Rape of the Lock_Toilet Scene-

At her dressing table, amid the silver pins and tortoiseshell combs, the powder
puffs and the Bibles. Belinda worships herself as a goddess in the mirror. Truly
she is an appropriate goddess for her world, which is overflowing with
beautiful delicately crafted or opulently shining commodities like herself. In the
famous Toilet scene at the end of Canto I, lines 121-148, at the dressing table,
where Belinda gazes at herself in the mirror, and no men are present, she is
still present to us largely as an image. Since the dressing room is a private place
not open to the male gaze, yet it is there that we are invited to view her, the
reader is like a voyeur intruding into what is essentially a feminine ritual.
Belinda is not conscious of our watching her as she is absorbed in herself, self-
contained in looking at her own image. We can label her self-absorption 'pride’
in moral disapproval, but the passage resists a single-minded negative reading.
Standing before the mirror, she watches herself be transformed from the pale-
faced sleeping beauty to a vibrant and radiant young woman through the help
of her cosmetics, her maid, and the Sylphs. Poetic technique as employed by
Pope in this scene lends credibility to the very beauty ritual he is describing.
Pope’s attention to the seemingly simple act of putting on makeup conveys the
authority of this sacred rite.
The opening two lines of this passage, “And now, unveiled, the Toilet stands
displayed,/Each Silver vase in mystic Order laid” (121-l22) set the initial tone of
mystery and anticipation through the use of inverted syntax and words such as
“unveiled” and “mystic.” The overlying tone of epic dignity causes the entire
passage to read like a giant hyperbole. Pope depicts this scene as something
that is happening to Belinda through “Cosmetic Powers,” (124) rather than
something she is doing. The ironic transposition of ‘cosmic powers’ in
‘Cosmetic Pow’rs’ indicates the excessive value she attributes to her make-up,
and bowing to her own image shows her devotion to her religion of narcissism.
The passage is a mock version of the arming of the epic hero, her weaponry of
cosmetics being ridiculed by the implicit comparison with the swords and
shields of the epic hero. Participation in this “event” is exemplified by carefully
situated personification in line 137, “Here Files of Pins extend their shining
Rows”. This effective imagery allows the reader to see the pins scrambling for
lineup, eager to be at Belinda’s disposal.
Pope simply lists a few of the items on Belinda's table in line 138, "Puffs,
Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux." The sophisticated reader can see that
much more lies right below the surface of this powerful line. Most noticeably
are the items Pope chooses to list, and their order. Pope touches on the
frivolity of beautiful women by putting the Bible right next to the love letters. A
little bit deeper into the line reveals Pope's use of plosive sounds to amplify the
"list" quality. The repetition of meter, the three consecutive trochees, gives the
line an emphatic rhythm, emphasizing the ritualistic importance of the listed
items.
Finally, in the closing line, Pope illuminates the underlying principle of the
beauty ritual he has just described. Pope writes, "And Betty's praised for
Labours not her own" (148). The introduction of praise at the end of the
passage ties in the subtle, yet evident, parallel theme of the societal necessity
of beauty. The beautiful Belinda begins another day, living up to the
expectations of beauty, as society shows its appreciation through praise.
True, Belinda's dressing table is at one level a symbol of her disordered values:
Bibles are equated with powder puffs and patches. Yet there is both beauty
and order on the table itself the files of pins neatly extend their shining rows:
things are in mystic order laid' and distributed in a balanced manner - here
India's gems, there Arabia's perfumes. There is a harmonious combination of
apparently incongruous materials - the Elephant and Tortoise unite to form her
ivory and tortoiseshell comb. Magical transformations take place, animals
become combs, and countries shrink into caskets where they breathe their
tribute to Belinda as a goddess Like an artist, she improves on nature in the
lines where she makes a 'purer blush arise' or gives life to ‘keener Lightnings’.
She ‘calls forth all the wonders of her face’ and in fact creates herself. There is
a long tradition of (disapproving) commentary on women's painting their faces,
which recognizes this element of self-creation. Tuke, for example, wrote in
1616: “And though shee bee the creature of God. As shee is a woman, yet is
shee her own creatrisse, as a picture.” In Pope's poem the acknowledgement
of her powers seems almost greater than the disapproval; it surfaces in other
lines like: “Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.” The toilet scene is used
to show the vanity associated with women. The end of the cantos functions
very well in detailing the lengths one will go to in order to insure that they are
beautiful. The rich imaginative vision in a scene such as this shows more than a
desire to deprecate; it suggests that he too is at least partly fascinated by
glitter. Pope appreciates the cosmetics in terms of the wider context of their
origins and purpose, which Belinda could not do, and his tone reveals an
attitude of amused, detached, fascination rather than straightforward
disapproval.