Comparing The Outback And Island Of Prospera

Similarities and differences of the Outback & Island of Prospera

In the movie Walkabout it take place most of the time in the Australian outback. The outback is depicted as a desert, extremely hot, flat for miles and then hilly for a little bit, but there are still signs of life. There are three main characters in this movie, a brother, sister, and an aboriginal man. The movie the Tempest takes place on the Island of Prospera the island is dark, gloomy and dry there is some life there but not much. This movie also has three main characters, Prospero and her daughter who got banished to the island, and Caliban a man who has always lived on the island. In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting the outback in Walkabout with the Island

of Prospera in the Tempest, and the main characters of the two films.
The outback and the island although different still have a few similarities surrounding the landscape, inhabitance, and way of living.

The landscape of both is rather plain and in a sense dry. For miles the landscape is the same, in the outback is all flat and sandy for miles and occasionally a sand dune. The island is not flat but it is all rock and dirt for miles. In the outback there were some plants and the further they went in the less plants there were, but they did find tree. On the island trees could also be found, there seemed to be also just one main area but on the island the area was one forest of trees instead of just one tree. Both the island and the outback could sustain life, human and animal. In the outback and the island you could find birds flying above and some animals roaming around. And there were sources of water, the two most important things to sustain

life.
The differences of the land greatly outweigh the similarities even though they both have plane landscapes. The biggest differences is the mood of the landscapes, the outback is sunny and gives some hope if you are lost, for example as the main characters were walking through the desert they came across a fruit tree surrounded by a pool of water and some animals such as lizards and birds, at the same time they were at the tree they saw another human an aboriginal. While the Island is dark and gloomy it shows no meaning of hope if one is lost, an example of that is when some of the characters got thrown of their boat and ended up on the island, they were separated from each other and lost, and then it started to storm with no shelter in sight. The weather also reflects on the mood the outback is bright and hot, it does not rain. Unlike the outback the weather of the island changes day to day, it can be sunny for part of the day and then dark and stormy for the rest of the day. The terrain of the two places are complete opposite, the outback is flat and sandy for miles with occasional sand dunes due to the fact that it is a desert. While the island is not at all flat is it located at a higher elevation and has many cliffs, it is rocky and where there is no rock there is dirt.
Unlike the outback which is dry and rarely has standing water, the island is surrounded by water at all times. In the outback standing water was found once but the day after it was found the pool of water was dried up, the only other way to get water was to dig a hole into the ground and find it. Although they both can sustain life more animals were seen in the desert, the outback than on the island. In almost every scene in the outback a bird could be seen flying above through the sky, bugs were always seen moving around. And one of the major food sources for the character in the outback were lizards. Many more animals were seen throughout the time the characters were in the outback as well. On the island animals were rarely seen the most common were birds and snakes, most of the other animals that were seen were produced by one of the inhabitants such as the dogs.
Another form of life that can be found in the outback and the island are humans.

Before the two main characters arrived in the outback the Aboriginal people lived there. The Aboriginal people are a group/ groups of people who scientists believe came to Australia 45,000 years ago, they are hunter and gathers and live from the land (Survival International Charitable Trust). The two main characters met an Aboriginal man the day they were laying under the tree they looked up and saw him running down the sand dune hunting a lizard. On the island before the other characters arrived there it was inhabited by a man named Caliban, he was born there and was living there alone until the character Prospera and her daughter

arrived.
Both Caliban and the Aboriginal man were of different race then the other characters, they were dark skinned and spoke different languages. Both of their lifestyles are simplistic, wearing minimum clothing just a piece of cloth tied around there waist to cover their bottom half’s. They depended on the land to supply food, water and shelter. Both men had in common learning, the Aboriginal learned a new way to communicate by hand motions and helped the two main characters learn how to live in the Outback, Caliban learned the new inhibiters of the islands language, he learned to obey his new master. In the end both men changed the way they were living, Caliban betrayed his “master” by finding a new one, he realized he did not like the way his master was treating him, and in the end the Aboriginal man killed himself. Both men choose their “new” path of life.
Although Caliban and the Aboriginal man were both the first inhibitors of their location, and are a different ethnicity than the rest of the characters they have many things not in common. The main difference is how Caliban and the Aboriginal man allowed others to treat them and how they cared for others. Caliban allowed Prospero to become his master, he allowed her to take control of him, he even learned their language fluently, and the Aboriginal did the complete opposite. When the main girl started to talk as if she was superior to him even though he could not understand her he could hear her tone and he started to walk away then when she called to him nicely he came back.
Unlike Caliban the Aboriginal did not learn the other characters language fluently, he communicated with the brother and sister through hand motions and certain words. For example when the brother and sister first met the man they were out of water the sister asked the man for water but he could not understand, but the little boy made hand motions for drinking water and the man understood. He then taught the brother and sister that you could dig for water, he also taught them how to find food by hunting for it and how to cook it. Caliban just showed Prospero and her daughter around the island, and then later on tried to rape her daughter, his intentions from the start never seemed right. The Aboriginal was on a mission he was on his journey of becoming a man, in the end her killed himself because he felt it was right, he stayed true to the mission he was originally on. In the end of the movie Caliban did not kill himself, he just “betrayed” his master.
The main characters from Walkabout and the Tempest share some things in common for part of the movies.
The Outback in Walkabout and the Island of Prospera in the Tempest are the same when it comes to the bare landscape and the lack of human population. But they contrast greatly against each other in weather, the outback being hot, sunny and never raining the island being dark and gloomy almost every day. The characters and the setting are also different, the Tempest is unrealistic where what happened in Walkabout could actually happen.