Both Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock" and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice depict the triviality of women in eighteenth and early nineteenth century society. Alexander Pope uses his mock epic, "The Rape of the Lock," to depict an actual event where a young man cut a lock of hair from Arabella Fermor, a woman he had been courting. This act caused a rift between the two families and Pope writes this mock epic as a way to cool flaring tempers. However, Pope also uses this mock epic to speak poorly about eighteenth century society and the women in it. Throughout the poem, Pope utilizes the epic style to mock the frivolous activities of women. In her nineteenth century novel, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's main female character's primary concern is marriage. Mrs. Bennet is by far the most trivial character with her only concern being the marriage of her daughters. Austen goes more in depth with her heroine Elizabeth Bennet's character, however marriage and love is the main theme that runs throughout the novel. In an age when a woman's only hope for success in life depended upon her marriage to a wealthy man, she is left with very few options. While both "The Rape of the Lock" and Pride and Prejudice show women in a poor light, it cannot be ignored that society is the main cause of reducing women to a superficial level.
             In Canto I Pope describes the female soul and how at a young age it is tainted when "gay ideas crowd the vacant brain/While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train/And garters, coronets appear" (Pope, Canto I, ll. 83-85). The showy things in life easily distract females, and their thoughts are filled with garters, stars and emblems of nobility. The only other thing that occupies their minds is men and love: "Teach infant cheeks a bidden blush to know/And little heats to flutter at a beau" (Pope, Canto I, ll. 89-90)...