Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock Essay

While on the way to venerate Saint Thomas Becket’s remains, the entertainment of Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims falls upon the requiting of stories between the different estates. However, this requiting quickly turns malicious, the Host’s simple proposition evolving into an aggressive show of social dominance that includes the boasting of both literal and metaphorical rape. The normalization (or, borderline reverence) of aggressive manliness contributes to the creation of both rape culture and compulsory heterosexuality. Consequently, when a man does not dominate a woman—or, does not use his masculinity to humiliate another man—he is seen as weak or effeminate, subsequently placing his sexuality under scrutiny. Such is the motive behind John and Aleyn’s rape of the miller’s wife and daughter—to make Symkin seem weak, and to gain a reputation of superior masculinity. Thus,

There was no concrete evidence pointing out to a suspect, until a strand of hair was found convicting George Perrot.

Shelley reveals Justine’s justification for confession as being a result of man’s manipulation. Justine cries, “The God of heaven forgive me! Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me… I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hellfire in my last moments if I continued to obdurate.” The jailor’s threat of higher punishment in afterlife with “exocommunication and hellfire” allow Shelley to expose the pressure men put on women. She also alludes to “God of heaven” to depict the measure that man would go to obtain power over women, which questions her audience’s ethics in whether God should be used to attain control over another person. The authoritative power of Justine’s jailors is exploited to forcefully manipulate and conjure a confession, evoking sympathy from readers for her gullibility. Justine’s pushed confession and justification for it further depicts a weakness of women and overbearingness of men that Shelley is constantly reiterating to prove the deep inequality between men and

“Before the rape I felt good. My life was in order. I was getting ready to get married. Afterward everything changed. I kind of lost who I was as a person…

The restricted roles of women, are explored by Chevalier in Girl with a pearl earring, through literary techniques which convey women’s complete lack of power, forever stuck on the outside of a man’s world, trapped and anxious with the little power they manage to obtain.

An example of this is seen as Perpetua is tossed back by Heifer, and then “asks for a pin to fasten her untidy hair: for it was not right that a martyr should die with hair in disorder.” For a woman like Perpetua vanity would’ve not been expected much less during her final chances to fight for her honor. Consequently, the question of whether her acts throughout Passion’s was simply a way to gain power and attention or if it was true devotion to God and Christianity. Although her decision to pause the fight in order to fix her hair can be looked at as “girly”, it also shows a true respect for God not only in Perpetua’s eyes but also in the eyes of Martyrs.

This form of satire is more mild in nature, and is often used to arouse amusement in people. In this piece, Pope uses a story about a woman who gets a lock of her hair chopped off to ridicule social pretension and vanity. Although this form of satire is not as harsh as Juvenalian satire, it is much easier to interpret, and not to be taken so seriously. This however, can make the point seem less serious, as it will be addressed in a comical way. However, this poem is effective in its own way at getting its point across. One of the important elements that speaks in the poem is the speech made by the character Clarissa. In her speech, she questions why a society that places emphasis on beauty in women cannot emphasise good humor. This speech is often interpreted at the main moral of the story, that people often react too much to silly things, like losing a lock of hair. For this type of topic, this form of satire works very well, as harsh ridicule is not needed to point out

“The courtly lady…possesses a curiously hybrid gender. While maintaining stereotypically female sexuality, she also holds, in principle at least, the status of a feudal lord.” Burns’ statement insinuates a reversal of power dynamics between man and woman in the courtly love lyric, implying that the woman’s stereotypical beauty and sexuality in courtship, is a gateway to subverting and overpowering the lovesick male, making her a superior lord. The Amour Courtois lyric is deemed inconsistent with the representation of woman as an empowered “feudal lord” due to the sheer objectification of femininity and beauty. Poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William Dunbar commend a woman’s aesthetic appeal or satirise the lack of it, thus elevating medieval misogynistic expectations of physical beauty as a feminine necessity that objectifies women under the control of man’s advances. Throughout courtly love lyrics female beauty is a purely frivolous and superficial trait lacking predominant depth, to render woman as a “lord” would be poetically conflicting as the only power exemplified by female subjects in courtship is through the idolisation and sexual lust of the male devotee.

“The Rape of the Lock,” presents a wholly demeaning view of women. Pope seems overall condescending and disdainful of women and their feminine observances. In regards to Belinda, Pope takes this negative experience that she has and completely discounts her feelings; effectively turning the incident into something preposterous.

Patricia Lockwood’s The Rape Joke is a risky composition- not because it discloses information about Lockwood’s personal rape experience, but because it does so from a comedic stance, ridiculing the unfortunate event and the events leading up to and after it. While the creation of the poem was prompted due to the sexual assault she experienced, the content and subject are not centered around the incident or the assaulter but around rape culture and the sociological concept of victim blaming, from both society and oneself. There is no such thing as a rape joke-the joke is the incredulous ways society has guided people to respond to it.

Ever the keen social observer, Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) often expressed his reservations about the competences of the female mind through satire or by employing alternate literary voices. However, his ridicule of the female condition does not entail that he was simply a crass misogynist. In reality, the satirist scorned humanity in general: both men and women were unable to escape his seething misanthropy. Swift’s moral satire includes three notorious poems: “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” (1730) “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed,” (1731) and “Strephon and Chloe” (1731). Human beings tend to delude themselves and see order and beauty where none exists, yet in these poems both the male subject and the reader become disillusioned over the discovery of female humanity. Therefore, Swift seems to imply that life based on delusion usually ends in bitter disappointment, and thus attempts to free us from our prejudices and the futile denial of our basic nature. Furthermore, the author finds in Esther Johnson, or “Stella,” the perfect example of the redemption he aims to imbue in the rest of humanity. Thus, through his poems concerning women, especially Stella, Jonathan Swift reinforces his belief that all humans – even women – are capable of bettering themselves.

An exploration of Oscar Wilde's presentation of women in 'A Woman of No Importance' in comparison to John Fowles' views of women in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman', in light of the view that Oscar Wilde has a more sympathetic view of woman in his time.

The future conditions of the woman’s potential marital worth were much poorer than any punishment the violator could have received. Once a woman was raped, her virginity was no longer available for her husband to have. “‘Virginity is the ornament of morals, the sanctity of the sexes, the peace of families and the source of the greatest friendships.’ Its existence was a precondition for marriage. To publicly breach it was to compromise honor, rank, even life; a ‘deflowered’ girl inevitably became a ‘lost’ girl. . . ‘The ravishing of virginity was the worst rape of all.’” (Cite Book 1) An innocent woman had now completely lost her worth to society and her own dignity due to a man’s egocentric and merciless actions.

The views of women have altered over time, but have always had objectifying tendencies. During the 18th century, cosmetic alteration to natural beauty peaked and materialism heightened throughout societal views. Authors such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift vividly spew these views throughout their writings. Pope’s Rape of the Lock exposes the materialism used in objectifying women, mainly in the upper-class societal levels. The whole plot of the story centers around a cosmetic appearance creating an objectified view, as since the lock of hair was cut from a woman's head, the missing lock became, so called, evidence of a man’s sexual conquest. Other sexual conquests, forced or not, are spoken with anything but love and only those of

Belinda's strength is her physical appearance. Pope mocks the importance placed on appearance as he compares a hero's donning of armour to Belinda's being made up at her dressing table;