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    The Rape of The Lock Summary

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    IntifadaJjangNatangcop
    Pope wrote The Rape of the Lock as a gentle satire of the Fermor family after Lord Petre cut a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair. The poem treats this trivial event as an epic, using conventions like the conference of gods and a descent into the underworld to poke fun at society and human vanity. It tells the story of Belinda, representing Fermor, whose lock of hair is cut by the Baron, representing Petre, during a card game. While a sylph named Ariel tries to protect Belinda, Umbriel takes advantage of the chaos to spread more sorrow. The poem advocates the use of reason and criticizes the fads and vanities of its time through

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    The Rape of The Lock Summary

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    IntifadaJjangNatangcop
    2K views2 pages
    Pope wrote The Rape of the Lock as a gentle satire of the Fermor family after Lord Petre cut a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair. The poem treats this trivial event as an epic, using conventions like the conference of gods and a descent into the underworld to poke fun at society and human vanity. It tells the story of Belinda, representing Fermor, whose lock of hair is cut by the Baron, representing Petre, during a card game. While a sylph named Ariel tries to protect Belinda, Umbriel takes advantage of the chaos to spread more sorrow. The poem advocates the use of reason and criticizes the fads and vanities of its time through

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    The Rape of the Lock Summary

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    Pope wrote The Rape of the Lock as a gentle satire of the Fermor family after Lord Petre cut a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair. The poem treats this trivial event as an epic, using conventions like the conference of gods and a descent into the underworld to poke fun at society and human vanity. It tells the story of Belinda, representing Fermor, whose lock of hair is cut by the Baron, representing Petre, during a card game. While a sylph named Ariel tries to protect Belinda, Umbriel takes advantage of the chaos to spread more sorrow. The poem advocates the use of reason and criticizes the fads and vanities of its time through

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    2K views2 pages

    The Rape of The Lock Summary

    Uploaded by

    IntifadaJjangNatangcop
    Pope wrote The Rape of the Lock as a gentle satire of the Fermor family after Lord Petre cut a lock of Arabella Fermor's hair. The poem treats this trivial event as an epic, using conventions like the conference of gods and a descent into the underworld to poke fun at society and human vanity. It tells the story of Belinda, representing Fermor, whose lock of hair is cut by the Baron, representing Petre, during a card game. While a sylph named Ariel tries to protect Belinda, Umbriel takes advantage of the chaos to spread more sorrow. The poem advocates the use of reason and criticizes the fads and vanities of its time through

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
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    The Rape of the Lock Summary

    Summary (Masterpieces of World Literature, Critical


    Edition)
    The Rape of the Lock was written by Pope to chide gently the Fermor family when Lord
    Petre cut off a lock of Arabella Fermors hair on a certain fateful day and such dire results
    followed. Pope started something that resulted in a piece of literature that has remained to this
    day a leading example of the mock epic satire. John Caryll, a good friend to Pope, asked him to
    write a little poem about the affair in order to help heal the wounds of the two families. The
    poem became a trivial story of the stolen lock of hair as a vehicle for making some thoroughly
    mature and sophisticated comments on society and humankind. Pope draws on his own
    experience in the classics in combining epic literary conventions with his own wit and sense of
    values. The entire poem is written in five cantos, making use of the popular rhymed iambic
    pentameter verse, along with balance, antithesis, bathos, and paranomasia.
    The story is relatively simple. In canto 1, the reader finds Belinda (representing Miss Fermor)
    asleep but awakened about noon by her lapdog Shock. Before she awakens, she dreams about
    Ariel, a Rosicrucian sylph, who whispers praises in her ear and warns her to beware of jealousy,
    pride, and especially men. When she does awaken, she finds a love letter on her bed and, after
    reading it, quickly forgets all the advice that Ariel has given her. She has been invited to sail up
    the Thames with friends to Hampton Court palace and have fun and games with her host. She
    devotes much time to her cosmetics and hair in preparation for the trip.
    Lord Petre, a suitor, is seen admiring a lock of her hair and vowing that he would have it by any
    means. The modern reader must remember that, until the 1920s, few women of character would
    cut their hair, an act symbolizing the loss of virtue, even chastity. The reader next sees the crew
    sailing up the Thames, with everyone but Ariel apparently pleased with the state of affairs.
    Worried, Ariel summons his helper sylphs and reminds them of their duty in helping to protect
    Belinda, one especially to guard her fan, one her watch, another her lock, and Ariel himself her
    dog. A host of sylphs are assigned to guard her petticoat, a literal device of armor in older times,
    protecting the females sexual chastity.
    After the cruise on the Thames, canto 3 sees Belinda, the Baron (representing Lord Petre), and
    the rest of the party arriving at the palace. There Belinda decides to play a Spanish card game
    called Ombre with two of her suitors. During the game, coffee, recently introduced into England
    by Queen Anne in order to help with the alcohol problem, is served, and fumes from the hot
    liquid open the rational mind of the Baron, providing him with new stratagems. With the help of
    a female crony named Clarissa, he manages to cut off the lock of Belindas hair during the card
    game. At this rape, Belinda cries out in horror, and the Baron cries out in triumph. Ariel weeps
    bitterly because he was not able to prevent the deed.
    In canto 4, a bad sylph named Umbriel takes advantage of the chaos and chooses to increase the
    woes by flying down to the Cave of Spleen to get more woes to dump onto Belinda. With his

    trusty key, Spleenwort, in his hand, he enters and secures from the queen of Spleen a bag of
    horrible noises and a vial of tears, sorrows, and griefs. One of Belindas friends, Thalestris,
    demonstrates fair weather friendship when she announces that everyone is talking about the
    rape of the lock and that she is afraid that she, too, will be branded as loose. Thalestris attempts
    to get her brother Sir Plume to demand that the lock be returned. Sir Plume is unsuccessful.
    Canto 5 shows Umbriel casting the vial of woes upon Belinda so that she is almost drowned in
    tears. She longs for simple, country life. Clarissa, the one who helped the Baron earlier in his
    successful venture, gives an interesting moral sermonette about vanity and age and the need of
    women to use good sense in the battle of the sexes. Soon a battle of teacups ensues, disturbed by
    the Barons sneezing from the snuff that he is using; this causes the lock to fly high into the air,
    never to be rescued. Some think that the lock has gone to the moon, where love letters and other
    love tokens find themselves eventually, but others think that the lock became a star.
    The poem is a wonderful example of burlesque, a form that takes trivial subjects and treats them
    seriously, with the effect being comic. Many epic conventions are used here: the epic question is
    asked; Belindas toilet becomes the epic putting on of armor; there is the conference of protective
    gods; there are the games and the banquet; there is the descent into the underworld; and there are
    heroic encounters and apotheosis. The poem deals with an actual event and thus pokes fun at the
    two families, but more than that it shows the vanities of humankind. In doing so, much social
    satire of the fads of the day are presented. The conclusion shows that eighteenth century reason is
    strongly advocated; whatever one thinks of Clarissas early actions in the poem, it is difficult to
    ignore her advice near the end, advice that advocates the use of reason in all matters of life.

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