The Rape of the Lock and Helen of Troy.
As you may know, Pope was educated by a private tutor, who influenced him with the classics Aeneid and Iliad. He was also interested in the classics because he translated them during his period as a translator. This influence is shown in his most famous poem, “The Rape of the Lock,” in which there are a great quantity of allusions to the classics. I am going to write about one of these allusions, which is the kidnapping or rape of Helen of Troy.
First, I am going to deal with the story of the rape of Helen of Troy. She was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and she was famous because of her beauty. When she was a child, she was kidnapped by Theseus, but she was returned to her mother to be educated. The “real” rape took place after Helen’s marriage with Menelaus. Aphrodite promised Paris that he will marry Helen; for that reason, he undertook a trip to Sparta with a small fleet. When Paris arrived at Sparta, Helen's husband, Menelaus was not there. There are several versions of the rape: the first one says that Helen was taken away by force by Paris, the other one says that he seduced Helen and they escaped from Sparta. It is also said that Aphrodite exerted a great influence and for that reason Helen was in love with Paris and they went away together.
Now, I am going to compare the rape of Helen of Troy with the main theme or action of the poem “The Rape of the Lock”. Alexander Pope showed women at his time as a symbol of beauty, but only beauty, not knowledge. He also showed the fragility that women’s beauty had. This can be seen in the way in which the Lord steals Belinda's lock. This fact can be compared with Helen of Troy's rape since both are produced in order to steal their beauty. In the case of Helen of Troy, Paris raped her because he wanted her at any price and I think it was the only way he could “own” her. He really wanted her and her beauty and she asked Aphrodite to make a kind of charm to get it. But in the case of the Lord, he only steals Belinda's lock by force, without doing any kind of damage. In the first case, I think Paris steals Helen's freedom literally and in the second one, the Lord steals Belinda's freedom as a woman , but he does it in a lighter way. We can also compare them in the way that the Lord does it with his proper hands and Paris appeals to a goddess to get it.
