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In Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve commit the first sin, and from this point on, all other sins are mere copies of this. Alexander Pope uses this to his benefit when he depicts the crime in The Rape of the Lock. By alluding to Milton’s wor ....

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... from the tree of knowledge, which forced them out of Paradise. It will take a further reading of the poem to learn that the crime is simply the cutting of a lock of hair, and not a monumental fall from God’s graces. Pope goes on to pose the questions, “Say what strange motive, Goddess! Could compel/a well-bred Lord to assault a gentle Belle? / O say what stanger cause, yet unexplored, /could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?” (Pope, ll. 7-10). This is an allusion to Adam’s rejection of Eve in Paradise Lost when he laments, “ ‘Out of my sight, thou serpent!’ ” and to Eve’s crime aga ...