'The Rape of the Lock' by Alexander Pope

1. Thematic study on ‘The Rape of the Lock’
By Gopi Dervaliya

2. 2
Personal Information
● Name : Gopi Dervaliya
● Roll no. 11
● Enrollment no. 4069206420220009
● Sem : 1
● Paper Name : Literature of the Neo-classical
Period
● Paper no. : 102
● Paper Code : 22393
● Submitted to : S. B. Gardi Department of
English
● Email : gopidervaliya02@gmail.com

3. 3
● British writer Alexander Pope was a central figure
in the Neoclassical movement of the early 18th
century.
● Pope is also remembered as the first full-time
professional English writer.
● Interest in his poetry was revived in the early 20th
century. He is recognized as a great formal master.
❏ About the Author :

4. 4
● His education supplemented by study
with private tutors or priests.
● At the age of 12, he contracted spinal
tuberculosis, which left him with
permanent physical disabilities.
● However, Pope was bright,precocious,
and determined and, by his teens,
was writing accomplished verse.

5. 5
❏ The Rape of the Lock :
● Alexander Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’ is a poem
of five cantos, written in rhyming couplets.
● The ‘Rape of the Lock’ to which the poem’s title refers,
and the major event of the poem, is the seizing, by force,
of a lock of hair from a young lady named Belinda by her
suitor, Baron.
● Pope dedicated the second edition of ‘The Rape of the Lock’ to a
woman named Arabella Fermor, who had once really had a lock of her
hair stolen by a suitor.
● The episode is supposed to have inspired Pope to write his poem.

6. 6
Major Themes in ‘The Rape of the Lock’
● Religion and Morality ● Female Desire and Passion
● Love ● Pride
L P
R F

7. 7
❏ Love :
● Pope thinks that love has no importance for the characters in this
poem.
● For the Alexander Pope, the upper class believes only in victory
and defeat.
● Love has no value in their unthinking minds.
● The poem has also symbolized Belinda’s character as a strong
modern woman, who loves her beauty more than anything else.
● The society portrayed in The Rape of the Lock seems constructed
to deny each other’s real feelings.
● For them, live-in relationships were common, but love in those
relationships was counted as something odd.

8. 8
❏ Pride :
● Pride is one of the major theme in 'The Rape of the Lock’.We can say
that the pride of a woman is natural to her.
● Beauty can be without pride and our dear Belinda handles it best of
all.
● She takes care that no one would go without looking at her with a full
glance.
● Baron decides to take revenge on Belinda by stripping her beloved
lock of hair.
● Baron tried to get Belinda by force but not by marrying her, he tried
to win over her but failed.
● As Belinda’s pride, self-respect and beauty were more important for
her than anything else.

9. 9
❏ Religion and Morality :
● Religion and morality is also one of the major themes in The Rape of
the Lock.
● At the time when the poem was written, England’s last Catholic
monarch had been deposed.
● At that time, Protestant bitterly criticized Catholics, believing that
Catholics had strayed from the worship of God.
● Protestants made life very difficult for Catholic families to own a land
or live in London.
● The Pope parodies the hypocritical religious rhetoric of that time and
suggests that Christianity is not the best lens. It cannot be used to
understand the mysteries of human behavior and self-obsession. It is
absurd to believe.

10. 10
❏ Female Desire and Passion :
● Pope has made fun of women; they just think and are
concerned about their beauty aids alone.
● He presents Belinda like an epic heroine.
● Pope says that women do not have a fair chance
because they are even more self-conscious and limited
by society’s rules and regulations than men are.
● Clarissa’s speech is a fine example of this attitude and
also deals with the situation ideally with a smile rather
than doing anything to change it.

11. 11
“And trust me, dear! good humour can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding
fail.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms
strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”
● Women, in the poem, are illustrated as being
more in control of society than men are.

12. 12
❏ Conclusion :
● The Rape of the Lock, reveals that the central concerns of
the poem is pride, at least for women like Belinda and
other social ones found in that society.
● Pope wants us to recognize that if Belinda has shown all
her typical female weakness, then that would be against
her pride, partly it is because she has been educated and
trained to act in this way.
● The society as a whole community is as much to blame as
she is or the men free from this judgment.

13. 13
❏ Work Cited :
● “Alexander Pope.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation,
www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alexander-pope.
● Sana, Sayeda Javaria. “Major Themes in the Rape of the
Lock.” Literary English, 5 Aug. 2022,
literaryenglish.com/major-themes-in-the-rape-of-the-
lock/.