The False Epic and the Rape of the Lock The argument can be made that the purpose of the Rape of the Lock is to attack women's vanity. Pope states this directly in his dedication to Arabella – "to mock the little uncontrolled follies of their sex", and the author's use of mock epic seems to reinforce this aim through his comparison of the epic odyssey to insignificant events. In this comparison one can also find a description of relations between the sexes not as mutual coexistence, but rather as a war in which both sexes constantly struggle for supremacy. If this is true, then we must condemn the society in which Pope lived rather than female vanity. I will look at the effects of Pope's use of mock epic in relation to the ending passage of Canto I which describes Belinda's makeup, and also in relation to critical extract 2, which seems to me to be an ill-founded assertion. review of The Rape of the Lock. In the passage beginning "And now, unveiled, the toilet is exposed" (line 121), there are clear uses of mock epic in the combative description of Belinda's self-adornment. The imagery of Belinda as a goddess beginning the "sacred rites of pride" clearly serves to exaggerate the importance of makeup...... middle of article...... Works cited and consulted: A Pope's Choice Verse, edited by Peter Porter, Faber & Faber, 1971Allison, Barrows, Blake et al. ed. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 3rd ed. shorter. New York: Norton, 1983. 211. Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary Of Literary Terms, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Lukes, KBA (Hons.) (Alberta), MA (Brit. Col.), English. English 424 Section: 3 quarter 93/3 Class lessons September 1993 Pope, Alexander. “The Rape of the Lock”. In The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Principal Authors. Ed. MH Abrams et al. 5th ed. New York: Norton, 1987. 1108-1128