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The Rape of The Lock - A Social Satire
The Rape of The Lock - A Social Satire
The contrast between “tasks so bold” and “Little men” and another between “soft bosoms” and “Mighty
rage” is very wittingly constructed and cuts down to size these vain people of Pope’s time. Juvenal and
Horace are the two well-known satirists in the verse of Roman Literature. The former’s satire is pointed,
full of force and often savage like that of Swift, but Horace’s irony is more graceful and easy. He chides
with a smile. Satire is a distinct element in Chaucer and yet he cannot be called a satirist. There is no
misanthropy or cynicism in him. In the Elizabethan Age, John Donne and John Marston wrote
poetic satires, but their work lack vigor. In the seventeenth century, Dryden wrote a number of satires
such as the Hind and the Panther, the Dunciad and the Progress of Dullness. According to Richard
Garnett, “The expression in adequate terms of the sense of amusement for disgust excited by the
ridiculous or unseemly, provided that humor is a distinctly recognized element. Without humor satire is
invective; without literary form it is mere clownish jeering.”
Pope’s satire: The true objective of satire is moral. It amends vice by castigation. The satirist, in the
words of Dryden, “is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician to the patient when he
prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease”. Pope’s satire, too, functions in somewhat the same
manner. Satire predominates the work of Pope. Even a cursory glance at his poetry reveals that the major
part of it consists of satire. The Rape of the Lock, the Dunciad and Moral Essays are the best of his satires.
Pope wrote many satires against individuals, which were deadly, sharp and bitter marked by malice.
Stopford Brook in comparing Dryden and Pope as satirists says, “Dryden’s satire has relation not to the
man he is satirizing, but to the whole of human race. Pope’s satire is thin, it confines itself to the person
and has no relation to the world.” In the Rape of the Lock, the whole panorama is limited to the
18th century aristocratic life. In the strange battle fought between the fashionable belles and the vain beau,
the fall of Dapperwit and Sir Fopling is particularly demonstrative of the hollowness of the people of this
age:
Even the greatest of the great, the Queen herself is satirized to produce a truly comical and witty effect.
Here thou, a great Anna whom three realms obey/ Dost sometimes counsel take – and sometimes tea.
The satire in the Rape of the Lock is directed not against any individual, but against the follies and
vanities in general of fashionable men and women. Pope started writing this poem to reconcile two
quarreling families but as the poem progressed, the poet forgot his original intention and satirized female
follies and vanities. Belinda is not Arabella Fermore. She is the type of the fashionable ladies of the time
and in her the follies and frivolities of the whole sex is satirized. The Baron represents not Petre alone but
typifies the aristocratic gentleman of that age. The strange battle between the sexes shows what kind of
people they are.
Instances of Satire: The poet has satirized the system of judges that they, at 4 o’clock, hurriedly sign
the sentence so that they could have their dinner in time.