"Rape of The Lock" As a Mock Epic Part II
Pope has presented the careless and casual response of aristocracy in matters of life; he presents a society where high ups are busy in pursuit of their own goals though trivial and vain. The society on display in this poem is one that fails to distinguish between things that matter and things that do not. What they care about is their own personal life, card games, pomp, vanity and a life that is matchless to the ordinary and the common. He makes fun of their stupid deeds. He considers it serious that a woman's hair is cut but by the nobility because she has rejected a lord and such crimes are frivolities and funs of life! There is a war! Alexander Pope exposes moral values prevalent in nobility by use of irony:
"In tasks so bold, can little men engage?
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?"
Pope has made fun of women and their unthinking minds which are concerned for their beauty aids alone. He presents Belinda like an epic heroin. The stakes in this mock-heroic epic are Belinda's maidenhood. Pope does not invoke a heavenly muse like Milton rather Ariel reads of bad omens: "Beware of all, but most beware of Man!" Belinda's performance of her toilette, assisted by Betty, her "inferior priestess", is described as the arming of the epic hero: "Now awful Beauty put on all its arms" and then poet describes the various creams and perfumes on Belinda's vanity invests them with a value and exoticism they don't deserve: "Unnumbered treasures," "glittering spoil," "India's glowing gems," and "all Arabia breathes from yonder box". The "Fairest of Mortals" has "unnumbered Spirits round" flying as guards:
"To Fifty chosen Sylphs, of special Note,
We trust th' important Charge, the Petticoat."
Like great epic poems, we find aerial creatures in this poem too. While numberless fallen angels are at hand for Satan to build a meeting place of gold; there are unnumbered sylphs which help Bellinda protect her chastity. They are punished if they are careless:
"Whatever spirit, careless of his Charge,
His Post neglects, or leaves the Fair at large,
Shall feel sharp Vengeance soon o'ertake his Sins,
Be stopt in Vials, or transfixt with Pins.
Read Part I...
