Gender Ideology; Construction of Male Reading in Pope's Rape of the Lock

Language, as a medium of semiotic representation, is informed with ideology and power. Experimentation on the language of Pope's Rape might betray an intricate gender ideology latent in the patriarchal reflection of eighteenth century society in that construction or assumption of the reader as male configures a patriarchal agenda that seems to reflect critically on the gender and gender-stereotype, reinforcing the phallogocentric view of female as preoccupied with the trivial, wanton in violation, and most importantly inferior to male imperatives within the representational categories defined by men.

Formation of a male reading in Rape is perhaps anticipated as early as Pope’s letter to Arabella Fermor sets out a gendered attitude towards the “nature” of “modern ladies” who are preoccupied with trivial things and equally with making trivia appear as of having “utmost importance.” Through the political semiotics of representation, Pope aptly seems to have defined the “otherness” early in the epigraph, consolidating the sexual difference(s) by naturalizing or mystifying the male reading of the poem. As Cassandra argues, Pope in his letter addresses Ms. Fermor that the poem was published at her request, although in actuality the writing of this poem was suggested by one of Pope’s male friends. As thus, Pope is making it seem “as though Ms. Fermor enjoyed and even asked to be mocked.”

Apart from the mythical preoccupation of women with trivia as represented in character of Blinda, Pope’s gendered language pictures femininity and womanhood as reductively wanton in character – the madwoman in the attic – that scarcely subscribes to the male dictated norms. As noted by Pollak, in describing Belinda’s anger, for example, “the author goes to great lengths to paint her as a witch with almost supernatural characteristics.” In the similar vein, representation of Thaletris as an Amazonian type of woman who is most feared and scorned by men since rejecting male imperatives also contributes to the construction of a male reading of the poem. Conversely, though, the male in the story is portrayed as being victim to the seductive spell of female characters (27).

Construction of male reading of the Rape seems also to build, most importantly, on the view of female as generally inferior and subordinate to male imperatives. As Ellen Pollack argues, in the poem “woman is made to function as the sign not of her own subjectivity but of a male desire of which she is the object” (23). Affirming the sexual myth of woman as inferior, Pope’s Rape uses woman to serve a function and to act out a particular part in the poem in which the male is excused for his violation and female is repudiated for her sly seductiveness and beauty.

On the whole, Pope’s Rape is mediated in the language inundated with gender ideologies that critically gives rise to assuming of the reader as male and thus forming a male reading of the poem in that a phallogocentric representation of female as obsessed with trivia, wanton in action, and inferior to male dominance is underscored.

Sources:

Sowerby, Robin. Alexander Pope: Selected Poetry and Prose. London: Routledge, 1998.

Pollak, Ellen. The Poetics of Sexual Myth: Gender and Ideology in the Verse of Swift and Pope. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Westfall, Cassandra. “The Negative Images of Women in Pope's The Rape of the Lock”. Knox College Common Room: Volume 2. Dec. 19^th, 2009.