The epic Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope is essentially a pamphlet of traditional epic literature. It is full of comparisons between the actions of the main character Belinda and Homer's Achilles, Virgil's Aeneid, and Greek mythology in general. The image of his character is painted as vain and indifferent to consequences, unlike that of the character Achilles from Homer's Iliad; yet he was full of anger and pride resembling those of Belinda's features. But that's where most of the corresponding attributes end; the scales in which the two unfold as an epic are far from similar. Although her general character seems to be concerned only with her charms, Pope consistently portrays her in an almost heroic manner, and her quest became the recovery of her most valuable lock that she lost. Throughout the poem, her most insignificant actions are glorified and exaggerated by comparisons to Greek heroes and wars, such as Achilles and the Trojan War, when in reality she is simply a vain woman who has lost a lock of hair because of its spotless beauty. and his quest for the seized lock is a completely frivolous matter and has no merit in pursuing it. This is essentially what Pope is saying, that the upper class women of his time are petty, impractical, and tasteless; he parodies Belinda's actions with comparisons to the epic to push this concept further. In the first song of The Rape of the Lock, Ariel, his guardian Sylph, speaks to him in a dream, warning him of what is to come, while at the same time echoing Virgil's Aeneid when the hero Aeneas visits the hells of the Champs Élysées: Do not think, when the woman's fleeting breath flees, that all her vanities at once are ...... middle of paper ...... the nature of the events which happens, it does not exalt itself; the girl is compared to a hero, but can never truly be recognized as such. Works Cited Greenblatt, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: NWNorton & Company. 2013. Print. Cohen, Ralph. “Gender reversal in “The Rape of the Lock”. South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 37. No. 4 (November 1972): Pages. 54-60. Internet. March 21, 2014 Frost, William. The Rape of the Lock and the Pope's Homer. Modern Languages ​​Quarterly. Flight. 8. No. 3 (September 47): Pages. 342-354. Internet. March 21, 2014 Schaefer, Tatjana. “Sir Plume in Pope's The Rape of the Lock: a parody of Homer's Ulysses.” A quarterly journal of short articles, notes and reviews. Flight. 25. No. 2 (2012): Pages. 91-95. Internet. March 21 2014