In The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope uses a reversal of gender roles to sculpt a subtle social critique of the good life of belles and beauties. Through this satirical device, Pope denounces the aristocratic pretensions of this indolent and heavily adorned lifestyle. It emasculates its male characters and applies warrior traits to its female characters, with the exception of Clarissa, who is instead identified as a defender of the patriarchy. In this mock-epic poem, the assumed gender positions and presupposed dominances are broken and confused in the whirlwind of futile actions that ensue between and within the sexes. The roles generally reserved for men in epic poetry are usurped and entrusted to women, who reveal themselves to be convincing warriors and dominant heroines. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In this mock-epic piece, Pope walks a tightrope of maintaining his good relationship with the families mentioned and inserting his own criticism into the poem. Critic Cleanth Brooks identifies Pope's areas of criticism as "...the very nature of the conventions of polite society, the heroic claims of that society reflected in the epic, the flattering clichés which society conventionally employs – all are provided for a brilliant joke." ” (Brooks 108). As a technique, gender reversal helps Pope express his discontent with the decline of traditional roles. Pope uses the first two cantos of the poem to show Belinda and the Baron preparing for “war” in respective ways. It gives the reader a glimpse into the magical inner workings of Belinda's morning routine Belinda is armed with the help of the sylphs, and “Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux,/Now tremendous beauty puts all her. weapons” (I 138). However, Belinda is unaware of the conquests she will encounter today. Echoing the language of traditional epic in her cataloging of weapons and armor, these lines gradually begin the language of mock epic Reichard argues that these two characters are equal, each with powerful and dominant characteristics unique to their sex: "Both Belinda and the Baron have reached an age of exuberance in which the armor of courtship is quite loose... Faking "death ", sophisticating love and eschewing marriage, they wage a mock war in a mock-heroic poem. Their maneuvers […] make the plot of the poem a contest of cunning between dominant personalities: an uninhibited womanizer and an invincible flirt” (Reichard, 887-888). However, the scene in which we are first introduced to the Baron does not portray him as "commander" at the very least. Our high-maintenance heroine is juxtaposed with the servile Baron, kneeling before his altar composed of various love symbols from past amorous exploits: "There were three garters, half a pair of gloves,/And all the trophies of his previous loves./With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre,/And utters three loving sighs to light the fire” (II 39-42) The Pope feminizes the Baron by presenting him as a fiancé who sighs and prostrates himself before the altar of love. The "contest of cunning" mentioned by Reichard seems to have little basis in light of the speed with which the baron enjoys his victory. He also decides to obtain the lock, whatever the method, be it “By force for kidnap, or by fraud betray” (II 34), indicating his willingness to use artifice and cowardice to obtain the lock. This is very different from the valiant and epic hero that the Baron sees himself to be, and that Belinda will become later. However, it is not long before these beginslightly satirical are transformed into a battlefield where gender wars break out and Pope exercises his strongest satire. The “rape” scene itself reveals a complex web of alliances and blurred gender positions. The rape of the lock is not the lustful, virile conquest one would expect for the Baron as a male warrior. In reality he is incited by temptation and the help of a woman, Clarissa. It is Clarissa who provides the shears with which the Baron cuts Belinda's locks: “Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace/A double-edged sword from its shining case:/Thus ladies in romance help their knight,/They present the spear, and arm him for battle” (III 127-130). Clarissa chooses to betray Belinda through deception rather than direct conflict. She is different from the other two prominent women in the poem, Belinda and Thalestris, in that she does not take the most direct and aggressive route to power. Since she is a woman and not a love interest of the Baron, their alliance is somewhat confusing. She later attempts to portray herself with neutralizing virtue, contradicting her previous socially pragmatic behavior in helping the Baron. It is possible that Clarissa sees herself as a neutral force fighting against vanity and coquetry, thus justifying her actions. Although the language of the poem connotes that Clarissa and the Baron have a romantic knight-lady relationship, it is unclear what Clarissa has. earn money by helping cut the lock. Critic Peter Staffel accuses Clarissa of becoming a male sycophant to gain status: “The behavior and bearing that Clarissa encourages perpetuates both women's marginal status and her superiority to Belinda within those margins. She thus establishes herself as a corrupt collaborator of a hegemonic patriarchy” (Staffel 91). Staffel seems to be right in thinking that moral superiority over her female counterparts and patriarchal favor are the goals of Clarissa's actions. Following the rape of her lock, Belinda becomes ill with grief. Pope uses this disease to introduce us to another fantasy world, the Cave of the Spleen, taking us away from the larger-than-life epic human world. Ralph Cohen points to this world as a reflection of the human world, because “the mythological mechanism reflects the same inversion of sexual roles” (Cohen 58). The gnome Umbriel descends into this world, where “innumerable crowds are seen on every side/of bodies transformed into various forms by the Spleen…The men show themselves pregnant, as a work of powerful imagination,/and the handmaids, bottles turned, ask aloud voice the corks” (IV 47-48, 53-54). This image of impregnated men is a bold statement about the flexibility of masculinity within the poem. The cave could be interpreted as a dark microcosm of the human world. Just as the forms of men and women change in the cave, the roles and identities of both genders are mixed in the human world. Queen Spleen, another example of a dominant woman, who parallels the powerful women of the future, rules the cave. The woman with the strongest associations of power is Thalestris, whose name echoes the Amazons. Unlike Clarissa, Thalestris acts as an ally to Belinda and supports her anger and pain. Thalestris, as Belinda's courageous and aggressive sidekick, represents the tightly knit sisterhood that Clarissa has failed to enter. She fights alongside Belinda and sets an example with her assertiveness. Thalestris's first small victory is her dominance over Sir Plume, her fiancé. With his rhetorical ferocity, Thalestris convinces Plume to ask for the Baron's lock. The reader watches Thalestris quickly emasculate Plume with relentless slander:“'Men, monkeys, little dogs, parrots, they all perish!'/ He said; then enraged he turns to Sir Plume for reparation,/and orders his fiancé to demand the precious hair” (IV 120-123). For the third time in the text men are called lapdogs. While there is no obvious parallel, it is significant that humans are included in this list of animals. In this case, a subtle juxtaposition is as effective as an obvious parallel. As Ralph Cohen points out, like lapdogs, monkeys, and parrots, all common pets of the elegant upper class, the men of this poem "...become the domestic property of women, to babble at their command, to obey their every wish...and faint before the displeasure of their looks” (Cohen, 55). At his command, Plume submits to Thalestris' will and attacks the Baron with a confusing list of compensatory imprecations: “Zounds! damn the lock!/ Before God, you must be civil!/Plague has passed - no, please smallpox!/Give her hair' - he said, and banged on the box” (IV, 128-130). he remarks that it pains him “He who speaks so well should never speak in vain” (V 132). Thalestris apparently equals and surpasses Sir Plume's rhetorical skills by virtue of his persuasive power , is still dominant as it can influence him indirectly through Sir Plume. The accelerated action of this scene is interrupted by the reappearance of Clarissa, who delivers a speech about “good humor.” In his article “The Case of Miss Annabella Fermor,” Cleanth Brooks presents the most popular view of Clarissa's purpose: “Pope expresses his own judgment on the situation, employing Clarissa as his mouthpiece […] Although Pope obviously agrees with Clarissa , is neither surprised nor particularly displeased that his heroine has gone against Clarissa's advice” (Brooks, 105). This haughty and comically ineffective speech receives no applause. It seems that if Clarissa were indeed the Pope's spokesperson, her moralizing speech would at least elicit the approval of the patriarchal party she is attempting to defend. It is clear that he uses this speech to elevate his own wisdom, which is in itself a vanity: “And trust me, dear, good humor can prevail/When airs and escapes and shouts and reproaches fail” (V 31 -32). Presenting herself as an expert in the virtues of “good humor,” she seems to forget her previous involvement in the perpetuation of this chaos: her help in the rape of the lock. It's more likely that Clarissa is as much of a caricature as the society around her, she just takes a different approach in her ridiculousness. Immediately after Clarissa's applauseless speech, she meets Belinda's scowl, and Thalestris comically taunts her as a "puritan." It would seem unusual for Pope to sustain such a self-congratulatory and long-winded speech, critic Robin Grove indicates that he is more likely to "detect the taint of noble insincerity in Clarissa's hyper-conscious speech..." (Groves 83). Clarissa's opportunism overshadows her moral voice and reveals her to be a socially pragmatic traitor. Her speech does not ask to be taken seriously due to her deceptive participation in the "rape", which makes her guilty and involved in this vain game like the others she tries to elevate with rhetoric. Almost immediately after Clarissa delivers her speech, the warring characters escalate the conflict with humorous alacrity. The battle, filled with fierce women and unconscious men, culminates in the ultimate depiction of gender reversal. Men are killed simply by the disapproving looks of their lovers:., 1954.