The Rape of the Lock: Canto V Summary & Analysis

Here Pope creates an extended comparison with Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the Trojan hero Aeneas is forced by Jupiter (“Jove”) to abandon his lover, Dido. Dido ultimately kills herself after her pleadings come to nothing, and her sister Anna is likewise unsuccessful. In this allusion, the Baron is placed in the role of Aeneas, Belinda in the role of Dido, and Thaelstris in the role of Anna. But crucially, while that epic scenario is very high-stakes, this fight over a lock of hair is rather low stakes. Therefore, in creating this comparison, Pope comically emphasizes the triviality of the situation. Meanwhile, the Baron’s being compared with Aeneas influenced by “Jove” and Belinda’s being compared to Dido, who was famously tricked into falling in love by Cupid, reminds the reader of the pervasive supernatural influence over mortals in the poem.

Clarissa’s name literally means “clarity,” and this speech is suitably clearheaded. It demonstrates her intellectual and moral authority. This both explicitly and implicitly counters the idea that, as a woman, she is the is the intellectual and moral inferior of men, and that the best thing she can be in life is beautiful – an idea which the court’s obsession with female beauty encourages. However, it’s worth remembering that she helped the Baron snip off the lock by offering him her scissors, so it’s possible to read her speech as a tad self-serving, as a means of excusing her own behavior by suggesting that the lock was never really that important!

Here Clarissa argues that beauty is without true worth because, unlike virtue, it is ultimately fleeting. Decay awaits all bodies, no matter how beautiful, and so any beauty is itself transient and therefore worthless. And while this does make good sense, Pope later challenges this idea in the final lines of the poem.

Here Pope continues the mock epic style of narration, drawing upon epic battle scenes and comparing the characters’ struggles with those of the gods (“Pallas, Mars; Latona, Hermes”, “Jove” and “Neptune”). The humor here comes from the fact that this courtly fight is clearly not nearly as impressive or dramatic as an epic battle —here the most frightening sounds are the “clap” of “Fans” and the “rustle” of “Silks”.

Sir Dapperwit and Sir Fopling’s names are humorously apt (they evoke the words “dapper” and “fop,” which are associated with male vanity). This emphasizes both the silliness of the court and the fact that, despite their supposed intellectual and moral authority over women, the men in this poem appear especially foolish. Furthermore, the idea that, in this courtly battle, receiving a “frown” is a kind of metaphorical death reinforces the contrast between a bloody battle of epic poetry and the triviality of this court scuffle.

The Baron had previously promised that he would never surrender the lock while his nostrils breathed air, so this sneeze comically fulfills that promise. The description of the bodkin meanwhile parodies the tradition in epic poetry of tracing the history of a particular weapon, once again comically comparing the high stakes world of epic with the triviality of the court.

Belinda’s comparison of herself to the tragic figure of Othello as he searches for the handkerchief (he believes this to be proof of his wife’s infidelity, over which he ultimately murders her) once again creates a humorous juxtaposition between an incredibly tense and dramatic situation and her own relatively trivial one.

The lock’s ascension to the heavens in the style of the mythical locks of Berenice is the high point of Pope’s increasingly silly classical references. Instead of drawing a comparison with an epic scenario to point out how different the courtly scenario is, now the courtly scenario and the mythological scenario appear to merge.

The “Mall” is a promenade in St. James’ Park in London and “Rosamonda’s lake” refers to a pond there favored by those unlucky in love. “Partridge” was a contemporary astronomer and “Galileo’s eyes” refer to a telescope. This slew of modern references further adds to the absolute absurdity of the lock’s ascension to heaven — Pope claims that it will be visible to the public, humorously tying together the mythological and the everyday.

Here Pope finally seems to make a judgement on what the value of beauty truly is. He agrees with Clarissa’s point that beauty is indeed transient, but his reference to the “Muse,” a goddess of art and poetry, seems to suggest that beauty can be valuable and achieve a degree of immortality by inspiring poets like himself to write works which do indeed live on.