Most Women Have No Character at All

''Most Women have no Characters at all''

Alexander Pope's poem is a portrayal of women and their character. It is set to show the qualities of an ideal woman through the contrast of portraits of women who are not ideal and are even immoral.

He generalizes women by trying to fit them into one of two categories: those who want pleasure and those who want power. However his depiction of women is far too complex to fit in one of those categories. Pope has a negativistic and even misogynistic approach towards women and their nature.

The poem is meant to be read as a comparison between all of the women he describes in the poem and Martha Blount, an ideal women. However, Blount is described as private, domestic and submissive, which implies that if a woman does not embody these qualities she can not be ideal. But praising these qualities in a woman as making one ideal, has misogynistic written all over it.

Women are depicted as superficial, as they only care about their beauty and their wardrobe, especially when they are young. They do not worry about their home or their husbands, they only seek pleasure and more beauty. But when their beauty fades as they get old, they are all alone, without friends or even anyone to talk to.

The movie Young Victoria is in some ways similar to the poem as far as the women's character is concerned. Women are controlled by men and they do not show any will or interest to change, which is shown in sir John's total control over young Victoria and her mother. However, Victoria shows a sign of rebellious spirit, when she declines to sign regency to sir John. However this does not seem as her will to be the queen and to make decisions, but her being sick of control and her search for freedom. Victoria is depicted in different ways. At times she has strong character and makes decisions based on her own opinion. This mainly refers to the period of her transformation from the "prisoner" in her own palace to being a queen. Becoming a queen gave her strength and power to show her character and do what she wanted to do. However, her decisions were not always right as they were often a result of her stubbornness. Even before becoming a queen, when meeting Albert for the first time, she shows her humorous side and a lot of wit, as she mocks him by changing opinion of what she likes, because she realised he was told to like the same things as her. After becoming a queen, she quickly shows signs of weakness as she is being manipulated by lord Melbourne.

Both Pope's poem and the movie Young Victoria portray women as weak, without character and not showing interest in anything else but how they look. There are exceptions in the movie when Victoria tries to prove she is not like that, that she has great character, but she does not always succeed at showing that.