Canto V Essay, Research Paper

In this Canto, Pope describes the satirical decent of Umbriel into

“underworld” as the last literary convention of epic poetry that Pope uses.

Umbriel is the representative of the darker side of the supernatural world and

he goes to the Underworld or the Cave of spleen to gain some assistance for the

“violated”. In the Cave of Spleen, Umbriel discovers two symbols of feminine

wiles: Ill-nature an old Puritan dressed in black and white and Affectation, a

woman who pretends to be ill to gain superiority. These women give Umbriel a

bag full of “sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues”(Line 84) and

added the gift of a vial of “soft sorrows, melting griefs, and glowing

tears”(Line 87). These “weapons” are the female wiles that cause the epic

battle between Belinda and the Baron. Pope ends the poem stating that

Belinda’s lock will go to heaven with her name inscribed on it so that everyone

will know her name.

In the final analysis, the scales are tipped in favor of the comical: the

reader of the poem is impressed by the sheer force of the humor, and the grand

style serves to exaggerate the ridiculous. The laughter and ridicule do not

undermine the importance of good sense and virtue in the relations between

men and women.

In conclusion, “The Rape of the Lock” is indeed a mock-heroic to

indicate to Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre that they should not worry about

trivial things such as the “rape” of one’s lock. “The Rape of the Lock” is an

example of how Pope fuses both the classical world with his modern world.

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