Character of Belinda

 

ENGLISH COACHING CENTER

Based on JAC BSEB CBSE ICSE SKMU and TMBU

Character sketch of Belinda

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 a 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.

By Manoj Sir