1] According to you, who is the protagonist of the poem Clarissa or Belinda? Why?
According to me, Clarissa is the protagonist of the poem. Here are some reasons for it...
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 Manan’.
When the reader 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 (–I like to assume she has never had a haircut; vis., c. 2; ll. 19-28), without realising why she dolls herself up so exquisitely. Clarissa, in contrast, is mostly the 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, despite her cruel behaviour and selfish motives. From her initial rhetorical question, ‘(W)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,
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 to attract him. This is the balance that 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’.
Poor vain Belinda does not realise she has already got what she sought. Clarissa, like Eloisa, or Swift’s Vanessa, has something of a masculine sensibility, in that she knows an enlightened beauty possessed of reason represents the best balance of character, appealing to both the passions and the mind. Though her behaviour may seem cruel, even abhorrent, she is at least sensible enough to call a spade a spade. All beauty will decay, and thus vanity is a losing battle, and so the smart woman– the one of true virtue– will maintain good humour through all. Clarissa concludes: ‘Charms strike the Sight, but Merit wins the Soul’.
No-one applauds. Her point is utterly lost on the other characters, and a wild four-way melee ensues amidst bass and treble cries. 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 a half to fall’. The reader will note that as the baron and Belinda fall to the carpet, grappling madly in a 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 remainder of their abandonment of reason, is lost in the consummation of its ultimate purpose.
2] What is Beauty?
Beauty is the 'Deformity' of society which is created by us only. In we, as a society blame an individual for not being as per our expectations and sometimes with is not pleasant to our eyes. Acid Attack survivor Lakshmi Agarwal says-
“Beauty is how you feel about yourself, not what you see in the mirror.”
3] Find out a research paper on "Rape of The Lock".
Here's the research paper which has an important aspects of 'Rape of the Lock' by Pope. Jstor article.
4] significance of hair.
In Hindu tradition, the hair from birth is associated with undesirable traits from past lives. Thus, on the occasion of the Mundan ceremony, the child is shaven to signify freedom from the past and moving into the future. It is also believed that the shaving of the hair stimulates the proper growth of the brain and nerves, whereas a tuft at the crown of the head, protects the memory.
A boy's first haircut, usually in his 1st or 3rd year, is known as Choula, and represents yet another such Samskara. It is considered an event of great auspiciousness. Conventionally, a Hindu girl never has her hair cut after the first haircut, which generally happens at the age of 11 months. Therefore, the first haircut for the girl is very important because that is the only time they do. However, some Hindus practice a tonsure ceremony for girls as well. While complete tonsure is common, some Hindus prefer to leave some hair on the head, distinguishing this rite from the inauspicious tonsure that occurs on the death of a parent. Those who practice complete tonsure generally ritually offer the hair to their family deity. Many travel to temples such as the famed Tirumala Venkateswara Temple to perform this ritual.
Mayoor Balsara, CEO of India's largest exporter of human hair, Sona Devi Trading Company, says: “For poor rural women, their hair is their only vanity. They have saved up to make a once-in-a-lifetime journey. Thousands have made an oath to their gods – they may have asked to be blessed with a child or for a good harvest. Should their wish be fulfilled, they offer their most precious possession as a sign of gratitude. Offering your hair to the god is a symbolic gesture of surrendering one's ego, and a way of giving thanks for your blessings.” The hair is transported in fiber sacks by truck to Bangalore. “We buy hair in metric tons,” Mr. Balsara explains, “a ton represents 3000 women.” In his factories, the hair is washed by hand in giant baths, and then laboriously pulled through long beds of spikes by hand to smooth it before being tied into neat bundles of 200 strands each. Finally, the hair is packed into cardboard boxes and flown to Nepi, Italy, where the pigment is removed, a process that involves soaking of the hair in rows of small white baths for up to 20 days. India exports an estimated 2000 tons of hair a year, and ships it around the world. “Temple hair,” as it is known, finds its way to hundreds of British salons, where it is sold in the form of real hair extensions. Great Lengths International, a leading manufacturer, supplies 1'300 salons in Britain alone. The advantage of human hair is obvious: It both looks and feels better than synthetic additions. Moreover, the quality of Indian hair is known to be extraordinarily good. In comparison, European hair is too thin in diameter for the process, while Chinese hair, is too thick and rigid for use with European clients.
In India, Long hair is one of the most important part of female body. Indian literature often describes women's hair as "hair like a black cobra snake" For Indian woman, her hair is her pride and as per their point of view, 'A women's real beauty lies in their hair' and personally I also belive so, that a long and black hair is like a treasure for a girl as I also have enough long hair. Here's the video of my hair with the trend going on, on Instagram.
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