The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope has been the first English long poem that I have read understanding it; with this poem I have done my first role. I have been the director and I had to read it looking for some interesting and second sense questions that I asked myself while I was reading the poem. It was a difficult homework for me, but finally I got to do it and I did three important questions which we could talk in class, but now, in my second blog I would like to talk about one of these three questions. It is about one of the most trivial but difficult themes in the poem, and we can see it, the first time, in the title: Is it a literal title or is it trying to show us another thing. In the poem Pope never tell us than really the lock is the Belinda’s virginity but he gives us some clues. I found a clear example of this. In Canto II, verse 116, we find that Ariel ask an army of sylphs to look after of Melinda’s earrings, watch, favourite lock, and he sent fifty to defend Belinda’s petticoat, I think that he did this because the petticoat is the battlefield that requires the most extensive fortifications. This fact furthers the idea that the rape of the lock stands in for a literal rape or at least represents a threat to her chastity and is more serious than just a lock.
