The Rape of The Lock

The Rape of The Lock is the excellent mock epic in all aspects, grand style, grand theme, great hero and grand episodes in ridiculous manner.
Therefore it is called mock epic. The title of the poem ‘Rape of the lock’ indicates the mock heroic effects. The Rape is the most serious and moral offense which means the vindication of women’s chastity by force. The mean the cutting of lock is a great problem, morally, politically and society. The title of the poem evokes nothing but a mock heroic character of pope’s work.

The Rape of The Lock As a Mock Epic

Pope his made the mockery of the great heroic style and subject. The theme of ‘The Rape of the lock’ is cutting the lock of Belinda’s hair.
It is too trivial and too low to deserve any special treatment of epic theme, as pope says himself, ‘what dire offense from amorous causes spring, what mighty contest rice from trivial things’.
The Hero of ‘The Rape of The lock’ also indicates mock heroic effects. In the true epic great deeds of great hero are seem for the betterment of society.
In this mock epic the trivial incidents are done by trivial man who cuts the lock of Belinda of which he considers a great and adventurous deed, as text reveal ‘Say what a strange motives, Goddess would complete’
Used of machinery and supernatural characters. In pure epic the supernatural beings are Gods, Goddesses and Angels but in the mock heroic ‘The Rape of the lock’ the supernatural characters are sylphs and gnomes and nymphs.The light militias from the lower sky.
The structure of ‘The Rape of the lock’ is cast in the classical epic, but it is not serious epic.
It has divided into cantos. Like true epic it also has beginning, middle, and end, according to Aristotle’s concept of dramatic element in epic poetry.
The style of epic is sub line and dignified. The loftiness and sublimity is the soul of classical epic.
Triviality is not allowed in true epic. But in ‘Rape of the lock’ is common.
In classical Epic poetry Poets used long tale similes as does Spencer in Faire Queen and Milton in ‘The paradise lost’. He compares fallen Angels to autumn and Satan’s Shield with.
Pope has also used similes in trivial manners. He usessimiles when Belinda demands her ravished lock from Baron as ‘Not fierce Othello is as load for the lanker chief that causes The Pain’