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Like Belinda, the Baron who cuts Belinda’s hair is less a depiction of a real person and more an archetypical foolish nobleman. The narrator describes him as “adventurous,” but little evidence of this quality is given in his behavior. Instead, the Baron seems amorous, a slave to his own passions with little rational thought to guide him. Once he sets his sights on Belinda, he burns all former love tokens in offering. This gesture portrays him as less of a trifler with women’s hearts and more of a ridiculous figure, chronically lovesick and flighty. After cutting Belinda’s hair, he compares himself to an epic hero like the Achaeans in the Iliad. He is undoubtedly unrepentant, but there is ambiguity in why he feels so triumphant. Given the common use of hair as a love token in Georgian England, there is a disturbing undertone of rape to the Baron’s actions. Through this lens, his speech seems to mean that he believes Belinda is beautiful and therefore must be defiled. His evocation of Troy has another aspect. Many people read the end of the Iliad as tragic, with Troy falling because of fate, not merit or virtue. In this reading, the Baron considers his actions inevitable, showing that he not only lacks remorse but denies his own agency.
