Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

 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 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.

 2.) What is beauty? Write your views about it.

     

Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art.

The word "beauty" is often used as a countable noun to describe a beautiful woman.

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 which includes physical attributes which are valued on an aesthetic basis.The concept of beauty in men is known as 'bishōnen' in Japan. Bishōnen refers to males with distinctly feminine features, physical characteristics establishing the standard of beauty in Japan and typically exhibited in their pop culture idols. A multibillion-dollar industry of Japanese Aesthetic Salons exists for this reason. However, different nations have varying male beauty ideals; Eurocentric standards for men include tallness, leanness, and muscularity; thus, these features are idolized through American media, such as in Hollywood films and magazine covers.

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.

      

Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is a satirical epic poem, first published in 1712, and then revised and expanded in 1714. Alexander Pope is one of the foremost English poets of the 18th century, having translated Homer and moving in the same literary circles as Jonathan Swift. The Rape of the LockPope, however, suffered from Pott’s disease, which left him stunted and hunchback. Despite this disability, works such as The Rape of the Lock have made him second only to Shakespeare in the annals of English poets.

The Rape of the Lock is supposedly based on a real incident which Pope compares to the world inhabited by the gods. In the poem, the Baron seeks a lock of Belinda’s hair, hoping to place it on an altar of trophies he collects. In using classical structure and form, Pope satirizes what was essentially a minor disagreement, comparing the abduction of Helen of Troy to a suitor cutting off a lock of hair. Called high burlesque, the literary legacy of the poem is such that three of Uranus’ moons—Belinda, Umbriel, and Ariel—are named after characters in The Rape of the Lock.

The poem was originally published anonymously in May 1712, but after extensive revision appeared under Pope’s name two years later. Pope himself claimed that the work sold over three thousand copies in just the first four days. Pope also published A Key to the Lock in 1714 under the penname Esdras Barnivelt, a humorous piece that warns against anyone taking The Rape of the Lock seriously.

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

Long hair is a hairstyle where the head hair is allowed to grow to a considerable length. Exactly what constitutes long hair can change from culture to culture, or even within cultures. For example, a woman with chin-length hair in some cultures may be said to have short hair, while a man with the same length of hair in some of the same cultures would be said to have long hair.Males having short, cut hair are in many cultures viewed as being under society's control, such as while in the military or prison or as punishment for a crime. Long lustrous female hair is generally rated attractive by both men and women across cultures.The prevalence of trichophilia (hair partialism or fetishism) is 7% in the population, and very long hair is a common subject of devotion in this group.