23 Apr 2025

MCQs on The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

Check Important Objective Type English Literature Multiple Choice Question Answers on The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope in Poetry and its major forms. These solved questions answers on English Literature Poetry section of English Literature Objective type question answers (MCQ) are very useful as English Literature Study Material for UGC NET/JRF/STET, TET, and other written examinations (UGC NET English Paper-II & Assistant Professor English Screening Exam) based on objective type multiple choice questions.
image: English Literature Question Answers (MCQ) on The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope @ TeachMatters
(Last Updated: 23.04.2025). Learn English Literature Poetry through these multiple choice objective question answers which are important for the students of English Literature as well as for the candidates who are going to participate in competitive exams based on English Literature General Questions.

 MCQs - The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope - English Literature 


1. What literary form is The Rape of the Lock written in?
A) Blank verse
B) Free verse
C) Heroic couplets
D) Spenserian stanzas
Answer: C) Heroic couplets


2. Who is the protagonist of the poem?
A) Clarissa
B) Belinda
C) Arabella
D) Ariel
Answer: B) Belinda


3. What kind of poem is The Rape of the Lock?
A) Lyric
B) Epic
C) Elegy
D) Mock-epic
Answer: D) Mock-epic


4. Which supernatural creature serves as Belinda’s protector?
A) Gnome
B) Nymph
C) Sylph
D) Fairy
Answer: C) Sylph


5. What does the Baron steal from Belinda?
A) A necklace
B) A glove
C) A lock of hair
D) A fan
Answer: C) A lock of hair


6. Who is the chief sylph that tries to protect Belinda?
A) Umbriel
B) Clarissa
C) Ariel
D) Zephyretta
Answer: C) Ariel


7. Who gives the Baron the scissors used to cut the lock?
A) Ariel
B) Clarissa
C) Belinda
D) Umbriel
Answer: B) Clarissa


8. Which game is described as a battle in the poem?
A) Whist
B) Piquet
C) Ombre
D) Cribbage
Answer: C) Ombre


9. Who journeys to the Cave of Spleen to collect sorrow?
A) Ariel
B) The Baron
C) Umbriel
D) Thalestris
Answer: C) Umbriel


10. What does the poem satirize most?
A) War
B) Courtly love
C) Religious hypocrisy
D) The vanity of the upper class
Answer: D) The vanity of the upper class


11. How does the poem end?
A) The lock is returned
B) Belinda forgives the Baron
C) The lock is lost and immortalized as a star
D) Ariel is banished
Answer: C) The lock is lost and immortalized as a star


12. What is the tone of The Rape of the Lock?
A) Tragic
B) Romantic
C) Ironic and satirical
D) Solemn
Answer: C) Ironic and satirical


13. What is Pope’s main purpose in writing the poem?
A) To tell a love story
B) To mock the epic tradition
C) To resolve a real-life social quarrel
D) Both B and C
Answer: D) Both B and C


14. The poem opens with which famous line?
A) “This nymph to the destruction bowed.”
B) “Oh, hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize…”
C) “What dire offence from am’rous causes springs…”
D) “Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast…”
Answer: C) “What dire offence from am’rous causes springs…”


15. What moral lesson does Clarissa offer in her speech?
A) Beauty is everything
B) Reputation is everything
C) Inner virtue is more important than outward beauty
D) Women should not go out in public
Answer: C) Inner virtue is more important than outward beauty


16. How many cantos are in the final version of the poem?
A) 3
B) 4
C) 5
D) 6
Answer: C) 5


17. What does the word “rape” refer to in the context of the title?
A) Physical assault
B) Kidnapping
C) Theft
D) Humiliation
Answer: C) Theft


18. Which poetic device is used heavily to describe the cutting of the hair?
A) Litotes
B) Allegory
C) Hyperbole
D) Alliteration
Answer: C) Hyperbole


19. What does Ariel do when he realizes Belinda harbors romantic thoughts?
A) Attacks the Baron
B) Weeps
C) Abandons his protection
D) Possesses Belinda
Answer: C) Abandons his protection


20. What is one main effect of using the mock-epic style?
A) It elevates Belinda’s tragedy to true epic proportions
B) It criticizes Pope’s literary rivals
C) It highlights the absurdity of high society’s values
D) It obscures the meaning of the poem
Answer: C) It highlights the absurdity of high society’s values


21. Alexander Pope is associated with which literary period?
A) Romantic
B) Elizabethan
C) Augustan
D) Victorian
Answer: C) Augustan


22. The poem The Rape of the Lock was initially published in how many cantos?
A) 2
B) 3
C) 5
D) 4
Answer: A) 2


23. Which of the following best describes a “mock-epic”?
A) A tragedy in blank verse
B) A humorous poem using epic conventions to treat trivial subjects
C) A poem written in epic style to glorify a hero
D) A poem focused on divine interventions
Answer: B) A humorous poem using epic conventions to treat trivial subjects


24. What inspired Pope to write The Rape of the Lock?
A) A political scandal
B) A romantic breakup
C) A social feud over a stolen lock of hair
D) A dream he had
Answer: C) A social feud over a stolen lock of hair


25. What was Pope’s main intention behind the poem?
A) To ridicule Arabella Fermor
B) To attack women of his time
C) To reconcile two families through satire
D) To glorify the Baron's act
Answer: C) To reconcile two families through satire


26. Which goddess is associated with the Cave of Spleen?
A) Melancholia
B) Spleen
C) Despair
D) Envy
Answer: B) Spleen


27. Which term best describes Belinda’s character?
A) Pious and wise
B) Bold and rebellious
C) Vain and flirtatious
D) Shy and reserved
Answer: C) Vain and flirtatious


28. What is the poetic meter of The Rape of the Lock?
A) Iambic tetrameter
B) Dactylic hexameter
C) Iambic pentameter
D) Trochaic trimeter
Answer: C) Iambic pentameter


29. Which character symbolizes melancholy and depression?
A) Clarissa
B) Ariel
C) Umbriel
D) Spleen
Answer: C) Umbriel


30. Which feature of classical epic does The Rape of the Lock imitate?
A) The underworld journey
B) Prophetic dreams
C) Supernatural intervention
D) All of the above
Answer: D) All of the above


31. What does Pope ironically call Belinda’s makeup routine?
A) A divine ritual
B) A battlefield preparation
C) A sacred rite
D) A royal transformation
Answer: C) A sacred rite


32. What object is described as a “weapon” in the mock-epic battle?
A) Belinda’s snuff
B) A hairpin
C) Her fan
D) Both A and C
Answer: D) Both A and C


33. Who represents the moral voice in the poem?
A) Belinda
B) Ariel
C) Clarissa
D) Thalestris
Answer: C) Clarissa


34. What happens to the lock at the end of the poem?
A) It is burned
B) It’s returned to Belinda
C) It’s lost in the chaos
D) It ascends to the stars
Answer: D) It ascends to the stars


35. The poem’s use of epic similes and invocations serves what primary purpose?
A) To romanticize Belinda
B) To parody the seriousness of classical epics
C) To show Pope's skill
D) To show the supernatural is real
Answer: B) To parody the seriousness of classical epics


36. Who first edited and encouraged the expansion of the poem to five cantos?
A) Jonathan Swift
B) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
C) John Caryll
D) Samuel Johnson
Answer: C) John Caryll


37. Which epic poets does Pope parody in The Rape of the Lock?
A) Homer and Virgil
B) Chaucer and Spenser
C) Milton and Dryden
D) Dante and Petrarch
Answer: A) Homer and Virgil


38. The line “Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey...” refers to which monarch?
A) Elizabeth I
B) Queen Anne
C) Mary II
D) Victoria
Answer: B) Queen Anne


39. What classical epic element is mirrored in Belinda’s “toilet scene”?
A) Armor-donning of a warrior
B) Funeral rites
C) A wedding ceremony
D) The forging of a sword
Answer: A) Armor-donning of a warrior


40. Pope's work is an example of neoclassical satire, which is characterized by:
A) Emotional expression and subjectivity
B) Celebration of nature and feeling
C) Wit, reason, and imitation of classical models
D) Stream-of-consciousness narrative
Answer: C) Wit, reason, and imitation of classical models


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