No louder shrieks to pitying heaven are east,
When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last.
Answer: These remarkable and conspicuous lines have been taken from the Canto-III of “The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope, the great 18h century poet. Here the poet ridicules the follies and fčivolities of the fashionable ladies of his society. This is really the reaction of the mock-heroine Belinda after the dire offense of shipping her hair by the Baron, Lord Peter.
Belinda is a very fashionable lady and she had her beautiful lock of hair. She was shocked when Lord Peter cut off her lock of hair. Kere Belinda is compared to the one who loses her husband and lap dogs. Pope refers to cutting off the lock of hair as a dire offense. Belinda’s eyes flashed like lightning and her scream seemed to ‘rend? or bifurcate the sky itself which seemed to be frightened at Belinda’s cry. By these lines, Pope mocks the fashionable ladies who measured their husbands and lap dogs on the same scale and whose reaction to the death of their husbands was the same as to the death of their lap dogs. Her piteous appeal to heaven to make good her irreparable loss or to punish the evil-doer was in a very loud and shrieking manner. Husbands of such ladies did not have any special corner in their hearts.
To sum up, we may say that Pope has exposed some features of Belinda.
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