be taken from him if air stopped filling his nostrils. She then draws out a bodkin, threatening him with it. He tells her that he fears nothing in death but being separated from her and begs to live, burning with passion instead. She shouts at him to return the stolen lock, but miraculously the lock is gone. The narrator assures readers, however, that it ascended into the heavens, like Berenice’s locks, where it shall be viewed by the common people of London and astronomers alike. Unlike every other lock, however, this one will never grow gray, but will burn brightly in the sky as an eternal testament to Belinda’s spectacular beauty.
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➡️ The Rape of the Lock Character List:-
» Belinda :
The heroine of the poem, Belinda, is a young noblewoman who is proud of her beautiful hair. Although Pope modeled The Rape of the Lock on a real incident, there is no indication that Belinda takes after the real-life victim, Arabella Fermor. Instead, she appears to be an archetypical coquette in British high society. She sleeps late and then gets ready in an almost ritualistic fashion, all for a mere social gathering and a game of cards. She takes great pains to maintain her appearance. Indeed, when Thalestris commiserates with Belinda after the Baron cuts Belinda’s hair, Thalestris first notes how much time and effort Belinda spends on her hair. Pope portrays Belinda as fairly hollow inside, bound to the whims of her guardian sylphs and gnomes. It is the sylphs who take charge of her appearance, guard her chastity, and set her preferences (“they shift the moving toyshop of their heart”). Although Belinda is already upset about the loss of her hair, the gnome Umbriel journeys to the Cave of Spleen to worsen her mood. In this sense, Belinda, and all women by inference, operate in mysterious ways according to unearthly spirits, not reason or logic.
Despite the sexist undertones surrounding Belinda’s character, the poem does provide ways to read her sympathetically. Although the poem describes her curls as a trap to ensnare men, this serious comparison mirrors the other ways Pope describes trivial things with mock gravity throughout the poem. Just as cards are not soldiers, hair cannot truly ensnare a reasonable person. Furthermore, Thalestris’s warning that the Baron displaying Belinda’s hair could destroy her reputation has weight. The narrator observes that in the social scene at Hampton Court, “At ev'ry word a reputation dies.” Although the poem satirizes the values of this social sect, the reality remains that this incident, if told in a light unfavorable to Belinda, could destroy her reputation, which would mean social death. When Belinda laments the loss of her curl, she regrets going to Hampton Court at all because she now feels that men cannot be trusted. In essence, Belinda finds herself in a misogynistic bind. The beauty that bolsters her status can also be used against her through no action of her own
»The Baron :
Like Belinda, the Baron who cuts Belinda’s hair is less a depiction of a real person and more an archetypical foolish nobleman. The narrator describes him as “adventurous,” but little evidence of this quality is given in his behavior. Instead, the Baron seems amorous, a slave to his own passions with little rational thought to guide him. Once he sets his sights on Belinda, he burns all former love tokens in offering. This gesture portrays him as less of a trifler with women’s hearts and more of a ridiculous figure, chronically lovesick and flighty. After cutting Belinda’s hair, he compares himself to an epic hero like the Achaeans in the Iliad. He is undoubtedly unrepentant, but there is ambiguity in why he feels so triumphant. Given the common use of hair as a love token in Georgian England, there is a disturbing undertone of rape to the Baron’s actions. Through this lens, his speech seems to mean that he believes Belinda is beautiful and therefore must be defiled. His evocation of Troy has another aspect. Many people read the end of the Iliad as tragic, with Troy falling because of fate, not merit or virtue. In this reading, the Baron considers his actions inevitable, showing that he not only lacks remorse but denies his own agency.
» Ariel :
Belinda’s guardian sylph, who oversees an army of invisible protective deities.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, from 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 designed to sexually appeal to her, “A youth more glitt'ring than a birthnight beau”? Some critics have also drawn comparisons between his opening speech to Belinda, at which point he “Seem'd to her Ear his winning Lips to lay,” and Satan’s speech to Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost in which he is “Squat like a Toad, close at the ear of Eve; / Assaying by his Devilish art to reach / The Organs of her Fancy.” Similarly, his name recalls Ariel in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, also a mischievous spirit. This allows Pope to suggest that there is something rather “tricksy” about the sylph, which in turn suggests rather a lot about the morality of the world of the poem. Ariel is, after all, meant to be regulating Belinda’s morality by ensuring her chastity, so his fickleness reinforces Pope’s satirical suggestion that good and bad are not as clear cut as they appear, especially not in such a vain setting as the court.
» Umbriel :
The chief gnome, who travels to the Cave of Spleen and returns with bundles of sighs and tears to aggravate Belinda’s vexation
» Caryl :
The historical basis for the Caryl character is John Caryll, a friend of Pope and of the two families that had become estranged over the incident the poem relates. It was Caryll who suggested that Pope encourage a reconciliation by writing a humorous poem.
» Goddess :
The muse who, according to classical convention, inspires poets to write their verses.
» Shock :
Belinda’s lapdog.
» Brillante :
The sylph who is assigned to guard Belinda’s earrings.The sylph in charge of guarding Belinda’s earrings. Her name is a pun on the word brilliant, meaning “shining brightly,” which is appropriate for some sparkling earrings.
» Momentilla :
The sylph in charge of guarding Belinda’s watch. Her name is a pun on the word moment, which appropriate for the watch as a means of measuring time.The sylph who is assigned to guard Belinda’s watch.
» Crispissa :
The sylph in charge of guarding Belinda’s hair. Her name is a pun on the old-fashioned word crisp, meaning “curl,” and thus is fitting given that her task is to guard Belinda’s lock.The sylph who is assigned to guard Belinda’s “fav’rite Lock.”
» Clarissa :
A woman in attendance at the Hampton Court party. She lends the Baron the pair of scissors with which he cuts Belinda’s hair, and later delivers a moralizing lecture.
» Thalestris :
Belinda’s friend, named for the Queen of the Amazons and representing the historical Gertrude Morley, a friend of Pope’s and the wife of Sir George Browne (rendered as her “beau,” Sir Plume, in the poem). She eggs Belinda on in her anger and demands that the lock be returned.
» Sir Plume :
Thalestris’s “beau,” who makes an ineffectual challenge to the Baron. He represents the historical Sir George Browne, a member of Pope’s social circle.
» 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 disfunction 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.
» Zephyretta :
The sylph in charge of guarding Belinda’s fan. Her name is a pun on the word zephyr, or “soft breeze,” appropriate for a fan which itself creates a breeze.
» Betty :
Belinda’s maid.
➡️ References:
1 . Sherburn, G., Eed. Correspondence of Alexander Pope, Oxford University Press, 1956, I, 201.
2. Keith Burgess-Jackson, A Most Detestable Crime: New Philosophical Essays on Rape, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999, p. 16
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