Discuss Pope’s attitude to Belinda in The Rape of the Lock.

Or, Discuss Pope’s attitude to Belinda in The Rape of the Lock.

Or, Do you agree that Pope implicitly admires Belinda’s beauty despite his explicit fun of her activity?

Or, How does Pope depict Belinda in The Rape of the Lock?

Or, Do you think there is a certain degree of ambivalence in Pope’s attitude towards Belinda? Substantiate your answer illustration from the poem.

Or, For all her weaknesses, Belinda is immensely lovable. Do you agree?

Or, What is Pope’s attitude towards Belinda as revealed in The Rape of the Lock?

Or, Pope has an ambivalent attitude toward Belinda. Discuss.

Or, What is Pope’s attitude to Belinda? Is it laudatory or denunciatory? Or, Is it a mixture of both? Explain fully.

Or, Critically comment on Pope’s attitude to the character of Belinda in The Rape of the Lock.

Or, Despite her weakness, Belinda is an infinitely lovable girl. Do you agree?

Answer: “The Rape of the Lock” is a masterpiece by Alexander Pope. It occupies a permanent place in the history of English literature. It is commonly acknowledged as one of the finest parody of the epic poems in English. In this poem, Pope has depicted a fashionable and aristocratic girl whose name is Belinda. However, we find five important characters in this poem. In all of these characters, Belinda is the central character. She is the breath of the poem, “The Rape of the Poem”. She is the representative of the decadent aristocratic society. Pope has an ambivalent attitude towards Belinda. He implicitly admires Belinda’s beauty despite the explicit fun of her activity. He also has depicted Belinda as an icon of a fashionable London girl.

Pope’s attitude to Belinda is a mixed one. On the one hand, he makes Belinda a subject of mockery, and on the other hand, he portrays her as a paragon of beauty. In the poem, Belinda is drawn as a heavenly figure endowed with the beauty of a goddess to be worshipped. Pope calls her the goddess because of her extraordinary charm and beauty. She is an incarnation of the goddess of beauty. She is brighter than the sun. That is why; Pope implicitly admires Belinda’s beauty despite the fun of her activity. As the poet says –

Pope has drawn the character Belinda as an object of social satire. Here in this poem, the poet has drawn a fashionable and superficial lady who has wasted the most part of her time in decorating herself up and in collecting and using beauty materials of the highest value-like ‘like puffs, powder, paint, jewelry, perfumes, and so on. Pope attacks the aristocratic beautiful women of 18th century England through Belinda, who wastes much of their time in physical decoration. Comparing her dressing table with the alter of a goddess, Pope points out her follies and vanities and at the same time shows us how much importance paid to her dressing table. Pope describes her in hyperbolic utterances in front of her dressing table-

“A heavenly image in the glass appears,

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;”

Pope considers Belinda as the breath of the poem, “The Rape of the Lock”. By the character of Belinda, Pope has got an opportunity to portray the breadth of the poem. By all means, Belinda is central to the action of “The Rape of the Lock”. She is the breath of the poem. So, we may consider that no Belinda no poem.

Belinda is an ideal girl for Pope. She loves lap dogs more than her lovers. Even by noon, she is in no mood to leave her bed and keeps on dreaming about her lovers and how to make fool of them. The poet satirizes her for her idleness. Her dog knows when to wake her up. After waking up, she must perform her toilet. Her dressing table has a number of expensive beautifying articles like powder, paint, jewelry, combs, perfumes, and cosmetics. The poet says

“Lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake,

And sleepless lovers, just at twelve, awake.”

Belinda is the representative of the decadent aristocratic society. And “The Rape of the Lock” is a social document of the aristocratic society of eighteenth-century England. In this poem, Pope has given a very complex treatment. She is presented in different roles and under various shades. But various schools of critics have given various opinions about Belinda. One school of critics regards the treatment as fair while the other as unfair. The treatment seems fair when we take Belinda as a typical representative girl of the aristocratic circle.

Belinda visits Hampton Court- a place of merry-making and getting together. This place attracts courtiers, politicians, writers, and men of different professions. Here people gather for fun and entertainment. Here young ladies exhibit their charms and win the heart of the young lovers. Young men and women play the game of cards, which is nothing but a game of flirtation. The young lovers are prepared to lose and surrender to the fair maid.

Pope makes Belinda quite amusing and trivial by showing her very lack of discrimination and her feature to catch the true value of things. The rape of her lock and her reaction to it symbolically testify to the frail nature of her fashionable society where sexual behavior is subject to society for certain conventional standards.

Belinda’s daily routine of embellishment/ decoration and adoration attracts the readers to the utmost when Pope satirically describes her toilet table as a church, cosmetics being the offerings to the goddess of beauty. As soon as she gets up from her bed, she immediately begins to dress and performs her toilet with great skill. She was assisted by her maidservant Betty and also by the invisible sylphs, who hovered all around her. The toilet was performed with different articles of luxuries and glamour, brought. When it was over, Belinda looked wonderfully beautiful and charming.

Belinda maintains a double standard in her life. She is mindful of the virtues though she would not care if she lost her virginity in some secret love affair. Though she was fond of men, she would not like to be called cheap frivolous but only as a goddess of beauty and virtue-

“The men may say when we the front-box grace

Behold the first in virtue as in face.”

In “The Rape of the Lock”, Pope depicts the petty pleasure-seeking life of the fashionable lady of his time. Outside her toilet, Belinda is seen in her outdoor life at Hampton Court. Hampton Court is a place of merry-making and getting together. Here is the young ladies’ exhibit/. show their charms and fashions and win the heart of the lovers. Here every man and woman play the game of cards which is nothing but a game of flirtation. Here Belinda loves to defeat the adventure of young gallant in the game and to be chased by them. The poet also depicts the small follies of the female sex, the sighs, sobs, soft sorrows, etc. of his time.

To sum up, we may say that Pope’s attitude to Belinda is very mixed, mocking, yet tender, admiring, and critical. Belinda is a complex character through which Pope has attempted to expose the follies and absurdities of the royal English society in a witty manner. It is not possible to find a single label to cover up her qualities. She is representative of the upper-class women of the 18th century. She has her own personality and stands out by her whims and fancies. It is really impossible to find out such a personality in any other poem of the 19th century. Pope is also very successful in his purpose of portraying this kind of character.