Alexander Pope’s Rape of Femininity

Not all the tresses that fair head can boast
Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost�
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust;
This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame (V, 143-9).
-Alexander Pope

The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope is on one level a poem about 18th century society attending a party at Hampton Palace. Appearances are not what they seem, because the poem is really an attack on femininity and an examination of gender dualities. Through a series of attacks, description and betrayals, Pope reveals his overt misogyny and patriarchal agenda so lucidly that it clouds the intended meaning of the poem. Pope’s gender ideologies deflate the power, intelligence and beauty of women while supporting man’s violence and belittling of women.

The symbolism of the lock of hair can be viewed with two different types of gender criticism, one that defies the patriarchy and one that feeds into the power of the patriarch. In Ellen Pollak’s essay, “Rereading The Rape of the Lock: Pope and the Paradox of Female Power,” Pollak maintains that the lock of hair is a phallic symbol and therefore it is cut off to reduce Belinda to femininity.
The symbolic loss of the Belle’s much-coveted virginity is realized in the form of a castration or literal cutting off of that body part of her associated most strongly with those ‘masculine’ attributes of the coquette – her power, skill, and pride (Singh 472).
Julie Kristeva, author of “Women’s Time” while not accepting Pollak’s theory of castration believes that castration is unique only to men: “castration results in the creation of a sense of separation which is symbolized by the penis”(Singh 472).

While both of these statements have merit, the cutting of the hair is a type of castration, exercised by the patriarchy to exhibit their power and domination over Belinda, who is in direct opposition with Pope, the Baron and Clarissa. Belinda refuses to be controlled by the patriarchy, and therefore is a threat to their reign. In the palace drawing room the men are stunned by her beauty, however enamored they are by her, Belinda does not reciprocate their affections and ignores the patriarchy.
But every eye was fixed on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,
Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those:
Favours to non, to all she smiles extends,
Oft she rejects, but never once offends. (I, 6 -12)

The power and beauty that she exudes while ignoring the young men infuriates them, they must take away her beauty to break her femininity and her confidence. Would this attack have happened if she were unsightly and therefore not a threat to the patriarchy, or would this have happened if she were married and therefore a possessed her? This attack only occurs because she lives outside the parameters of the patriarchy. The rape of her hair is a harsh penalty for Belinda’s proto-feminist actions.

Pope realizes the severity of the problem and recognizes the importance of hair to a woman, in his poem, “Epistle to a Lady” he writes, “Most women have no Character at all. Matter too soft for a lasting mark to bear, And best distinguish’d by black, brown, or fair,”(2-4). Pope places such a huge emphasis on hair that hair color is how he distinguishes one woman from another, yet he robs Belinda of her lock. Pope is fully aware of the violent act; no matter how much satire he uses to defuse attention. Why would Pope strip Belinda of her beautiful hair if not to maintain a misogynistic agenda?

While the lock of hair was on Belinda’s head it was a threat to the patriarchy and itself was threatened given that it is a symbol of power, once the lock of hair is removed it is neutralized, Singh states, “But the rape, while neutralizing its threat, also removes it from the realm of the temporal to that of the absolute, where it becomes a symbol of Everywoman’s Otherness”(Singh 482).

The Rape of the Lock serves a double entendre for sexual rape. In Brijraj Singh’s essay entitled, “Pope’s Belinda: A Feminist Rereading,” Singh links Belinda’s hair to her virginity,
But her lock is a unique expression of her otherness, unique because its symbolism is of her own creation. Therefore she would rather lose her virginity than her lock, her telling the Baron that she would rather that he had seized hair less in sight, or any to her hair, is tantamount to a declaration that physical rape would be preferable to that of her lock (Singh 477).
The lock represents Belinda’s virginity and femininity; the lock of hair represents the Barron’s machismo, obtaining the lock proves his manhood, the fact that he got it through violence underscores his virility. The Baron is determined to acquire the lock of hair by whatever means he must employ,
The adventurous Baron the bright locks admired,
He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspired:
Resolved to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or forced attained his ends (II, 29-34).
Belinda seems to be aware of the impending violence against her and when she is getting ready to go to the party, her actions are that of a soldier preparing for battle.
The busy Sylphs surround their darling care;
These set the head, and those divide the hair,
Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown (I, 145-147)
Pope’s illustration of her preparing for battle is analogous to Virgil’s depiction of the great Achilles going to war. The fact that she is preparing for battle with beauty products pokes fun at lack of power women have and makes it appear that a women’s only strength is her beauty, while in the battle of the sexes, beauty is a strength, it is not the only one that women are blessed with, although Pope seems blind to this fact.

If Pope’s gender ideologies are ambiguous throughout the poem, his treatment and depiction of Belinda clearly reveals his misogyny. Pope’s ridicule of Belinda is not just contained to her vanity. Her vanity is a point of contention for Pope, yet Belinda’s vanity seems appropriate for 18th century England. Upper-class women were not allowed to work, she is a single woman who needs to devote her time and energy into something, and so she takes pride in her appearance, as do all women. Pope attacks her for being a later riser at the start of the poem,
Sol through white curtains shot a timorous ray,
And opened those eyes that must eclipse the day:
Now lapdogs give themselves the rousing shake,
And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake:
Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knocked the ground,
And the pressed watch returned a silver sound
Belinda still her downy pillow prest (I, 13-19)
Pope once again criticizes Belinda for a social construct of the society that is beyond her control, Singh writes, “âÂ?¦It turns out that the only people not engaged in productive labor are the ladies, since the bourgeois cultural values of their society decree idleness as the hallmark of the well-bred female”(Singh 476). Belinda’s lethargy is not unique to her alone, it is a facet of 18th century upper-class society.

Pope attacks her moral character in Canto I, “puffs, powder, patches, bibles, billet-doux” he implies that she confuses trivialities like powder puffs with the foundation of religion, the bible, thus making her brainless and sacrilegious. The disorganized state of her dressing table is analogous to her lack of intelligence and confused values, Singh states, ‘The line Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles and Billet-doux’ is usually interpreted to mean that the confusion of objects on her dressing table is an embodiment of the confusion that exists in her own values”(Singh 479).

Some critics have blamed Belinda for the rape, stating that she put herself on display, “Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames / Fair nymphs and well-dressed youths around her shone”(III, 4-5), however Belinda is not to blame for the attack. This poem serves as a double entendre for sexual rape, then to blame Belinda would be faulting the victim for the act of the criminal. Ellen Pollak states, “At the root of the paradox of female power in Pope is the premise that female sexuality is responsible for the exercise of desire in both men and women”(Singh 471). Belinda is the victim, the Baron is the criminal, yet we scrutinize Belinda and dismiss the Barron as triumphant, “Let Wreaths of triumph now my temples twine / (The victor cried) the glorious prize is mine!” (III, 161-162). Placing blame on Belinda is misogynistic and relieves the patriarchy of any responsibility or punishment. Pope treats Belinda as if she is guilty and while he does not show any fondness for the Baron, he does not punish him either. Pope shows more contempt for Belinda sleeping late than to the Baron for raping the lock.

The fact that Pope uses a woman to fabricate his agenda of patriarchal pedantry is devious. He named her Clarissa, meaning clarity to give more validity to her words, so that it would be difficult not to heed her warnings of vanity. If Pope had used a man as his spokesman it would have been an obvious condescension to women, instead he appropriated the mind of Clarissa and forced her to deceive her own sex. Her emphasis on reason over Belinda’s feelings reveal her patriarchal brainwashing, reason is an attribute that men tout over women to diminish their feelings. It is ironic because the reader cannot trust Clarissa no matter the symbolism of her name because she offers an unreliable and biased opinion of the poet. The character Clarissa is meant to bring clarity to the confusion in the poem, she is a vehicle through which Pope reveals his agenda and states the moral of the poem, “Behold the first in virtue, as in face” (V, 18) Clarissa perpetuates Pope’s phallogocentric vision and betrays her gender by becoming an appropriation of the patriarchy. The other women in the poem witness her duplicity and do not appreciate her words. “So spoke the dame, but no applause ensued;
Belinda frowned, Thalestris called her prude” (V, 35-37).

Clarissa’s role of the prude shows her loyalty to the patriarchy and directly opposes Belinda; the coquette is a threat to the patriarchy. The disparity between these two women illustrates the power of the patriarchy over women like Clarissa and the opposition to the patriarchy that is exhibited by Belinda.

The card game is imbued with gender ideology. For Belinda to win she needs the King of Hearts, an icon of male sexuality and the patriarchy. The Baron enlists the help of the Queen of Spades, to try and win the game. This alliance between the Baron and the Queen of Spades is analogous to Pope enlisting Clarissa to spread his patriarchal message. The Queen of Spades assists the Baron and betrays Belinda just like Clarissa did when she helped the patriarchy and extended the scissors to the Baron to execute the rape (Singh 478).
Pope rationalizes this rape and assault on femininity by immortalizing Belinda in the stars. Belinda might gain pleasure in immortilization, but Pope’s attempt to distract her with the stars diminishes her suffering and deflects attention away from the guilty patriarchy. The lock of hair was such a threat that it had to be removed yet it is rises to the stars, an object of contempt metamorphosis’s into an immortal object. Kristeva states, “At the moment when Belinda’s lock is most completely the victim of the Baron’s desire, it also becomes symbolic of Desire”(Singh 483).

The moral that Pope tries to convey in the poem is not to be vain, yet he perpetuates Belinda’s vanity ironically by immortalizing her in the stars, how seriously can we heed his warning of vanity if he contradicts himself and feeds into Belinda’s vanity.
The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope is inundated with gender ideology and misogyny. The castration of her hair, the blame placed on Belinda for her own attack, the derogatory ways in which Belinda is referred to, the creation of Clarissa, a woman’s who sole purpose is to broadcast the patriarchal agenda all reveal Pope’s promotion of the patriarchy and attack on femininity.

Work Cited

Gray, Erik. “Severed Hair from Donne to Pope.” Essays in Criticism.
July 1997 v47 n3 p220.

Pope, Alexander. “The Rape of the Lock.” The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Ed. Martin Price. Oxford University Press, Inc. 1973. 321 – 342.

Singh, Brijraj. ” Pope’s Belinda: A Feminist Reading. College Language Association
Vol. 30 (1990) 467- 484.