How far do you agree that Pope admires Belinda?
The main character of Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” could be considered both hailed and damned by the overseer, but the complexities and sometimes contradictions of Belinda spark a more unbiased view.
The appearance of Belinda and the world in which she lives is described in a very fantastical and beautiful way. Even small details such as the arrangement of Belinda’s hair are due to wondrous entities known as the Sylphs, whose sole task is to make sure she is looking her best. This consideration of appearance in “The Rape of the Lock” is very important as the society that Belinda lives within is very judgmental on the basis of appearance, especially for women. Her role is basically to attract a man, preferably wealthy, so that she can be wed and her family receive the pecuniary benefits from the marriage. This beauty within the society, in my opinion, is definitely admired by Pope. He describes Belinda in particular as such a beautiful creature and even though there is a certain air of triviality in the society she lives in, the beauty and frivolity of it is shining.
These fantastical descriptions over something as small as appearance, however, can signify and highlight the triviality of it. Belinda, and the Sylphs, spend aeons on her hair and general appearance. The role the Sylphs, beautifully fantastic entities, harbour is also very trivial. Their entire existence is simply for looking after women’s looks. This triviality is due to wasted time on looks and therefore shows how superficial the world that Belinda lives in is. In fact Belinda herself is very superficial and although, as I mentioned before, she has reason, her actions are still very vain and shallow. Another of her focuses is her material possessions which sparks further triviality, and materialism, and Pope exposes this by juxtaposing this triviality against serious and epic themes and imagery. In many couplets he pairs something epic, which starts off the couplet, with a trivial anti-climax. The method of writing within “The Rape of the Lock” is mock epic and serves the purpose of criticising the negative themes within the poem by revealing them to the extreme.