Alexander Pope's mock epic The Rape of the Lock portrays the suffering and humiliation of Belinda, the fair protagonist, at the hands of her would-be suitor. But the real heroine of the poem is Clarissa, Belinda’s friend and accomplice in her misfortunes. In divulging something of her rationale, through her actions and most especially in her profound soliloquy, Pope makes the point that this character of the poem most represents his own ideal of a salient being balanced between the ‘Thought and Passion’ depicted as extremes in his ‘Essay on Man’.
When we first encounters Clarissa by name, she is slipping the fateful scissors to the baron, enabling him to commit his atrocity against Belinda. Clarissa is malicious; she is motivated by her own attraction to the baron and hopes to exploit his attraction for her friend to compromise Belinda’s composure. She is certain that a violent fit will be the inevitable response, and expects to rise in the baron’s esteem as Belinda falls.
But Belinda’s emotional lament surprises them all. She is all vanity and passion, devoid of reason except to justify, or presume to justify, what she says and does. She decries the loss of her virgin curl without realising why she dolls herself up so exquisitely. Clarissa, in contrast, is mostly reason. To her, though she may well be comely, any methods by which a maiden might secure the attention and affection of a man are fair play.
A close reading of Clarissa’s speech in Canto 5 shows her to be the poem’s best-balanced of the characters, in spire of her cruel behaviour and selfish motives. From her initial rhetorical question, why are Beauties prais’d and honour’d most’ to her closing argument, she implores the use of saneness above all. The beautifully bedecked Belinda has missed the point of all her outward appeal. Clarissa reminds her:
‘How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,
Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains’.
To Clarissa, a man is a fool to desire a woman for beauty alone, and a woman is a fool to demonstrate nothing but beauty in order to attract him. This is the balance which Pope is so eager to idealise. After all, as Clarissa so richly points out, beauty alone is no virtue, for it is fleeting. Beauty, therefore, cannot be an end in itself, but may be a means to meet one’s ultimate responsibility to society: to marry well and nurture heirs, not hairs. As Clarissa so soberly reminds, ‘…she who scorns a Man, must die a Maid’.
Pope’s most obvious message is probably illustrated here: that people in general are too predisposed to chaotic passion to heed calm reason. Sane Clarissa’s foregone involvement in the fray demonstrates that even she is subject to a weakness for irrational action, though Pope has her free herself as if to indicate on whose side lie his own sentiments. At the end of the epic struggle, no-one really wins, giving credence to the image of man ‘Created half to rise, and half to fall’. The reader will note that as the baron and Belinda fall to the carpet, grappling madly in furious passion, the lock of hair ascends into the sky. The very item of their contention, both the instrument of their union in passion and the reminder of their abandonment of reason, is lost in the consummation of its ultimate purpose.
2.) What is beauty? Write your views about it.
Helen Keller once said that,
"Beauty is not always seen but is felt in the heart."
Beauty is a trait that can be found in anyone or anything. It can be defined in many different ways. The definition of beauty differs with each individual's way of thinking. What may be beautiful to one person may not be beautiful to the next person.
Most people take the definition of beauty to describe a person’s physical appearance, which is considered outward beauty. It would typically be considered the face, skin and body figure. Physically attractive people are known as beautiful and those without outward beauty don’t normally meet society’s standards or definition of beauty. These people are usually tainted for it. Beauty doesn’t always have to mean the outward appearance of a person because you should never judge a book by its cover.
Real beauty is rarely seen by people.
Confucius once stated:
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see it.”
This philosophy explicates that true beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Look into those narrow dark orbs known as eyes. You will see a person’s true aura. Through looking deep into their eyes, you can feel the person’s ambiance and emotion, whether they are optimistic or in a state of melancholy. Life is easier if we live in harmony with what is real.
Many people will say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however if you look back through history it is apparent that beauty is in the eye of society. Just like fashion, the image of a “beautiful woman” has varied with culture and time.
Women have put themselves through misery attempting to change their bodies and their features to match what society is calling beautiful. Today they cover themselves with makeup, diet to extremes, and go through cosmetic surgery, all of which can actually be harmful to the body.
Definition of beauty changed day by day because today's beauty depends on social media and people try to fit themselves in this. They tried to become like this because not one person but whole society believes in media and do as media says.we called it 'trends' we can not defined beauty by one sentence because it's not limited.
According to me beauty is something which gives you pleasure, confidence and respect. When we see ourselves in mirror we get proud and confidence , beauty is not just about looking fair and fit but also about mentality. Outer beauty give you only attantion from people but inner beauty give you respect from society it's gives you confidence to take stand for yourself. No doubt outer beauty is also important but if you are not that much good looking then there is nothing to worry because it's depends on us to that how we put ourselves infront of people and society.
Everyone in this world wants to look beautiful. Most of the people believe that someone who has the beautiful image may get more attention and advantaged in the society. However, the descriptions about beautifulness itself are elusive.
Goldman and Waymer stated that each of individual have different point of view in defining ‘beauty’ .The idea and ideal of beauty are always being reminded to women over decades and society build up impossible standard of beauty that tend make the women feel inadequacy in their self . These somehow effect on the way of women portray themselves and will always make image comparison with others such as their tone skin and flawlessness that may motivate them to looks in such way. Beauty obsession is influenced by mass media, professional requirement, and the need to impress others.
3.) Find out a research paper on "The Rape of the Lock". Give the details of the paper and write down in brief what does it say about the Poem by Alexander Pope.
The mock-epic or mock-heroic is a form of satire that adapts the sophisticated heroic style of the classical epic poem to a trivial subject. Trivial actions are granted the dignity of big words, thus because of the created contrast the mock-heroic exhibits at the same time belittlement and aggrandizement. The genre originated in classical times with an anonymous parody of Homer’s Iliad, the Batrachomyomachia (Battle of the Frogs and Mice) and “was honed to a fine art in the late 17th- and early 18th- century Neoclassical period.” Pope understood Neo-classicism as the “living child of living parents.”For the neo-classicist, the Renaissance was still going on, and old life was giving birth to new. This did however not imply that neo-classicist thoughts were unoriginal, as Pope puts it:
“They who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the Ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers.”
Sometimes the mock-epic was used by the ‘moderns’ of this period to ridicule contemporary classicists, but more often it was applied by ‘ancients’ to point out the unheroic character of the modern age by exposing contemporary events in a heroic manner.
One of the characteristics of a mock-epic is the invocation to the muse at the beginning. Pope, too, does appeal to his ‘muse’ John Caryll, who solicited Pope to reconcile the quarrelling Catholic families by writing verses: “I sing – this verse to CARYLL, Muse! Is due As Pope’s was an era of intense anti-Catholic sentiment,Caryll was well aware of the importance of harmony in the small and isolated Catholic community, so he found it essential to attain an appeasement.
The Rape of the Lock contains at least two worlds within its plot. One of those worlds is of course the world of classical epic, on which all the other ‘worlds’ and elements are based. Belinda’s heroic plot is “the story of the downfall of a mighty warrior who is the darling of the gods.” She becomes entangled in an adventure when she ‘invades’ the patriarchal society of the court where she encounters her foe. First, the victory appears to be hers, as she makes use of her female weapons and succeeds to make the baron amourous of her. But then fate intervenes, the divine guardians abandon her and a trickery prevents the final triumph. However, the outcome of the battle at the end of The Rape of the Lock is unusual for an epic, as the heroic society falls apart. Belinda’s lock has the function of a holy grail, the “divine sanction for knightly endeavour.
The second world is the Christian and Miltonic world of the fall of man and his expulsion from paradise. Pope’s mock-epic is concerned with the ‘Fall of Belinda’, which is an echo of Milton’s Paradise Lost and of the biblical story of the fall of man due to a woman’s disobedience and pride. Eve, neglecting the divine advise not to eat from the forbidden tree (the Tree of Knowledge), thinks herself wise, so she becomes guilty of superbia. Belinda, too, is proud of her reflection in the mirror, so she has committed the first – and, therefore worst – sin of all. Pope compares the fall of Belinda to the shattering of a porcelain teacup and thus makes it as irreversible as the biblical fall of Adam and Eve. But on the whole, as the lock is assured an eternal existence as a comet and, thus, as a reminder of Belinda’s beauty, Pope draws on Milton’s issue of the ‘Fortunate Fall’. Although man has fallen, a greater good will ensue, that is the theme of resurrection of man after death into an eternal life in heaven.
Thus Pope follows ancient epic as well as Miltonic tradition, mixing those contexts with his own contemporary trivial matter. By opposing ‘trivial things’ and ‘mighty contests’, the pettiness of the society is stressed and ridiculed: “ the Trojan War, the founding of Rome, and the battle between Satan and Mankind, end up being represented across a card-table or a coffee-table.”
The mock-epic developed in reaction to a real social event that estranged two previously cordial families and a friend’s request that Pope take a part in defusing the anger that led to that estrangement. While attending a party, a certain young Lord Petre had as a joke clipped a ringlet from the head of Arabella Fermor. Miss Fermor saw no humor in the act, and her negative reaction caused a break in relations between the Petres and the Fermors. As prominent families in a small Catholic community, of which Pope himself was a part, they threatened to disrupt relationships beyond their own through their quarrel. Lord Petre’s teacher contacted Pope and asked that he write a poem in jest about the event. As Pope wrote to a friend, the tutor John Caryll hoped Pope’s work might for the two families “laugh them together again.”
The Rape of the Lock opens as its heroine, Belinda, awakens from a most pleasantly sensuous dream. In the late morning she is attended at her boudoir by her pet dog and the sylphs who arm her against temptation, bolstering her mental and physical chastity. They recall the magical attendants of classical figures as they prepared to enter the battlefield. Belinda’s battle will be fought on the social scene, as she attends a party at a royal palace where she will be called upon to defend her honor carefully. Belinda wins a game of cards and brags a bit too much, and the baron she has beaten decides to take revenge. Another member of the party, Clarissa, “arms” him with a pair of scissors as his “weapon,” and he engages in symbolic “rape” by snipping off Belinda’s curl as she leans down to drink her coffee. Her lead sylph, Ariel, deserts her in impotency, having discovered she may be falling in love. Belinda’s reaction is swift disgust and outrage, and she descends into a psychological Hades, mirroring the descent to gain wisdom prevalent in the classical heroic quest. She inhabits for a time the Cave of Spleen, while other young people “fight” over the event. The lock of hair rises as a star visible only to “quick, poetic eyes.”
A rich and rewarding presentation, “the form and imagery” of the poem act, as scholar Cynthia Wall writes, as to “reveal and re-enact the sexual, social, political, and poetic energies, and the efforts to control and contain them, in early-eighteenth-century England.” Pope successfully manages to reflect in his mock epic a miniature of his own world in which war threatened trade, making conquest all-important; authority remained in question, as royal power fell to the Hanoverians; two political parties sought to define themselves further in relation to the throne and one another; Catholicism remained at odds with Anglicanism; and a feeling of separation and displacement haunted England.
Identified on the title page as “An Heroic-Comical Poem” in the 1714 five-canto edition, “The Rape of the Lock” opened with a letter from Pope to Arabella Fermor, to whom he dedicated the poem. His motivation for writing the poem becomes immediately evident, as he writes that “it was intended only to divert a few young Ladies, who have good Sense and Good Humour enough, to laugh not only at their Sex’s little unguarded Follies, but at their own.” Although meant to be a private venture, as Pope notes the poem had “been offer’d to a Bookseller.” The reader gains some insight into Fermor’s character as Pope adds, “You had the good Nature for my Sake to consent to the Publication of one more correct.” He then discusses the introduction in this latest version of the “machinery” that includes the mythological characters of the sylphs and demons. Pope concludes with conventional flattery, writing that if his poem “has as many Graces as there are in Your Person, or in Your Mind,” he still could not have hoped “it should pass thro’ the World half so Uncensured as You have done.”
Pope opens in mock-heroic tone, his speaker calling upon the Muses to guide his pen. In this case rather than mentioning one of the nine traditional muses, he notes “Caryll,” meaning John Caryll, as his inspiration. He sets the scene as “a tim’rous Ray” of sun “op’d those Eyes that must eclipse the Day,” beginning his characterization of Belinda. She is still in her bed, her “GuardianSylph”
Canto 1 :
In the first canto Pope must make clear that Belinda remains a sexually mature, yet virginal young woman, who dreams of love and sex but knows those subjects need to remain in the realm of fantasy for now. As part of the classical tradition Pope had to make clear the purpose of the sylphs, writing.
Canto 2 :
Canto 2 opens with a description of Belinda’s effect on others, making clear that behind her beauty, charm, and inoffensive manner is a quick mind. The description of her hair foreshadows impending disaster, as one sylph has dutifully tended “two Locks” so that “With shining Ringlets” that “smooth” Belinda’s “Ivry Neck,” love “in these Labyrinths his Slaves detains,And mighty Hearts are held in slender Chains”. Pope continues using hyperbole to capture the heroic tone designed to convince readers of the humor in such social situations.
Canto 3 :
Pope sets the scene for the third canto, in which Belinda will enter the battle that determines her fate. He describes the playing cards as if they are powerful fi gures gathered for her support, including “four Kings in Majesty rever’d,” four fair queens whose hands sustain a Flow’r,” “four Knaves in Garbs succinct,” and “Paricolour’d Troops, a shining Train,” all of which “Draw forth to Combat on the Velvet Plain”
Clarissa aids the Baron in wreaking vengeance by supplying him with scissors. Pope describes them and Clarissa’s act: “A two-eg’d Weapon from her shining Case , So Ladies in Romance assist their Knight”. The Sprights gather by the thousands in a vain attempt to protect Belinda’s curl, managing to twitch her diamond earrings and cause her to turn her head three times. However, Ariel suddenly “watch’d th’ Ideas rising in her Mind” and saw, “in spite of all her Art, An Earthly Lover lurking at her Heart.”
Canto 4 :
In the fourth canto Belinda dissolves into depression and ends up in the Cave of Spleen. Pope has more fun in describing a Region that knows “No cheerful Breeze,” where Belinda “sighs for ever on her pensive Bed, Pain at her side, and Megrim at her Head”, where the term Megrim indicates a migraine headache, believed to be a product of the spleen. One fantastical being, a gnome called Umbriel, approaches a goddess, petitioning her for a solution to Belinda’s problem. He notes that she can “rule the Sex to Fifty from Fifteen” and “give th’ Hysteric or Poetic Fit,” inspiring some to become doctors and others playwrights Pope turns to satiric regarding the muses, who inspire mortals to various achievements.
Canto 5 consists of a 150-line statement by Clarissa, partner to the crime, in which she acts as a chorus to summarize the action and expound on the cruel fate that resulted from human passion. Discussion ensues over the fate of the lock itself, and she reveals that some believe it took its place in heaven, where “Partridge soon shall view” it as a portent of “the fall of Rome” when he “looks thro’ Galileo’s eyes.” Pope references a known prognosticator named John Partridge. Partridge annually predicted the pope’s downfall, as well as the fall of the king of France, by reading the heavens through his telescope; he was a publicly acknowledged foolish figure.
Words count : 2528
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