Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock†and John Milton’s Paradise Lost Essay
The main female characters in Alexander Pope’s â€Å"The Rape of the Lock†and John Milton’s Paradise Lost are seen at first as extensions of the male characters, at the mercy of supernatural forces. Does their rebellion show that they begin to break the chains of male dominion? A view of the actions of Eve and Belinda can be seen as rebellion against their controllers.            Eve, the main female character of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, comes to the forefront in Book IX, after she has taken her first independent action, that of eating the apple. To understand the actions of Eve, it is important to understand Milton’s view of the interactions between God, Adam and Eve. Roberta Martin states In Paradise Eve, the â€Å"mother of mankind†, is the figure of a contained, â€Å"other†creative energy that is carefully derivative: she herself was â€Å"derived†from Adam’s rib, and she is under Adam’s domination in the hierarchy of the Father’s â€Å"perfect†Symbolic†¦ Eve is subordinate to Adam because she is â€Å"lacking†. The Father intends her to be a deliberately limited and controlled Other. (61) On Eve’s first awakening in the garden, the difference between Adam and herself is made clear. While he wonders who he is, and is aware of himself as a differentiated entity, Eve wonders where and what she is, and is not aware of any difference between herself and her surroundings – as one with no conception of the separateness of her being, she begins life as an Object, rather than as a Person (Martin, 70). From this perspective, it is clear that Eve is at first fully controlled by the desires of Adam and of God, her joint Creators. It is not until, daring to become a Person, she expresses her own desires; then, further defying her masters, she chooses to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. She begins, tentatively, to have opinions of her own and thoughts as to how the Garden should work – she starts innocently, with a suggestion as to how the work should be done.            Let us divide our labors, thou where choice            Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind            †¦            With Myrtle, find what to redress till Noon:            Our task we choose, what wonder if so near,            Looks intervene and smiles, or object new            Casual Discourse draws on, which intermits            Our day’s work brought to so little, though begun            Early, and th’hour of Supper comes unearn’d. (Milton, 209). Adam objects sharply to this suggestion, leaving no doubt that Eve has gone against his wishes for, perhaps, the first time. â€Å"for nothing lovelier can be found In Woman/than to study household good,/and good works in her Husband to promote (Milton, 209).†And yet, he concedes sadly, â€Å"But if much converse perhaps/Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield. /For solitude sometimes is best society/And short retirement urges sweet return (Milton, 209).†Eve has won her first, small battle – that for time on her own, without the companionship of Adam, whom she was conceived as Companion for.            Adam is not yet done attempting to assert his will, and God’s will, over Eve.            But God left free the Will, for what obeys Reason           , is free and Reason he made right, But bid her well beware and still erect, Lest by some fair appearing good surpris’d, She dictate false, and misinform the Will To do what God expressly hath forbid. (Milton, 212) Eve is, here, to be allowed some freedom of her will, but only if it is within the rules already outlined for her. Temptation follows in the form of the Serpent and she defies the wishes of Adam and of God, and eats the Fruit she has been forbidden. This is her greatest act of rebellion, and the point at which she throws off the chains of her Creation. She gains the knowledge that had been forbidden her; she conceives of a desire, that of being an equal. She ponders â€Å"In Female Sex, the more to draw his Love,/ and render me more equal, and perhaps,/ a thing not undesirable, sometime/Superior, for inferior who is free? (Milton, 225)†Suddenly aware of the possibility of her own death, she resolves to share the knowledge she has gained with Adam, for â€Å"So dear I love him, that with him all deaths/I could endure, without him live no life. (Milton 225)†So choosing the path of love over the path of knowledge, she feeds the fruit to Adam, and brings the wrath of the Creator down upon their heads. Milton is not content to let Eve’s transgression, that of throwing off the patriarchal rule and allowing her own will to become paramount, pass lightly. For he closes, â€Å"Thus it shall befall/Him who to worth in Woman overtrusting/Lets her Will rule. (Milton 234).†           If Eve is a creation of Adam and God, Belinda is a creation of Man’s conception of Woman, and the object of a struggle between Man and the supernatural. Rising only late in the morning, she spends hours at her toilet, grooming obsessively in order to meet her admirers. Pope inquires:            Say what strange motive, goddess! Could compel            A well-bred lord t’assault a gentle belle?            O say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,            Could make a gentle belle reject a lord? (Pope, 28) Belinda is the beloved of the sylphs, for her purity and beauty are made in their image. One whispers to her as she lies sleeping â€Å"Know farther yet; whoever fair and chaste/Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embraced:/For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease/Assume what sexes and what shapes they please (Pope, 29).†When she ventures out, all fall to her charms, including the Baron; â€Å"Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay (Pope, 32)†. All, that is, except the Sylph, who sees in the Baron a rival for Belinda’s affections. The Baron conceives of a plan – to wrest a lock from Belinda’s unsuspecting head, thus despoiling her. Despite the guardianship of the Sylphs, he succeeds: â€Å"He takes the gift with reverence and extends/the little engine on his finger ends; /This just behind Belinda’s neck he spread, /As o’er the fragrant steams she bends her head (Pope, 38).†The sylphs are enraged – â€Å"Not Cynthia, when her manteau’s pinned awry/E’er felt such rage, resentment and despair,/ As thou, sad virgin! for thy ravished hair. (Pope, 39).†The spirits desert Belinda, and she is left at the mercy of new knowledge of love; bereft of her beauty with the lock of hair, she falls into a dark despair, abandoning her previous beauty regime and descending into slovenliness. Driven to rage, she attacks the Baron for his unforgivably churlish act: See fierce Belinda on the baron flies, With more than usual lightning in her eyes, Nor feared the chief th’unequal fight to try, But this bold lord with manly strength subdued†¦ â€Å"Now meet thy feate,†incensed Belinda cried, And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. (Pope, 45)            Belinda, in rebellion against the desires of Man, throws off the strictures of her previous role as Virgin and takes the persona of Warrior. â€Å"Restore the lock!†is Belinda’s cry – she desires what has been taken from her to be returned, as she desires to return to her previous state of innocence. Belinda is not a puppet of the supernatural nor of Man; her rebellion is against the unending march of maturity and gained knowledge, not against the machinations of those who would control her. Belinda has chosen the supernatural rather than the control of Man, and has wrested control of her Self back from the man who would control her. She is still a creature of Man’s conception, but she is no longer a creature for Man’s desire.            Eve and Belinda represent two very different views of female rebellion and independence. Eve, in choosing to perform an action expressly forbidden by her creators, has chosen the path of opposition; Belinda has chosen the control of one of her creators, rejecting the path of the other, who held himself in opposition to the first’s wishes. Belinda has chosen the path not of rebellion, but of total rejection of the assertion of Man’s control. Works Cited Pope, Alexander. â€Å"The Poetry of Pope: A Selection†. New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts, 1954. Martin, Roberta C. â€Å"How Came I Thus?: Adam and Eve in the Mirror of the Other.†College Literature, 27.2 (2000): 57-79. Milton, John. â€Å"Paradise Lost.†New York: Odyssey Press, 1962.
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