The Rape of the Lock - summary

The Rape of The Lock
Summary
The Rape of the Lock begins with a passage outlining the topic of the verse form and invoking the help of the muse. Then the sun (“Sol”) seems to initiate the leisurely morning routines of a rich family. Lapdogs shake themselves awake, bells begin to ring, and though it's already twelve noon, Belinda still sleeps. She has been dreaming, and that we learn that the dream has been sent by “her guardian Sylph,” Ariel. The dream is of a handsome youth World Health Organization tells her that she is protected by “unnumber’d Spirits”—an army of supernatural beings World Health Organization once lived on earth as human girls. The youth explains that they're the invisible guardians of women’s chastity, though the credit is sometimes erroneously given to “Honour” instead of to their divine berth. of those Spirits, one explicit group—the Sylphs, World Health Organization dwell within the air—serve as Belinda’s personal guardians; they're devoted, lover-like, to any girl that “rejects humankind,” and that they perceive and reward the vanities of a chic and flighty girl like Belinda. Ariel, the chief of all Belinda’s prankish protectors, warns her during this dream that “some dread event” goes to befall her that day, tho' he will tell her nothing a lot of specific than that she ought to “beware of Man!” Then Belinda awakes, to the licking tongue of her Canis familiaris, Shock. Upon the delivery of a billet-doux, or love-letter, she forgets all regarding the dream. She then return to her dresser associate degreed goes through an elaborate ritual of dressing, during which her own image within the mirror is delineated as a “heavenly image,” a “goddess.” The Sylphs, unseen, assist their charge as she prepares herself for the day’s activities.
The gap of the verse form establishes its impersonation vogue. Pope introduces the traditional epic subjects of affection associate degreed war and includes an invocation to the muse and a dedication to the person (the historical John Caryll) World Health Organization commissioned the verse form. nevertheless the tone already indicates that the high seriousness of those ancient topics has suffered a diminishment. The second line confirms in specific terms what the primary line already suggests: the “am’rous causes” the verse form describes aren't love the grand love of Greek heroes however rather represent a trivialized version of that feeling. The “contests” Pope alludes to can encourage be “mighty” solely in associate degree ironic sense. they're card-games and coquettish tussles, not the good battles of epic tradition. Belinda isn't, like mythical being of Troy, “the face that launched k ships” (see the SparkNote on The Iliad), however rather a face that—although additionally beautiful—prompts lots of dandyish nonsense. the primary 2 verse-paragraphs emphasize the comic inappropriateness of the epic vogue (and corresponding mind-set) to the topic at hand. Pope achieves this discrepancy at the extent of the road and half-line; the reader is supposed to linger over the incompatibility between the 2 sides of his parallel formulations. Thus, during this world, it's “little men” World Health Organization in “tasks therefore daring... engage”; and “soft bosoms” square measure the dwelling-place for “mighty rage.” during this surprising juxtaposition of the petty and therefore the grand, the previous is real whereas the latter is ironic. In mock-epic, the high heroic vogue works to not dignify the topic however rather to reveal and mock it. Therefore, the fundamental irony of the fashion supports the substance of the poem’s irony, that attacks the misguided values of a society that takes tiny matters for serious ones whereas failing to attend to problems with real importance.
With Belinda’s dream, Pope introduces the “machinery” of the poem—the supernatural powers that influence the action from behind the scenes. Here, the sprites that check Belinda square measure meant to mimic the gods of the Greek and Roman traditions, World Health Organization square measure generally benevolent and generally malicious, however forever intimately concerned in sublunar events. The theme additionally makes use of different ancient hierarchies and systems of order. Ariel explains that women’s spirits, after they die, come “to their initial components.” every feminine temperament kind (these varieties correspond to the four humours) is reborn into a specific quite faery. These gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and nymphs, in turn, square measure related to the four components of earth, air, fire, and water. The ethereal sylphs square measure people who in their lifetimes were “light Coquettes”; they need a specific concern for Belinda as a result of she is of this sort, and this may be the facet of female nature with that the verse form is most involved.
Indeed, Pope already begins to sketch this character of the “coquette” during this initial canto. He attracts the portrait indirectly, through characteristics of the Sylphs instead of of Belinda herself. Their priorities reveal that the central issues of womanhood, a minimum of for girls of Belinda’s category, square measure social ones. Woman’s “joy in gilded Chariots” indicates associate degree obsession with elegance and superficial splendor, whereas “love of Ombre,” a modern cards, suggests frivolity. The sexy charge of this social world successively prompts another central concern: the protection of chastity. These square measure girls World Health Organization price especially the prospect marrying to advantage, and that they have learned at associate degree early age a way to promote themselves and manipulate their suitors while not compromising themselves. The Sylphs become associate degree allegory for the unnatural conventions that govern feminine social behavior. Principles like honor and chastity became no quite another a part of standard interaction. Pope makes it clear that these girls aren't conducting themselves on the idea of abstract ethical principles, however square measure ruled by associate degree elaborate social mechanism—of that the Sylphs cut a fitting caricature. And whereas Pope’s technique of using supernatural machinery permits him to critique this example, it additionally helps to stay the irony light-weight and to acquit individual girls from too severe a judgment. If Belinda has all the standard feminine foibles, Pope desires North American country to acknowledge that it's part as a result of she has been educated and trained to act during this manner. The society as a full is the maximum amount in charge as she is. Nor square measure men exempt from this judgment. The competition among the young lords for the eye of lovely girls is represented as a battle of vainness, as “wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots attempt.” Pope’s phrases here expose associate degree absurd attention to exhibitions of pride and ostentation. He emphasizes the pointlessness of discriminating therefore closely between things and other people that square measure primarily an equivalent all told necessary (and even most unimportant) respects.
Pope’s portrayal of Belinda at her dresser introduces impersonation motifs which will run through the verse form. The scene of her grooming is rendered initial as a spiritual religious ceremony, during which Belinda herself is that the priest and her image within the glass is that the deity she serves. This parody of the non secular rites before a battle provides manner, then, to a different quite mock-epic scene, that of the ritualized armament of the hero. Combs, pins, and cosmetics take the place of weapons as “awful Beauty puts on all its arms.”

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