The Rape of the Lock
Hello readers, I'm writing this blog as an assignment form the Department of English, MKBU. Here, I'm trying to give some questions-answers given by Vaidehi ma'am.
1) According to you, who is the protagonist of the poem, Clarissa or Belinda? Why? Give your answer with logical reasons.
According to me Belinda is the protagonist of the poem 'The rape of the lock. Belinda is a wealthy and beautiful young woman who travels to Hampton Court for a day of socializing and leisure. Her remarkable beauty attracts the attention of the Baron, who snips off a lock of her hair in his infatuation. At the beginning of the narrative, Ariel explains to Belinda through the medium of a dream that as she is both beautiful and a virgin, it is his task to watch over her and protect her virtue though as the poem unfolds, it’s unclear if Belinda is really as virtuous as she seems. Despite the fact that Belinda is Pope’s protagonist, she’s actually a bit of a slippery character to come to terms with, as the reader is provided with relatively little access to her inner thoughts, and her actions are often governed by supernatural forces.
For instance, it is unclear how much influence Ariel, a sylph, is able to exert over her, and there is some suggestion that he actively toys with her morality. He claims it is her virginity which makes her worthy of guarding but sends her a dream of a handsome young man, “A youth more glitt'ring than a birthnight beau,” tempting her sexuality. Similarly, at the end of the poem, Umbriel, throws over her and Thalestris a bag of “Sighs, sobs and passions” and also empties a vial of “sorrows” over her too, meaning the rage she flies into is not entirely of her own volition. Fundamentally, as her name suggests with its literal meaning of “beautiful”, all readers can really know about Belinda is that she is attractive. The poem states that “If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all” in other words, she is so beautiful that those around her consider her basically exempt from any moral judgement, allowing Pope to satirize the idea Ariel suggests at the opening of the poem: that beauty and virtue always go hand in hand.
Belinda is based on the real-life figure of Arabella Fermor, who also had a lock of her hair cut off by a suitor. In short we can say that Belinda is the protagonist of this poem.
2)What is beauty? Write your views about it.
The word "beauty" is often used as a countable noun to describe a beautiful woman.[80][81]
The characterization of a person as “beautiful”, whether on an individual basis or by community consensus, is often based on some combination of inner beauty, which includes psychological factors such as personality, intelligence, grace, politeness, charisma, integrity, congruence and elegance, and outer beauty, for example, physical attractiveness, which includes physical attributes which are valued on an aesthetic basis.
When our countenance glows with inner peace and happiness, we radiate real beauty. Happiness comes from what we give of ourselves to others. It comes from the love we feel in relationships that are dear to us. We are most beautiful when we are reaching out to, lifting, helping, and thus, loving others.
Smile
Happiness is one of the most attractive accessories anyone can have, and a smile is the most charming cosmetic. Well-applied makeup can enhance appearance, but no amount of eyeshadow, mascara, or lipstick could possibly compete with the natural attractiveness of an authentic smile. These kinds of smiles brighten a room and cheer up those that notice them. A warm smile communicates friendship, love, and optimism much more so than any product ever could. A kind smile puts others at ease and is welcoming. So, wear your most charming cosmetic today by sharing your beautiful smile.
3) Find out a research paper on "The Rape of the Lock". Give the details of the paper and write down in brief what it says about the Poem by Alexander Pope.
The rape of the lock
Stanley Edgar Hyman
The Hudson Review 13 (3), 406-412, 1960
The Rape of the Lock," 1712 and republished in a considerably revised version i a tiny scandal. Lord Petre had cut off a lock of Miss mor's hair and refused to return it, and the incident bad feeling between the two families. Pope's friend Car friendly with both families, Pope told Spence," desired a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together produced a poem of two cantos in iambic pentame within a fortnight, and it appears to have had the d Despite Addison's advice that the poem was" a del thing" as it stood and not to tamper with it, Pope felt be made more ambitious, and in 1714 he expanded it to with additional scenes and an elaborate mock-epic m Rosicrucian supernaturals that he got from a book Comte de Gabalis. In its final version," The Rape o first describes the elaborate toilet of Belinda, tended by ian sylph, Ariel, and other supernaturals. She and Clarissa, then have an epic combat at ombre with another gentleman, at which the baron cuts off one tresses. The gnome Umbriel journeys to the underw Spleen to return with a load of wild female emotions a furious Homeric battle between men and women, in which the lock disappears, to reappear in the sky as a hairy tail, writing Belinda's name immortal. The principal effect the poem gives at every point and control. Its action, described in a resounding epic, is always tiny. The baron's madness comes from the mi toxicants:
4)Write your views about the significance of hair. Is it symbolic?
Belinda’s lock of hair comes to symbolize the absurdity of the importance afforded to female beauty in society. Pope offers a hyperbolically metaphorical description of the two locks in Canto II, humorously framing the locks as alluring enough to virtually incapacitate any man who looks at them.
The locks are “labyrinths” in which Love “detains” “his slaves” by binding their hears with “slender chains,” thus poking fun at the idea that Belinda’s beauty is truly powerful enough to make such a deep impact.
This absurdity only grows as the poem progresses and after the Baron has snipped Belinda's lock. Under the influence of Umbriel, Thalestris laments the loss of the lock as the symbolic loss of Belinda’s reputation in society, exclaiming, “Methinks already I your tears survey, Already hear the horrid things they say.”
In Pope’s day, the respectability of a woman in society depended upon her having a spotless reputation and being perfectly virtuous, and, in particular, sexually pure. Thalestris then is essentially saying that the loss of Belinda’s lock is a rupture which damages all of the rest of her beauty, and the Baron’s having taken it in so intimate a fashion compromises the idea that she is chaste, and that people will think she in some way allowed him to violate her body.
This makes very little sense, allowing Pope to satirize the idea that beauty and virtue are so closely related. The lock’s final ascension into the heavens is the most absurd part of the whole thing, and Pope’s choice to cap off the whole poem with the transparently silly idea that the lock is too precious to remain on earth, that no mortal deserves to be so “blest” as to possess it, emphasizes the ridiculous amount of emphasis placed on female beauty in society.
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