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Relationships in the tempest
General shakespeare essay
Relationships in the tempest
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How to Improve Shakespeare’s Tempest
Mr. William Shakespeare, I am going to get right down to business. I am writing to you regarding
our recent collaboration on The Tempest. In my opinion I think we need to make
a couple of changes. The first is in regards to Caliban and the second has to
do with Prospero.
As I was reading the section of the play where Caliban takes Stephano as
his master I began to think about how he should be wiser by now. As is Caliban
begs a drunken Stephano to be his master. In my opinion Caliban should show
development by not drinking and possibly taking advantage of the drunk Stephano
and Trinculo. It should develop in this fashion:
Caliban: I believe that I can assist you in your stay on the
island.
Stephano: What mean you beast?
Caliban: I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow,
And I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts,
Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how
To snare the nimble marmoset. I'll bring thee
To clustering filberts, and I'll teach thee to get
Young scamels from the rock. Does't though attend me?
Stephano: I do. For all this service what want'st you in return.
Caliban: I ask but one simple service. The death of my tyrant
master.
Stephano: You ask me to murder for you?
Caliban: I ask only that you remove your only opponent in making
me your vassal.
Stephano: Well bargain'd for a monster such as thee. I shall
consider it.
If the scene is run in this way Caliban is developed as more human and less
monster. Also it adds more urgency to the possible danger Stephano and Trinculo
bring, but the comic aspect remains because the two are drunk.
My second suggestion addresses the issues of Prospero and tempests. At
the end of the play there is the opportunity for great suspense. The
interaction between Prospero and his brother and conspirator could be much more
intense. You could easily create an internal conflict for Prospero where he
debates whether or not to take action against Antonio. Of course he cannot have
given up his powers at this point. Instead of just letting Antonio alone
Prospero could use his magic to give him pains, make him small or one of many
other whimsical tricks to teach Antonio a lesson; I think that causing Antonio
to sleep and in turn not taking him home would be the most fitting punishment.
Even Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, speaks in a way that categorizes Caliban as an uneducated and uncivilized savage. “I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour […] When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning […]” (1.2.356-359) Miranda doesn’t stop there; she continues labeling Caliban, “But thy vile race, though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures could not abide to be with; therefore wast though deservedly confined into this rock […]” (1.2.361-364). Exactly this kind of discourse turns Caliban into a subject. If Caliban had not been alone on the island, then Prospero and Miranda would have categorized a whole group of human beings rather than just one.
“The Tempest” is a play written by William Shakespeare in early 1600s that has been previewed in different kinds of movies, such as the one made in 2010, directed by Julie Taymor. It is a play containing themes such as; revenge, allusion, retribution, forgiveness, power, love and hatred. When it is compared to the play, there are specific differences seen in the movie, such as; Prospero is reflected as a woman in the movie. The time differences between the play and the movie and how the spirit Ariel is shown as a white man in the movie. The play starts with the story of Prospero, the Duke of Milan. He gets banished from Italy and was cast to sea by his brother Antonio. He has perfected his skills during twelve years of exile on a lonely island. Prospero creates the tempest to make his enemies’ ship to wreck and lead them to the island. Meanwhile, Antonio takes Prospero’s place and starts to make everyone believe he is the duke and makes an agreement with the King of Naples, Alonso. Besides the drama happening in the island, Prospero forgives Alonso and the others.
Evans, G. Blakemore. Ed. The Riverside Shakespeare. by William Shakespeare. 1552- 1616. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974.
Caliban is rude, crude, ugly and lazy. Speaking in a psychoanalytic manner, Caliban is going to be remembered as bitter and obsessed with sex. This sexual desire is going to be coincided first with thoughts of his mutation-- a feeling of inadequacy-- and then more significantly with the absence of his mother. That he had no parents on which to form an Oedipal complex and knows only who his mother was (nothing is mentioned of his father) makes for interesting observations on how he deals with sexuality. We learn that he does not deny that Prospero is the only barrier between him and the rape of Miranda. It is clear that he has developed only so far as Freud’s theory of id, with small touches of the superego. Caliban’s development of the superego is evident only when he does not wish to receive Prospero’s pinches and cramps. He is otherwise all for anything that will bring him pleasure. Being free of Prospero, fulfilling his sexual desires with Miranda and drinking liquor are all on his menu.
Caliban, immediately introduced as "poisonous slave," "savage," "hag-seed," is a character often likened to the African- American slave. The ease and matter-of-factness with which Prospero and Miranda dismiss him is painfully obvious even before he enters the scene (Act 1, Scene 3). Through no fault of his own, Caliban is dehumanized by the authority of his day and dismissed by the important members of his society. He looks much different from the others on the island, so he is not seen as a true human being; in fact, his only redemption lies in the fact that he is able to learn the language in order to serve the master.
Caliban is grotesque and base. Arguably, his external ugliness reflects a moral hideousness within. Cosmo Corfield, in his scholarly article Why Does Prospero Abjure His “Rough Magic”? explicates this relationship when he associates “Caliban’s bestiality with a propensity to evil.” However, Caliban’s consignment to the realm of evil and vice must be examined more closely. Is Caliban so evil? Is earthiness necessarily linked to immorality? Understanding the character of Caliban is essential to understanding why Prospero is unable to achieve perfection.
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Beowulf, written between the 8th and 10th centuries, is an epic poem set in southern Sweden. The poem illustrates the Anglo-Saxon’s strong belief in the heroic code. The loyalty between the warrior and his king bound the culture together. The warrior was the ultimate hero who represented strength and courage. Beowulf, the hero in the poem, illustrates the Germanic principles of the heroic code. Through the battles and character interactions, Beowulf converges loyalty, strength, courage and forgiveness into the hero archetype.
“Caliban...takes shape beneath the arc of wonder that moves throughout the play between “creatures” and “mankind,” between animate beings in general and their realization in the form of humanity. Is he man or fish? creature or person?" (Lupton, 3).
portray his degraded, brutish nature. In Act 1 Scene 2 Caliban complains of how Prospero used h...
From the moment in Act I, Scene II when Prospero first references Caliban, “a freckled whelp hag-born – not honoured with a human shape,” it becomes clear the low opinion Prospero has of him, and this opinion would’ve been shared by the vast majority of Shakespeare’s contemporary audience. Shakespeare’s use of imagery at this point gives the suggestion that Prospero thinks of Caliban as little more than a pet dog, an image Caliban himself emphasises at a later stage in the scene when he says, “Thou strok’st me,”. Shakespeare uses animal imagery upon...
Caliban is described as “naturally evil”. Despite any efforts, his nature cannot be changed. His natural evil in The Tempest will always triumph any attempts to change him. His relationship to an evil witch made him naturally evil and will forever be who he truly is.
In The Tempest, Art is that which is composed of grace, civility and virtue. It is represented by Prospero, the other members of the nobility who belong to the court party and their servants. The world of the court is synonymous with the world of Art in the play. In contrast, Nature is bestial, brutish and evil; and manifest in the form of Caliban and the natural world. With two such extremes brought together, debate between the two is inevitable.
...rimes. Caliban is similar to Antonio in this way because Caliban feels sorry for raping Miranda. Antonio is afraid of Ariel’s magic powers. Caliban is similar to Antonio in this way because Caliban is afraid of Prospero’s powers. Finally, Caliban is similar to Antonio because Caliban created a plan to kill his master Prospero and Antonio and Sebastian had come up with a plan to kill Alonso.
Illusion and Reality in Shakespeare's The Tempest. This essay will discuss the part that illusion and reality play in developing and illuminating the theme of Shakespeare's The Tempest. This pair of opposites will be contrasted to show what they represent in the context of the play. Further, the characters associated with these terms, and how the association becomes meaningful in the play, will be discussed.