I’m different, Yeah, I’m Different

The more I read Pope’s An essay on Man the less I understand the hate that Pope receives from other writers of his time. Strictly looking at his ideas presented in his writings, such as “Say first, of God above, or man below/ What can we reason,but from what we know?” Pope is questioning the basis of our idea of God, which is what many thinkers and writers from this time were doing. So why did Pope get so much backlash as compared to these others who were starting to question and alter our ideals of God and “The Creator”? All Pope did was have the audacity to say what everyone was thinking, is there actually a God. And he presented multiple well thought out points to back him up and get his audience thinking such as “Is the great chain, that draws all to agree/ and drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?” or “all ar but parts of one stupendous whole/ whose body, nature is, and God the soul;” which is him questioning the best way to represent and worship this “God.” Yet even when he follows the path of all great thinkers of his time, Pope still receives so much backlash. Perhaps it was because he was more forward in his writings when it came to sensitive topics. Another thing to take into account was how different Pope was and remember how people tend to reject things that are different from themselves. He was Roman Catholic and had a major physical deformity which was cause for those around him to openly detest him, and had anyone defended him they would open themselves up to ridicule just as great as Pope himself had received. So even if people actually agreed with his beliefs and ideas, none would admit it.

 

~Mikayla Degn

Johnson: You can’t sit with us. Alexander Pope: I don’t want to.

 

 

Popularity. It seems as though the need, or desire, to be among the group of those who carry the highest sense of normalcy is something most people are trying to achieve -or are afraid to deviate from,  Whether it be Regina, and her side kicks letting Kady in on the rules about what is cool and not cool, in the movie Mean Girls, to the ridicule Alexander Pope had to experience during his time as a Roman Catholic author, there is always a “Popular” or elite thinking group of folks whom scoff at the idea of being different.

As in the specific case of Alexander the Pope, we clearly see the wonderful reaction of Xenophobia (being sarcastic) inflicted towards him by the Anglican Church, the English elite, and his surroundings as a whole, the Protestant State.  How dare he think or have a different faith? Well, how dare they point fingers, or ignorantly believe that they carry some sort of authority of what is wrong and what is right. As Pope states, “Respecting man, whatever wrong we call/ may must be right as relative to all” (Essay of a Man).  In Pope’s response towards the elite’s idea of what a perfect man is supposed to be like, he clearly makes those in opposition to him, or those who are on unsure, understand that no one has the right to judge anyone else on the basis of their beliefs.  In his case, they most definitely saw him as doing wrong.

Johnson critique of him, as well as the horrid caricature drawings made of him, are just like Regina’s burn book where she writes cruel things about other students, specifically focusing on what makes them different.  It appears as though Johnson was just trying to burn Pope overall -from his choice in using poetry as a medium, and towards his ideas too, because of that same concept -he was different from the rest.  The biggest burn comes from the drawing of him where they pose him as an animal, exhibiting a dumbness.  That reaction to Pope is weakness.  And the weakness derives from a fear of losing control over the masses.  In other words, losing popularity.

Well, on the other hand, Pope was most definitely unafraid. In his written works we clearly see that he carries a respectable attitude and is mostly interested in showing how everyone, at the end of the day, is just a part of humanity.

Maricela Martinez