The part Belinda plays in the social drama of The Rape of the Lock is at once
despicable and endearing. Discuss/ Evaluate Pope’s portrayal of the character
of Belinda.
“It is the mirth of the beauty along with some hint of despicable flaws, which make
Belinda a palpable reality.” --- Edmund Gosse
The chief character Pope’s famous mock-heroic epic The Rape of the Lock is Belinda, a typical
belle of the 18th century London. Pope’s delineation of Belinda’s character in The Rape of the
Lock has provoked much controversy since the publication of this mock-heroic poem. One of
Pope’s contemporaries John Dennis tried to dismiss Belinda’s character by saying that she is a
“chimera and not a character”. Many later critics have seen her as an object of Pope’s satire
against the female sex. Cleanth Brooks however sees Belinda quite in another light in his well
known essay- “The Case of Miss Arabella Fermor”. Brooks has tried to see Belinda’s conduct in
the poem in the context of the courtship-game in which a beautiful belle and a handsome gallant
try to asset their supremacy over each other. More recently, Hugo M Richard has asserted that all
of Belinda’s actions in the poem show that she is really a coquette whose chief delight is to flirt
with men’s affections and not to find a suitable husband. The truth however seems to lie
somewhere in between these two extreme positions. Moreover, Belinda appears to be
simultaneously a bride to be and a coquette who plays with the admiration and affection of
young gallants. This complexity in the delineation of Belinds’s character is attributable to Pope’s
own ambivalent attitude towards her. The life and character of contemporary ladies are well
represented by Belinda; pleasure and fashion are the great ends of her life. She cares more for
dresses for dances and gaieties of life than for her honour or her religion. What she appear
outwardly goes unmatched with her inner reality. Outwardly she appears to be attractive and
beautiful, but inwardly, she is vain, frivolous and empty devoid of all sense and wisdom. She is a
flirt, a goddess as well as a pretty spoiled child all at once.
Her Religious Ceremony:
At the outset we learn that she is a lazy woman who continues to sleep till the hour of twelve in
the day and who, on working up; at that hour, falls asleep again, to be awakened ultimately by
the licking tongue of her pet dog. When she does finally rise from bed, she goes through a love
letter which is waiting for her and which makes her forget the vision that she has seen. Soon she
gets busy with her toilet. Pope represents the operation of Belinda as a sacret religious rite
performed by her. She is the priestess of fashion. Assisted by her maid Betty, she opens one after
another various boxes and caskets, containing perfumery, gems, and articles of luxurious
adornments. The powers she worships are “cosmetic power” and the objects that load the toilet-
table have been brought from all over the world:-
“This Casket India’s glowing gems unlocks
And all Arabia breathe from yonder box”
She is dressed in a white dressing gown. She has not yet put on her head dress. She is compared
to a priestess who worships her goddess with a bare head. Powder, puffs, patches, combs are
handled in due order till her beauty puts on all its charms;
“Here files of Pins extend their shining Rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet- doux
She turns her attention to all these. Pope conceives her as paying adoration to them as the
priestess does to her idols. Later she seems to worship herself when she bends herself before a
mirror and adores her beautiful image. Thus pope here describes the minute details of the toilet
with delicate humour and gentle irony.
Her Childish Temperament:
A part from her laziness and her excessive preoccupation with her toilet, she has a thirst for fame
which leads to engages herself in an encounter with two adventurous knights at the game of
Ombre. Having won a victory at Ombre, She feels jubilant and her exultant shouting fills the sky:
“The Nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky,
The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.
She undoubtedly possesses a superb skill in playing the game of Ombre, but the manner she
gloats over her victory shows not only her vanity and superficiality but a childish temperament.
Belinda’s tantrums, when a lock of her hair has been clipped also shows her as a spoiled child.
The scream of Belinda, when the lock is cut, is as loud as the shricks which rend the skies.
‘Then flashed the living lightning from her Eyes,
And screams of Horror rend the affrighted skies.”
A trivial incidents fills her with an uncontrollable rage shows not only her vanity but also her as
a spoiled child.
Her Flirtatious Character:
The primary quality of Belinda is spiritual shallowness, an incapacity of moral awareness. Ariel
aquints us with her flirtatious character when he exhorts his fellow spirits to remain vigilant. He
tells them when Belinda will be in danger or anybody will try to do any harm to her, the spirit
should rush to protect her. He gives particular spirits the charge of particular objects. As it has
been known that harm of any nature will be done to Belinda that day before the sun goes down,
Ariel was very conscious to protect her that day. It was because though harm will be done to her,
but nothing was known as to how, where and when it would be done:
“But Heaven reveals not what, or how, or where;
Warn’d by the sylph, oh pious maid, beware!”
Thus it is clear that Belinda is not likely to exercise sufficient caution in protecting her maidenly
purity.
To sum up, there are several aspects of the personality of Belinda as portrayed by Pope in The
Rape of the Lock. It will be wrong to regard her purely as a goddess, or as a pretty spoiled child,
or as a flirt. She is combination of all three, and yet much more than such a combination. We see
her in many different lights. We see her as a coquette, an injured innocent, a sweet charmer, a
society belle, a rival of the sun, and a murderer of millions. She has indeed, a Cleopatra like
variety whom we despise but not forget to endear at the same time.
