How does Alexander Pope use heroic couplets in The Rape of the Lock?

In The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope utilizes heroic couplets—pairs of rhyming iambic pentameter lines—to achieve a masterful mock-heroic effect.12

By applying this elevated, traditional verse form to a trivial social incident—the theft of a lock of hair—Pope creates a deliberate sense of incongruity and disproportion. The structural precision of the couplet allows him to balance irony and wit, using antithesis and rhetorical control to mirror the tension between the poem's "civilized veneer" and the "suppressed energies" of his characters.12

Ultimately, Pope’s virtuosity with the form enables him to treat a minor domestic quarrel with the same stylistic gravity usually reserved for epic subjects, such as the conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans. This juxtaposition is central to the poem's satirical commentary on contemporary social life.12