eighteenth Century Literature Essay, Research Paper

`The Rape of Eighteenth Century Society

In Restoration and Eighteenth Century literature, the authors were more disposed to show their desires and experiences on paper, instead than quash their behaviour and experiences that the niceness of their society prohibited. The Restoration and Eighteenth Century have frequently been associated with puting high moral values on good manners, courtesy, and regard. However, this is merely seeable when looking at the society from the outside. Their preoccupation with niceness was channeled into a province of head, instead than an act. An interior scrutiny of Restoration and Eighteenth Century society illustrates a society preoccupied with the magnificence of manner and trade goods, every bit good as keeping an abstract position on moral rules. Material ownerships were of the extreme importance, while the proper vesture and punctilious visual aspect became the incarnation of niceness. On the outside they fit the original that their society expected, while on the interior they fit the original that their society created.

The Rape of the Lock is a amusing indictment of the amour propres and redundancy of Eighteenth Century high society. Based on a existent life happening, Pope intended for the verse form to do visible radiation of the state of affairs by promoting laughter at the societies own pretences. By composing The Rape of the Lock in the signifier of a mock heroic poem, Pope classifies Eighteenth Century society by projecting it against the illustriousness of an heroic poem verse form. By mocking his ain society, Pope establishes Eighteenth Century society s inability to distinguish between what affairs and what does non.

Pope foremost describes Belinda as a goddess, and treats her as something heavenly. Belinda authenticates this appraisal by her luxuriant forenoon rite of acquiring ready for the twenty-four hours in front. It is dry that Pope asserts this congratulations of Belinda when he is mocking a society in which the external ego holds more value than the moral or rational ego. Pope continues to contradict his appraisals by saying that If to her portion some female mistakes fall / Look on her face, and you ll bury em all ( ll. 17-18 ) . Though Pope may propose that it is easy to go blind in thick of a beautiful adult female, he refocuses on her cosmetic conventions. The cross Belinda wears on her chest evokes attending to her stuff values, instead than showing her value on faith.

The ill-conceived moral values of Eighteenth Century Society continue to uncover themselves when the Baron cuts of a lock of Belinda s cherished hair. Belinda boasts all of the typical female foibles, which have occurred as a consequence of society preparation and educating her to move in this mode. Pope implies that

the colza of Belinda s lock of hair is more lay waste toing than an existent colza of Belinda herself. Belinda validates this premise when she states: Oh hadst 1000, cruel! been content to prehend / Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these! ( ll1175-176 ) . The declaration that Belinda would instead lose hair less in sight signifies the extent to which she values outward visual aspect above everything else. Belinda would instead endure a misdemeanor of her ain unity instead than an violation of her outward visual aspect.

The Rape of the Lock demonstrates that the precedences that Eighteenth Century adult female self-praise are chiefly societal 1s. Their compulsion with visual aspect and societal position arrested developments such as Ombre, suggest the degeneracy of high society life. There has been a drastic supplanting of the importance and protection of celibacy. Eighteenth Century society has taught adult females to take rules like award and celibacy, and turn them into another portion of conventional interaction. Belinda is so overcome by hurt that her lock of hair might be displayed publically, and destroy her repute, that the inquiry of her celibacy does non even come into drama.

The amour propre of Belinda and her opposite numbers in Eighteenth Century society are alluded to when Pope alleges that their ( specifically Belinda ) amour propre will outlast their organic structures:

Think non, when adult female s transeunt breath is fled,

That all her amour propres at one time are dead:

Succeeding amour propres she still respects,

And though she plays no more, o erlooks the cards.

Her joy in aureate chariots, when alive,

And love of Ombre, after decease survive.

( ll. 51-56 )

Their amour propre will populate in others when they die because society has trained these adult females to move in big manners. Belinda s conceited ignorance is what makes the colza of the lock possible.

Even though Pope treats Belinda as a heroine, by showing Belinda s amour propre and ignorance, he mocks Eighteenth Century high society. This society has taken their values and misplaced them, ensuing in a negative, trained cultivation of Eighteenth Century adult females. Pope ridicules a society in which values have lost all their proportion, where fiddling twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours trials are handled with the luxury usually associated with more of import issues. Satirizing this society by puting it against the magnificence of an heroic poem furthers the extent to which this society can be mocked and ridiculed, and underscores the amour propre that raped this society.

Plants Cited

Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock. The Longman Anthology of

British Literature. Vol. I. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1999. 185-241.