Fortasse, Pope, Idcirco Nulla Tibi Umquam Nupsit (The Rape of the Lock) Daniela Tijerina

Alexander Pope is known for his scathing but intelligent critiques of high English society. His acclaimed poem The Rape of the Lock does support female passivity and subordination in marriage; however, the fact that they are endorsed in Pope's satirical world demonstrates his detestation of these ideas, and more importantly, of the society (comprised of both males and females) that upholds these conventions.

In many aspects Belinda is infantilized; her judgment and intelligence reduced to that of a child and subject to an authority figure of some sort. For example, Pope writes: "Some secret truths, from learned pride concealed/ To maids alone and children are revealed" (ROTL 1.37-38). Here, the "learned pride" represents the men, who, for all their erudition, are not privy to the existence of the chimerical creatures. Women, however, are not above believing in the machinery because they are nave as children are. Her "ideas crowd a vacant brain,"(ROTL 1.83) suggesting that she is not capable of any substantial considerations, certainly not anything transcending her "infant thought[s]"(ROTL1.29). Later, she is depicted as juvenile and unreasonable during her crying fit, while the Baron...