Another great work in satire given to us by the 18th century is Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. Set in the form of a Greek tragedy, the poem tells the story of a woman who has had her honor questioned due to the act of a fiend cutting off a lock of her curly hair. Pope hones his satirical chops on the superficial characteristics of the 18th century society; but focuses primarily on the rituals of womanhood and highly demeaning and condescending views towards women of the day.
By using a particular incident, his often-offensive humor points to a widespread view of women. This particular incident, although not very serious by most everyone’s standard, is made even les serious by Pope dismissing the anger that most people would likely feel if this event were to happen to them as an emotional episode brought on by woman’s spleen.
Interesting side note: negative humors were thought to originate in the spleen during the time that Pope was writing. All humors were assigned to specific organs of the body, influencing emotions felt by the person. For example: blood being warm and moist, is produced by the liver; black bile is cold and dry is produced in the spleen. If, at any time, the appropriate balance is lost in these humors, a specific temperament comes out in the human. The temperaments were conceived as both a personality and a mood disorder.
Back to satire and women… Pope uses the opportunity given to him to write the poem to show how society marginalizes women by turning the incident into a mock epic and mocking Belinda by discounting her worth due to the fact that she’s a woman. Some may see that this poem clearly states Pope’s own view on women in society, but in my opinion it’s must more the idea that he has found fault with something in society and is using this medium to get it out in the open.
In the poem, all women in aristocracy live frivolous lives and spend most of their day sleeping off their long nights and preparing for the next social function they are to go to (Line 1.13-4, 1.121-28). A heavy emphasis is placed on beauty and appearances (social and physical). Pope (satirically, we must remember) sates, “If to her some female errors fall,/ Look on her face, and you’ll forget ‘em all” (2.17-8). Having nothing to do with her true virtues, Belinda is seen as virtuous simply because of her physical beauty. This is Pope crying out for society to realize that too much pressure was placed on women to look a certain way without having to gain any “real” virtues or thoughts on anything.
I want to look further into the poem and what Pope was using his satire to point out in the poem. I’ll return with my findings within the next few days.
18th Century British Literature Ideology 