Role of Supernatural Machinery in “The Rape of

the Lock

Pope clarifies that “Machinery” is a term created by the critics to imply the part which divinities, plot, or evil
spirits play in a ballad. He happens to say that the machinery in this sonnet is focused around the
Rosicrucian precept of spirits in which the four components are occupied by sylphs, nymphs, gnomes and
salamanders. The sylphs, whose home is circulating everywhere, are the best-molded animals.

“The Rape of the Lock” was made up of just four cantos, holding the principle episodes of the round of
cards, cutting of the lock and following fight therewith. This clever piece was intended to realize a blissful
compromise between the two groups of the Fermors and Petres. This adaptation, on the other hand, was
never distributed and it had not yet tackled the state of a mock-epic. It was intended to be perused by a
chose number of individuals related or close with the two families.

Pope saw the likelihood of growing it into a mock-brave poem.this was carried out by including into the
collection of the lyric the extraordinary animals like the sylphs and elves who appear to be the controlling
drive behind the focal activity of the sonnet.

Source Of Pope’s Machinery

Pope took the name of Ariel from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, and the thought of the sylphs from a
French book, “Le Comts do Gabalis”, which gives a record of the Rosicrucian mythology of spirits. As
indicated by this mythology, the four components are occupied by spirits, which are called sylphs (air),
dwarves (earth), sprites (water), and lizards (fire). Two of these sorts sylphs and dwarves – are presents
by Pope in “The Rape of the Lock”.

These Ariel spirits were minor, light creatures, which would precisely suit his mock-chivalrous ballad and
these are as simulated as the general public depicted in the lyric.
The Function of Machinery
Ariel, who watches Belinda, appoints diverse capacities to the spirits. One was Belinda’s fan, an alternate
was to deal with her ear-rings, the third was to care for her watch, and fourth was to monitor her most
loved lock. Ariel cautioned the pigmy band of spirits against carelessness in their obligations. Serious
discipline was to be recompensed to the individuals who fizzled in the release of their obligations, The
disciplines with which the delinquents were undermined were: (I) to be quiet down in little flasks, (II) to be
punctured through with pins, (III) or to be stuck up in gums and pomades.In spite of all the cautious
vigilance of Ariel and the sylphs, the lock of Belinda’s hair is assaulted. The spirits don’t at all impact the
activity.

So it is the machinery which empowers Pope, in different courses, to make the mock epic impact. All the
epic writers like Homer, Virgil, Tasso and Milton made utilization of the machinery, and it was in the
wellness of things that Pope ought to additionally spoof it in his mock-epic.