| Commodities have
been a part of human culture from the start of the first civilizations.
They can be crudely constructed or richly made works of art; they are
still objects, however. Some people treasure their possessions more than
anything in the world. These objects can become the driving force behind
a person’s life and desires. When someone’s prized possession
is stolen, it may seem as though a disaster has taken place. Those who
witness the aftermath of a stolen possession may comment on the triviality
of both the theft and the owner’s reaction to the loss. In The
Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope is commenting on the triviality
of a lost possession. Pope blurs the line between people’s personalities
and their possessions. He creates a world in which people are their commodities
and important ideals in society are also transformed into concrete objects
that could be stolen from society.
Before the first canto, the commenting on trivial objects begins in the
letter to Mrs. Arabella Fermor from Alexander Pope. In this section, Pope
apologizes for the first edition and describes what he has added into
the next edition. He even states why he has decided to add the spirits
of the Sylphs, Gnomes, Nymphs, and Salamanders to the poem. The phrase
“for the ancient poets are in one respect like many modern ladies:
let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear
of the utmost importance” (Lipking 2526) explains Pope’s argument
throughout the poem. He even playfully pokes fun at Mrs. Arabella Fermor
in the letter when he says, “(except the loss of your hair, which
I always mention with reverence)” (Lipking 2527), as the poem is
based on real events surrounding Mrs. Fermor.
Pope begins the first canto of the poem stating the ridiculous nature
from which the poem was conceived: “What dire offense from amorous
causes springs, / What mighty contests rise from trivial things”
(1.1–2). He continues to criticize the nature of the people in the
poem in the lines, “Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
/ If she inspire, and he approve my lays” (1.5–6). The first
twelve lines in canto one set up the background of the poem, after which
Pope begins his critical look at the possessions that abound in the poem.
He opens this critical look by observing Belinda sleeping. She is surrounded
by personal possessions, such as the “white curtains” (1.13),
the “lapdogs” (1.15), and the “pressed watch”
(1.18). The watch is described as chiming with a “silver sound”
(1.18), which illustrates the richness of Belinda’s possessions.
Belinda’s guardian Sylph, Ariel, warns her in a dream of the triviality
of worldly goods: “Hear and believe! Thy own importance know, /
Nor bound thy narrow views to things below” (1.35–36). Ariel
continues his warning to Belinda about the triviality of the desire for
objects when he describes men, “With varying vanities, from every
part, / They shift the moving toyshop of their heart; / Where wigs with
wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive, / Beaux banish beaux, and coaches
coaches drive” (1.99–102). According to Paul Baines, “Men
become a succession of metonymic objects, a series of external stimulants
which substitute for desire in a heart which is itself no more than a
catalogue of toys” (66), which shows the superficiality of possessions
within a person’s own mind.
Pope shifts his attention to transforming Belinda into an object herself
in the section where she gets “made-up” by her maid. By transforming
Belinda into an object of beauty and desire, Pope is essentially transforming
the ideal of Beauty into an object. He describes Belinda’s preparation
for her appearance in public as a sort of ritual: “The inferior
priestess, at her altar’s side, / Trembling, begins the sacred rites
of Pride” (1.127–28). By these lines, Pope is creating a ritual,
or a way of life, based on objects and possessions. “This casket
India’s glowing gems unlocks, / And all Arabia breathes from yonder
box” (1.133–34), illustrates how the treasures of the world
are all in Belinda’s possession and how “the entire world
is turned into an available commodity” (Baines 66). By using her
possessions, Belinda becomes an object herself. Pope attempts to question
how far people will go for beauty when he says, “The tortoise here
and elephant unite, / Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white”
(1.135–36). Animals of great splendor are sacrificed to help make
Belinda more beautiful and desirable as an object. This combination of
the tortoise and the elephant can also be seen as “a perversion
of the proportions of nature into the distortions of art” (Baines
67). Pope is illustrating the alarming amount of sacrifice made for the
advancement of beauty.
Belinda’s personality is further transformed into an object of desire
through her adornment of jewelry. In canto two, Pope connects the images
of “a sparkling cross she wore” (2.7) and of Belinda’s
eyes, “bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, / and, like
the sun, they shine on all alike” (2.13–14), to illustrate
the similarity of Belinda and her jewels. Belinda is transformed into
a possession that others may look upon with desire and adoration. Belinda’s
hair is also an adornment, which she treasures as she does all of her
possessions. Her curled locks of hair are like any other jewel she wears.
Pope describes this in, “With shining ringlets the smooth ivory
neck” (2.22). Her hair is like a necklace that she wears to catch
her viewers’ eyes. Unfortunately, owning an object of such beauty
inspires others to possess it themselves, even to the extent that they
will steal it. The Baron sees the locks of hair as an object that he must
possess, as a thief may see an unprotected box of jewels. Pope makes a
point to emphasize the idea that what is made to be seen is also made
to be desired, and in turn, made to be stolen in “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” (2.29–32). The Baron sees the lock of
hair and will possess it by any means necessary.
Pope continues his deconstruction of the possession of objects as he describes
the Baron’s desires: “But chiefly Love—to Love an altar
built, / Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. / There lay three
garters, half a pair of gloves, / And all the trophies of his former loves”
(C. 2, 37–40). Pope thus transforms the ideal of Love into merely
an object of adornment. The Baron does not love the women with whom he
has been involved; he simply loves the objects that they represent in
his mind. The Baron even uses love letters to light his ritual fire and
to inflame his passion in the lines, “With tender billet-doux he
lights the pyre / And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire”
(2.41–42). This passage shows the superficiality of love itself.
Pope also transforms Chastity into an object of adornment in the lines,
“Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law, / Or some frail
china jar receive a flaw, / Or stain her honor, or her new brocade”
(2.105–7). He even equates chastity with an adornment such as jewelry—“Or
lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball” (2.109). Chastity is not
something that one just loses, or has stolen away. Chastity is an ideal
that is ever present in society.
Pope uses his “machinery” of the spirits to represent objects
in the poem. In canto two, Ariel is assigning Sylphs to protect Belinda’s
various possessions: “The fluttering fan be Zephyretta’s care;
/ The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign; / And, Momentilla, let the
watch be thine; / Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favorite Lock; / Ariel
himself shall be the guard of Shock” (2.112–16). The objects
that are being protected by spirits are insignificant and shallow. Instead
of protecting Belinda’s chastity or keeping her safe from danger,
however, they are protecting her possessions. The spirits are threatened
with harsh punishments if they neglect their assigned posts. Pope uses
Ixion as an example of a possible punishment for the spirits. The punishments
here do not match the crime.
In the beginning of canto three, Pope goes on to transform Nature into
an object of adornment. He describes Hampton Court in terms of the adornment
of flowers and trees that it “wears.” The words “Close
by those meads, forever crowned in flowers” (3.1) show nature as
merely a piece of jewelry. Pope also makes references to nature as an
adornment in canto two: “To draw fresh colors from the vernal flowers;
/ To steal from rainbows e’er they drop in showers” (2.96–97).
Nature is not seen for its own innate beauty; rather, it is used as a
means of making an adornment more beautiful.
Possessions are also used as conversational weapons in canto three. Pope
transforms the objects of the Court into meaningless conversation pieces
that the people of the Court use to gain approval:
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that (3.13–18).
By keeping pleasant conversation, the members of the Court enhance
their reputation. In this way, even reputation is transformed into a
possession that is treasured like any other.
The game of ombre that transpires in canto three also contains Pope’s
criticism of possessions. Throughout the game, Belinda looks as though
she will lose to the Baron. She comes out of the game victorious, however.
“The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky, / The walls, the
woods, and long canals reply” (3.99–100) illustrates the
ridiculous attachment Belinda has to victory and also defines her victory
as another one of her many possessions. Even victory can be taken away,
though, as seen in the lines, “O thoughtless mortals! ever blind
to fate, / Too soon dejected, and too soon elate: / Sudden these honors
shall be snatched away, / And cursed forever this victorious day”
(3.101–4). Clearly, even the possession of victory can be stolen
away from the victor.
The possession of objects is also the reason that Belinda’s lock
of hair is cut off. The coffee ritual is just another ritual that the
upper class of Belinda’s society possesses. She bends her head
to smell the coffee, to enjoy every aspect of her possession, and the
Baron cuts off her lock of hair with a pair of scissors. Her lock of
hair is described as something rare and sacred in the lines, “The
meeting points the sacred hair dissever / From the fair head, forever
and forever!” (3.153–154). When she realizes the lock is
gone, she compares the loss to the death of a husband: “Then flashed
the living lightning from her eyes, / And screams of horror rend the
affrighted skies. / Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, /
When husbands or when lapdogs breathe their last” (3.155–58).
Pope is comparing Belinda’s loss of her hair to that of the death
of a loved one. He also goes on to compare the loss of a lock of hair
to “when rich china vessels fallen from high, / In glittering
dust and painted fragments lie!” (3.159–60). China dishes
are a delicate, beautiful commodity, so it is a great loss when they
break. These comparisons are obviously written to show the ridiculous
attachment people have to their possessions. The Baron rejoices the
stealing of the lock of hair as a king would if he won a war. The lines
“Steel could the labor of the Gods destroy, / And strike to dust
the imperial towers of Troy” (3.173–74) equate the Baron’s
weapon of choice to cut a lock of hair to that of the war machines capable
of crushing Troy and disposing of the gods’ creations.
Canto four begins with Belinda’s reaction of ill health after
her lock is stolen, when Pope says, “She sighs forever on her
pensive bed, / Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head” (4.23–34).
These lines show that the loss of her possession affected her as a loss
of her good health. Pope is playing with the notion that a person does
not get physically ill when they get their hair trimmed. She is also
shown as having aged many years in temperament after the lock was stolen
from her: “Here stood Ill-Nature like an ancient maid, / Her wrinkled
form in black and white arrayed” (4.27–28). This is Pope’s
way of mocking the importance of physical possessions by making the
possessions seem more important to life than they really are.
One of the most interesting passages in The Rape of the Lock
that blurs the line between people and their possessions is in canto
four. In this passage, people actually become their possessions:
Unnumbered throngs on every side are seen
Of bodies changed to various forms by Spleen,
Here living teapots stand, one arm held out,
One bent: the handle this, and the spout;
A pipkin there, like Homer’s tripod walks;
Here sighs a jar, and there a goose pie talks;
Men prove with child, as powerful fancy works,
And maids, turned bottles, call aloud for corks (C.4, 47–54).
This passage illustrates the confusion of people and their possessions
in a way that alerts the reader to the unnecessary desire to own objects.
Possessions are fleeting, and if one is too obsessed with one’s
possessions, one may become as superficial as those possessions.
Another interesting point in the poem appears when Belinda is languishing
in her own misery at the loss of her lock of hair. She regrets having
been the center of the Court, because had she not been seen with the
lock, it never would have been stolen from her. This realization is
expressed in several lines:
Happy! ah, ten times happy had I been,
If Hampton Court these eyes had never seen!
Yet am not I the first mistaken maid,
By love of courts to numerous ills betrayed.
Oh, had I rather unadmired remained
In some lone isle, or distant northern land (C.4, 149–154).
She realizes that by flaunting her lock of hair and her beauty she
exposed herself to thieves. Belinda attempts to justify flaunting her
beauty in canto five with the words, “Nor could it sure be such
a sin to paint. / But since, alas! frail beauty must decay, / Curled
or uncurled, since locks will turn to gray” (5.24–26). Belinda
feels that while beauty still remains, displaying it should not be frowned
upon.
Canto five is a point in the poem where some literary critics may try
to place the blame on the strongly patriarchal society in which Belinda
lived. Critic Robert Markley says, “Although Pope criticizes the
sterility of a world in which the signs of things have become substitutes
for things themselves, indeed where people live in a materialistic and
metonymic void, he never does controvert the premise that female sexuality
is a material property over which man has a natural claim” (74).
Pope does not try to correct or refute the fact that in that time women
were seen as objects themselves. Markley goes on to add, “In effect,
the metonymic void of the material world is, in part, predicated on
the ideological make-up of a patrilineal society that reduces women
to the determinant existence of sexual objects” (ibid.). The loss
of Belinda’s lock of hair is symbolic of the masculine oppressive
society in which women were simply objects of desire.
Belinda gets into a fight with the Baron and uses her possessions as
weapons against him. “‘Now meet thy fate,’ incensed
Belinda cried, / And drew a deadly bodkin from her side” (5.87–88)
shows Belinda preparing to attack the Baron with a dagger-like hairpin.
This image is used by Pope not only as a humorous device but also as
a way of emphasizing the power possessions have over their owners.
Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock not only mocks
the superficial interests of society in commodities but also provides
future readers with an alternative look at obsession with material things.
He illustrates what can happen when a society is too attached to mere
objects. Pope strives to correct or change the goals of society in order
to avoid another episode of conflict over a possession. Perhaps he is
simply poking fun at those members of society who are too ignorant to
realize that if one flaunts a possession, one must expect the possession
to be desired and possibly stolen.
Works Cited
Baines, Paul. The Complete Critical Guide to Alexander Pope.
London: Routledge, 2000.
Markley, Robert. “Beyond Consensus: The Rape of the Lock
and the Fate of Reading Eighteenth Century Literature.” Critical
Essays on Alexander Pope. Ed. W. Jackson and R. P. Yoder. New York:
Hall, 1993. 69–83.
Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock. The Norton Anthology
of English Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Ed.
Lawrence Lipking, M. H. Abrams, and S. Greenblatt. New York: Norton,
2000. 2525–2544.
|
