Examining The Obsessive Desire For Authority In Shakespeare's The Tempest

Discoveries, driven by wonder or necessity, can be challenging and confronting, compelling people to leave their comfort zones. This can be provocative, leading to emotional and intellectual responses. This concept is explored in Shakespeare’s play ‘The Tempest”, and Peter Weirs, Film, Dead Poets Society (1989). In Shakespeare’s play, the characters portray a moralistic experience and rediscover the necessity of compassion and emotion because of abusive, intellectual power leading them to re-evaluate their relationships with other characters. Similarly, In Peter Weirs, Dead poet society, it elucidates the transformative power of introspection that cultivates emotional and intellectual response, leading to self-discovery. Both texts explore

This has been cultivated through Prospero. Who is a multi-layered character that is depicted as a father, magus and god/ruler of the island, thus Prospero is learning to balance and redefine himself which often leads to his intellectual response to get the better of him. Prospero’s personal context of having come from Milan means he expects power when he comes to the island, which is evident in the motif of mater vs servant relationship which is manifested by his knowledge about dominance. Shakespeare has created a complex character of Caliban, who fails to remove himself from a servant position. Caliban is the reflective nature of Prospero’s inner turmoil, “we visit Caliban my slave”, “My slave”, the use of personal pronoun, “my” further states Prospero’s intellectual response to control Caliban. Shakespeare here comments on how Prospero’s past lack of control has caused his power obsession and thus need to regain control. However, towards the end, Prospero’s rediscovery of compassion would have lead to the release of his servant Caliban, but due to the discovery of alcohol from Stephano and Trinculo, results in replacing them as his, “noble lord”. Further re-establishing his desire for authority, through his intellectual and emotional response which has been provoked by the

The Cultivation by Prospero, for Ferdinand to meet Miranda, was manifested by Ariel music. This changes the serendipitous nature of discovery, but however, it leads the emotional response of love when Miranda and Ferdinand meet. Miranda’s discovery of the world's diversity, consequently leads to the discovery of humanity. In act V she demonstrates this, by saying, “O brave new world that has such people isn’t!”- which is ironically the old world, displays that she is astounded when faced with the new world. This leads to her intellectually responding, to appreciate new values of, love, connection, togetherness, and marriage. This overall re-established that the discovery of a new world will lead to intellectual and emotional