Thinking Activity- "The Rape of The Lock".

 Hello guys, This blog is the part of my Classroom activity that given by our prof. Vedaihi mam. I am sharing my views on three questions which are based on "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope.

" All nature is but art unknown to thee".

    - Alexander Pope.

1). According to you, Who is the protagonist of the poem Clarissa or Belinda? Why? Give your answer with logical reason.

My point of view " The Rape of The Lock" the protagonist of the poem was Clarissa. Because she was fearless, free and also called 'voice of the author'. Clarissa name, meaning "clarity" or "reality".

Firstly, Clarissa at court who lends the Baron, her Scissors to chop off Belinda's hair that time shown the joelousy of women but later she finds the whole incident frustratingly trivial and delivers a speech about how physical beauty is ultimately feeling and that instead women should concentrate on being as morally upright as they possibly can looks might prove attractive to the eyes, Clarissa declares, but virtue is most attractive to the soul. 

While her speech obviously makes good sense, it is typical of a more traditional style of poem. Which would be primarily concerned with didacticism, or simply telling the reader what the moral is pope subverts the conventions of this style of writing by refusing to end the poem here and instead concluding with the absurdity of the courtly battle.

 "Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul".

Clarissa represent the voice of reason and the midst of the chaps. Through the literal interpretation of the lines, she closes her speech by acknowledge that women's good looks and bold words can impact a man briefly, logic and good sense. There are reason I like to protagonist Clarissa of this poem.

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

"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder".

The Inner Beauty is the Real beauty:-

As an English idiom goes, " beauty is but skin-deep". A person's great virtue, a noble soul, a beautiful heart can be called as an everlasting beauty.

Beauty is a property of certain things. Something is beautiful if it is nice to look at it; hear it, feel it, taste it, small it or think about it. It is also the name of a feeling that is hard to describe. Some people say that beauty is: the similarity between a real object and an object of art.

In bygone days, people placed much emphasis on inner beauty. Thay kept fine-tuning and perfecting the moral values and personalities. Nowadays. We can see a dramatic change in attitude. Superficial beauty has been in placed of inner beauty. Apparent beauty plays an influential role in society.

Inner beauty is the real one because if someone has beauty in his soul, he looks like a really beautiful person. The beauty looked at with eyes doesn't last forever. Instead of concert rating on outer beauty. We should concentrate on inner beauty. The point is that inner Beauty is more important than outside beauty.

3). Find out a reserch paper on 'The Rape of The Lock'. Give the details of the paper and write down in brief what does it say about poem by Alexander Pope.

Introduction:-

Alexander Pope is nothing if not a bit ridiculous. And he uses just such an occasion-someone cutting off a friend's lock of hair to craft this long, funny, famous poem, 'The Rape of The Lock'.

Nowadays the word "rape" usually describes a horrific situation at which laughing is strictly and rightly-forbidden. But back in 1714,when pope published 'The Rape of The Lock'. The term "rape" had a broader definition. Sure, they used it as we do, but it could also refer to the act of seizing or taking anything by force.

Critically Comment on the rape of the lock as a mock epic:-

'The Rape of the Lock' is the incident to cutting off mrs.Arabella's lock of hair by lord Petre at the Hampton Court, london. According to this, the belle is hero of the poem and the Baron is her antagonist. Pope in the subtitle of the poem says that it is "An heroi-Comical poem" by examining how the element of an epic is treated here, we'll proceed to prove the poem as a mock epic.

'The Rape of The Lock' is a long narrative poem consisting 5 contos. It narrates an incident of cutting off one's hair with exaggerated and elevated language. The poet says 

" Slight is the subject, but not the praise".

Before that he starts the poem with an epic tone, where he alludes to the universal theme of various epic poems he say, 

"What dire offence from amorous causes springs what mighty contests rise from trivial things".

Iliad, padmavati, Mahabharata show how trivial amorous matters lead to the mightiest wars. This line refers to the occurrences at Hampton Court as well.

Pope is comparing those giant works and issues to make fun of the genre and the society as well. Such comparison provokes laughter.

The poem starts and ends with invoking the Muse "I sing- This verse to Caryll, Muse!" Humorously, he equates the goddess to a human, his friend. There is also an epic- question to heighten mockery.

Hyperbole and exaggeration is an epic characteristic. The auther mocks Belinda's toilette by witty exaggeration and elevated words- 

"All Arabia breaths from yonder box. The tortoise here and elephant unite".

Pope uses thise technique in Cantos- III to describe Belinda and her opposition. He takes almost 46 lines for 2 persons and treats them as giant armies. Such mock dignity taunts the subjects. 

The epic battle is mocked by the Card- game i.e. Game of Ombre.

"Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites, Burns to encounter two advent'rous knights".

'The Rape of The Lock'- a mirror of the Age:-

It is the ethos of this age that has been caught in the rape of the lock J.R. Lowell remarks 'The Rape of The Lock' was a mirror in the drawing-room but it gave back a faithfull image of society, yet still as human in its own way as the heroes of Homer I theirs, the fashions, frivolities, the vanities and the folles of the upper class of society are faithfully presented by pope 

Conclusion:-

This was the kind of life led by the fashionable people pf the upper classes in the age of pope and pope has described it in gorgeous colours on the one hand and with scathing satire on the other. There is nothing deep or serious on the lives and activities of the fashionable people- all is vanity and emptiness and this pope has revealed with brilliance and art.

Thanks!!

Words- 1,138.

Reference:-

- Trepanier, Maddy. "The Rape of The Lock''. LitCharts LLC, 12 Oct 2019.

-Global English- Oriented Research Journel.