The beauty of Belinda is beyond compare in “The Rape of the
Lock.” We are given several examples of why Belinda is the most beautiful out
of all the nymphs. It says on page 1231 lines 17-18, “If to her share some
female errors fall, look on her face, and you’ll forget ‘em all.” Essentially,
Pope is trying to say that even if Belinda did something wrong, it would be
okay because she’s pretty. In these lines Pope is trying to explain that
Belinda is very desirable while also making fun of society for putting such
emphasis on beauty.
The Baron is introduced right after the description of
Belinda. It is clear that he is weirdly obsessed with her. Page 1232 lines
37-38 read, “…to Love an altar built, of twelve vast French romances neatly
guilt.” The Baron has built some type of creepy altar. The passage goes on to
tell us that the altar includes items that belonged to his former lovers. I
think that Pope introduces the Baron to be the character that tries to go
against and the main character take something that’s important to her, in this
case part of her hair. All Belinda really has is her beauty. She is a
self-centered and materialistic woman and if you take away her beauty, you
pretty much take away everything that makes her Belinda.
Do you think that our society is similar to Pope’s society
in the idea that too much emphasis is put on on outward appearance?
Why do you the Baron is after Belinda’s locks out of all the
things he could take from her?
This is a great post, I agree that our society is very focused on outward beauty. We see it in adds, the television, and pretty much everywhere else. It's hard not to stare when we see someone attractive, and people use that to their advantage for power.
ReplyDeleteI really like your post, interesting ideas, I think that Pope uses this blind beauty as justification for anything that Belinda does as a way to satirize high class society at the time. At this time in the world, this was usually true, the high class or beautiful people in the world held more power
ReplyDeleteMaybe he's after her lock of hair because it's a natural part of Belinda's appearance that he can actually take without truly harming her, and to have something of her's that is natural is more valuable than a necklace, ring, etc.?
ReplyDelete