Alexander Pope's - " The Rape Of The Lock "

1.    According to you , who is the protagonist of the poem clarissa or Belinda ? Why? Give your answer with logical reasons .

    The Protagonist of the poem , 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 snpis 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 a 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.

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.

  

This paper would discuss and evaluate the traces and proofs regarding Pope’s demonstration of disapproval about British Mannerism and exaggerated decency in his world renowned mock epic “The Rape of the Lock”.

The most powerful tool used by Pope to show his disapproval of so-called aristocratic and civilized mannerism prevailing in his contemporary British society is implied satire. He reveals in many lines the hollowness and emptiness of exaggerated politeness and frivolous decency found in the contemporary society in an enveloped satire technique.

Pope opens the poem with an epic question who’s satirical tone signals his intent to ridicule his society. As in traditional epics, Pope’s poem opens with the invocation of a muse. He then asks a question that states the topic that the epic will address. In The Rape of the Lock, the epic convention is inverted because the epic question is of a trivial subject matter. Pope writes;

Say what strange motive, Goddess! Could compel
A well-bred lord to assault a gentle belle
Oh, say what stranger cause, yet unexplored,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?
In tasks so bold can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage? 

4. Write your views about the significance of hair. Is it symbolic?

Throughout women-centered literature, hair is a popular symbol and motif. The Bible  constantly  describe hair as a woman source of beauty and golry, even her vanity. In classic novels such as Little Women, hair serves as a symbol; Jo March cuts off and sells her hair, her "one beauty," to help her wounded father.

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.