Q1.

Significance or Role of Supernatural elements or machinery in rape

of the lock?
Ans: The word “machinery” is a counter of literary criticism: in this sense,
the world means the control of the affairs of men by gods, angels, devils
and other supernatural creature. The presence of this machinery-the god,
angels, devils and so on is an indispensable feature of epic poetry. It is to be
found in epics of different countries, from Iliad and paradise lost. The
design of every epic is based upon this relationship between men and
women of the earth and the higher, supernatural divine powers who shape
the destiny of the mortals. Of the vast design of any epic, the machinery is
an inalienable part: it raises the central action of the epic to the
metaphysical, philosophical, plane, even the plane of wonder and ever-
present mystery of living.
Pope was thus fumbling and groping about for a suitable system off
mythology, he happened, “by a stroke of luck”, to come upon an entirely
new set of mythology in a book entitled, Le Comte de Gabalis, which was
known as Rosicrucian spirits. What use Pope made of this machinery he has
described in his dedicatory letter to Mrs. Arabella Fermor. First of all he
defines machinery and indicates its use in a mock-Heroic poem, and then,
goes on to describe his describe his debt to French romance, Le Comte de
Gabalis.
It appears of the utmost importance. These machines I determined to rise
on a very a new and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits.
The Rosicrucian’s are people I must bring you acquainted with. The best
account I know of them is in a French book called Le Comte de Gabalis,
which both in its title and size is so like a novel that many of the fair sex
have read it for one by mistake. According to these gentlemen, the four
elements are in habited, by spirits which they call sylphs, gnomes, nymphs,
and salamanders. The gnomes or demons of earth delight in mischief: but
the sylphs, whose habitation is in the air- conditioned creatures imaginable.
For they say; any mortals may enjoy the most intimate familiarities with
these gentle spirits, upon a condition very easy to all true adepts, an
inviolate preservation of chastity.”
This new mythology helped pope evolve and creates this kind of machinery
he needed for a mock epic like The Rape of the Lock.
Pope places his supernatural beings, the sylphs, in no definite relationship
to his human characters. Sometimes, they act like Satan tempting Belinda
to come to the association of their opposite sex and play coquets.
Sometime, they act like Guardian Angel protecting Belinda, or ladies like
her, from the amorous adventures. Sometimes, they act like both.
In a mock-epic like The Rape of the Lock the line of demarcation between
good and evil is evanescent: both are mocking imitations of the epic model.
This is clear from the funny way the sylphs are said to adapt to protect the
chastity the ladies. The sylphs keep a constant guard on the good-hearted
ladies; and whenever one is on the point of submitting herself the seductive
persuasions of one lord the sylphs manage to bring another more
handsome and attractive young man to the place. The lady now turns to
the newcomer, and thus she is saved, at least for the time being, from the
danger posed by the first. When she comes close to the second, the sylphs
manage to bring before here yet another to whom the lady turns again, and
so on. Others, says Ariel, may regard this as levity on the part of the ladies
to shift from one lord to the others; but in fact, it is the work of the sylphs.