THE RAPE OF THE LOCK
The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. The poem of The Rape of the Lock satirizes a minor incident of life, by comparing it to the epic world of the gods, and is based on an event recounted to Alexander Pope by his friend John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Peter, each was member of an aristocratic recusant Catholic family, at a time in England when, under such laws as the Test Act, all denominations except Anglicanism suffered legal restrictions and penalties. Peter had cut off a lock of Arabella's hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. The poem's title does not refer to the extreme of sexual rape, but to an earlier definition of the word derived from the Latin rapere (supine stem raptum), "to snatch, to grab, to carry off"—in this case, the theft and carrying away of a lock of hair
Here is a video of summary and characters so that you can easily understand the answers written further.
1. According to you, who is the protagonist of the poem Clarissa or Belinda? Why? Give your answer with logical reasons.
Character sketch of Belinda
In this poem we can see that Belinda is representative of 18th century England's female society. 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 beauty was like-
“If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you’ll forget all”
We see Belinda in many different lights; It will be wrong to regard her purely as a goddess, or as a pretty spoiled child, or as a flirt. She is a combination of all three. We see her as a vamp, an injured innocent, a sweet charmer, a society belle, a rival of the sun, and a murderer of millions. 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.
“Favours to none, to all she smiles extends
Oft she rejects, but never once offends,”
This line suggests the character of Belinda. Belinda’s character is like a superior female who is more conscious about her beauty and hair. Belinda is a heroine or we can regard as a made heroine/ protagonist of the poem as the whole poem revolves around her. In many lines of the poem we can see the leisure routine she spends. In this poem we see that beauty is connected with hairs. Baron with the help of Clarissa cut the lock of hair which was curled up for a social event, this thing made Belinda mad as beauty was everything to Belinda. At last Belinda was consoled with the suggestion that it has been taken up into the heavens and immortalized as a constellation. Here we feel that Belinda was not mature enough to understand the matters, she needed to be pacified like a child.
“Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,
Puff s, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.”
This lines of the poem completely suggests how important cosmetics were to Belinda.
Character sketch of Clarissa
The character of Clarissa solidifies this serious social critique. She scorns the trivialities with which women (and men) occupy themselves.
“How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,
Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains :
at Men may say, when we the Front-box grace,
Behold the first in Virtue as in Face !”
Clarissa points out that beauty quickly fades with age, and extols the virtues of "good humor," which, she says,
“And trust me, dear ! good Humor can prevail,
When Airs, and Flights, and Screams, and Scolding fail.
Beauties in vain their pretty Eyes may roll ;
Charms strike the Sight, but Merit wins the Soul.”
This exclamation, which is perhaps the most significant and revealing passage of the entire poem, is, of course, frowned upon and ignored by the foolish Belinda and the belligerent Thalestris, who is only concerned with the young woman’s honor. While the main female character misses the idea that may have redeemed her, Pope asks the reader to reconsider Clarissa’s statement, since both Belinda and Thalestris are frequently mocked within the poem. The message is clear: social airs, no matter how a lady might acquire them and hold fast to them, do her no credit. She should instead employ her mind and "good humor" to gain respect and favor (perhaps one of Pope’s motives--to appease the woman upon whom this poem was based--is particularly evident in this message.)
Here in this poem we saw that Belinda the protagonist is more on her beauty, a self obsessed character while Clarissa is giving us a way of life. She makes us understand that beauty is temporary, permanent is the good humor way of living and virtues. Beauty fades with time and virtues would last forever. Comparing the mental ability or understanding of both the female character I feel Clarissa is the real protagonist in the poem who is lightening the flames is the women of society for coming out from self obsession of beauty and to make her own space in society with virtues instead of beauty.
2. What is beauty? Write your views about it.
Starting with a literal definition of beauty- a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Today we define beauty majorly in relation to looks. Beautiful looks is the only thing which is preferred by everyone. I agree to the point that beauty provides confidence but who decides the rubrics of beauty? How do people differentiate between ugly, beautiful or very beautiful? And the basic answer is on the skin tone, length of hairs, eyes etc. that is all the physical appearance only. And we generally see that the females of society need to look beautiful physically, or else they are judged quickly based on their looks.
This is a video from Super 30 movie explaining what is beauty with the base of science.
According to my views, beauty is not in appearance, beauty is internal and mental beauty of the person. ‘The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.’ If we look at these definitions we can realize that beauty is something which gives pleasure to mind or spirit, so here I argue that why do people think that only physical beauty gives pleasure? Once in a life everyone would have met a person who is not pretty in appearance but we love their company the reason is we love the way of their thinking, their abilities, we get attracted to their mentality.
We do find the same thing in this poem ‘The Rape of The Lock’ Belinda is beautiful and is made protagonist in the poem, but in end when we read the Clarissa’s speech we feel more connected to her. We feel that her point is more reliable and truth that everyone should follow. That is we are attracted to Clarissa for her thoughts and ideas. We also find the same thing in the Mary Shelley Novel ‘Frankenstein’ where the creature was not accepted by society due to his giant appearance. On the other hand, he was more natural and pure of heart than people of society.
The attraction to physical appearance will not last long but the attraction and love to mental appearance will remain forever.
In my view, Inner beauty refers to the personality of a person including his/her mind and character. Whereas outer beauty simply refers to the looks of a person. It can easily be faked and changed through makeup, dressing, surgery etc. But it takes a whole lot of effort and a true heart to maintain your inner beauty in this modern age. So inner beauty is more important and is only beauty.
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.
I have read a research paper of Global English Oriented Research Journal ( GEORJ) by Dr. George Kolanchery. This paper is detailing about The Rape of The Lock as a mirror to Pope’s age and society of that time. The frivolities of women folk of that is discussed, Belinda is the representative of the fashionable ladies of that time. There is not the slightest glimpse of seriousness or sincerity, goodness or grandeur of human life in any of their words or actions. Along with, he debates the hollowness of the men of that time, as Belinda Baron represents the class of men of that time and we see that they are idle, empty- minded folk and have nothing to do except love making or flirting with ladies.
After reading this paper I learned that the poem shows the ‘Battle’ between the ladies and the gentlemen showing the emptiness and fertility of their lives. The poem shows the fashionable society of the upper class of that time, Pope’s age. And the Pope very beautifully weaved the incident between Lord Peter and Arabella along with the society of that age describing the colors of that age and on other hand satirizing the society. We see that the people have no other work and are getting ready, looking after their beauty and spending their time playing cards and having gatherings. No English poem is at once so brilliant and so empty as ‘The Rape of the Lock’. It reflects the artificial age with splendour and inward emptiness.
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