Homework Help: English: Books, Novels & Plays: The Rape of the Lock

Coffee and the Rape:
A Look at the Scene Through Freudian Interpretation

The picture being painted in the coffee scene is one that lends itself to more than one interpretation. Where as the actual doling out of the coffee is fairly straight forward in action the imagery used to describe it can have multiple meanings. Immediately following the coffee scene comes the actual rape of Belinda’s lock by the Baron and there too the dialogue and actions of the characters as well as the imagery used lends itself to differing interpretations and meanings. Looking at this scene with tools of dream interpretation at hand allows the scene to be unraveled systematically adding clarity to the multiple avenues of meaning. This scene is a meeting of the minds of the Baron and Belinda, but it also represents a sexual connecting between the Beaus and the Belles on a level that the minute disciplines that rule their lives would otherwise not allow. In addition the scene can also be read as the over indulgence of the participants more basic desires through the bending of societal and religious ideologies that would serve to prevent them from pleasing themselves in such a manner. Other parallels can be drawn between the coffee scene, Belinda's rape, and the idea of scopophilia, as well as a connection between the toilette, a god figure, and the Baron's less-than-religious struggle to posess Belinda.

The scene opens with the table being set, or rather the 'board' is 'crowned' with the fine china and silverware (canto III, 105). This opening imagery of grandeur just after the lords and ladies finish a card game begins to bring to mind images of chess boards, almost insinuating that the game is not yet over and clever forces of strategy are still at work. The scene continues as they each pour themselves cup after cup of the 'fiery spirits' from the 'silver lamp' raised from the 'altar of Japan' (canto III, 106). The religious imagery is presented in heavy doses, but what is revealed when the latent meaning is examined could be said to be almost a love for pleasure, even a worshipping of the pleasurable pursuits. Over indulgence can be seen in the 'frequent cups' they consume to 'prolong the rich Repast,' 'gratifying their Scent and Taste' over and over again like an incantation repeated to the sweet altar of Japan in praise of the fiery spirits they consume (canto III, 111). Even as Pope elevates the taking of coffee to the point of worshiping its implements, the scenes participants are relishing to an opposite extreme in what seems by Popes choice of words to be the worship of pleasure instead of some higher cause or god. The participants cannot see past their own desires and could care less if there were something more beyond them. Much like Belinda at her toilette, this altar is merely a tool for their own personal gratification and vanity (canto I, 121). Pope describes the aromatic steam rising from the coffee as being a 'rich Brocade' that is powerful enough to set the sylphs that hover about her to trembling (canto III, 116). The aroma is thick and heavy as it hangs in the air like a lavish silk rug (a Brocade) with raised patterns and brilliantly dyed colors. This worship of things material and pleasurable borders on heresy, and outside of the coffee scene, if a Beau or Belle were to so overtly pursue material pleasure they most certainly would lose face before their more modest, noble, and quietly refined bretheren. The brew allows the noblemen and beautiful women of the upper class to bend the expectations of the state and the minute disciplines of self image to pleasure themselves in ways otherwise inaccessable and/or unacceptable to people of higher class, such as themselves. The card game and coffee break is as close as the coffee partakers can get to one another (sensory gratification in the presence of one another) without losing power over themselves or their social standing by locking themselves into relationships or befouling their innocence in sexual liaison with eachother(canto IV,159; canto III, 142; canto III, 36; canto II, 105). They are testing their social and sexual boundaries in drinking coffee together and at the same time seeking refuge in the fact that they are all doing it and thus escaping the public shaming indulging their desires would otherwise bring upon their heads. In a sense they are simply gratifying the whims inside them, whom they have forsaken in the name of becoming proper beaus and nymphs as society demands of the courtly rich young men and beautiful young women at their sides. However their short orgy of what reeks of indulgence and childish bliss comes to an abrupt end when the Baron and Belinda’s game comes to clash with the controls and standards of society.

The power of coffee in this scene as a purveyor of pleasure is intense and its ability to provide its drinkers with instant gratification is also made plain, but what comes hand in hand with the pleasure is the mischief the aroma begins to cause within the Beau's mind. The altar at which they worship their pleasure begins to release in the Baron his explicit desire to control Belinda.

The aroma of the coffee, having sent 'new stratagems' to his brain on how to obtain the lock, is literally affecting his thought processes (canto III, 120). He is already wallowing in his own world of pleasure intense enough to affect beings on a different plane of existence, the sylphs, when he finds himself struck with the idea of cutting Belinda’s hair and further boosting his vanity with the trophy keep sake of Belinda's lock. His mind is being affected by the coffee, but not altered. The coffee is stripping away the inhibitions built into him by society and by religion and reducing him to the person he was before he placed himself under the controls of those disciplinary systems and became a "well-bred Lord" (canto I, 8). He is becoming who he is at heart and unfortunately for Belinda that man is not a very gentlemanly one. Pope implores the Baron to 'fear the just Gods' and not go ahead with his desire to possess Belinda’s lock, but this comes just after the Baron and Belinda vicarious orgy of the senses (canto III, 122). The internal struggle of man between his desire to please himself and his desire to present himself in such a way as to please others (namely a central controling being such as a god or parents or a mentor) is presented in the Baron's lack of acknowledgment of Belinda's own near apotheosis of beauty, and his simultaneous worship of the pleasure he derives from her every glance (canto II, 30). The Baron wishes to dominate Belinda, while at the same time he is subject to her every whim if it serves to please her. Even so, the Baron moves ahead with his desire to control and physically possess Belinda like a child chasing after a toy, his inward vanity and pleasure seeking over-riding his ability to see the consequences of his actions. The game that was continued with the setting of the table for coffee comes to completion when Clarissa provides the Baron the tool he needs to make his desires reality.

Clarissa, another person who engaged in the coffee drinking, draws with 'tempting grace/ a two edged weapon from her shining case,' so that the Baron can cut Belinda’s hair (canto III, 127). Clarissa’s role can be seen as the enabler or it can be seen as jealousy. Her speech later on in the poem does not redeem her or detract from her position, but may be seen as the fullness of hindsight (canto V, 9). What makes Clarissa particularly of interest is the fact that she may herself want to be raped by the Baron, having drawn the scissors with tempting grace to attract the Barons attention only to point him in Belinda’s direction and watch him rape her. Is she deriving some kind of pleasure from the spectacle? Does she want to be the subject without suffering the consequences of rape's aftermath? The possibility is certainly there when the idea of scopophilia is presented alongside her actions. Clarissa could very well be excercising the power that lies within the Belle over the Beau to produce a spectacle that she is simply curious to see, her temptingly graceful actions directed at the Baron only being used as a means to an end though the Baron may never know it. It cannot be entirely discounted that it is the fulfillment of some deeper fantasy of hers to come as close to violation as possible much like the testing of other sexual boundaries at the serving of coffee (canto III, 105). The game the Baron plays, with Clarissa’a help reaches its conclusion when the sylphs abandon Belinda and the Baron cuts the lock. After three attempts and three times being foiled by the sylphs the Baron finally succeeds when the head sylph, Ariel, discovers an 'Earthly Lover, lurking' in her heart, causing his powers to expire (canto III, 144). Belinda has fallen under the control of another power in a sense giving herself up, at heart, to the wills of another man and releasing herself from the self worship she was locked into at her toilette; trading one control for another, but losing the safety net she had in pure vanity and the sylphs (canto I, 145; canto III, 146). The Earthly Lover is not just present within her, he is lurking like a dirty secret that must not be revealed, some how less acceptable than all of the questionable pleasures she has already engaged in.

The scene, for the purposes of this Freudian exercise, ends here. The scene as a whole is not very long, but like a dream is heavily condensed. Any one idea can be chased on and on from one idea to another to the point of utter obscurity and intensely personal meanings. The sense of decadence in this Canto is quite thick and the interplay between disciplinary systems and the basic drives of the id is also made visible in the short exploration of latent and manifest meanings. There is much more to be made of the few lines examined here and more questions to ask as well as themes to point out, including the idea of seeming self-worship that has lurked in the background of the poem since its opening scene with Belinda. The few avenues explored have lead to the taking of coffee being connected to the sexual tension existing between the Beaus and the Belles and the societal and disciplinary mechanisms that frustrate it. The Freudian reading has also revealed the conflict between self-worship, near hedonism, and the desire to rule oneself exclusively, as well as make a tenuous connection between Clarinda and scopophilia. All of this meaning is gleaned from what seems to be a group of good lords and ladies having a nice bit of coffee when the immature act of snipping a woman’s hair without her permission interupts the entire affair.

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