In 'The Tempest And Craig Silvey's Jasper Jones'

‘Whether motivated by need, wonder or curiosity, discovery has the power to be transformative.’

Discoveries motivated by wonder, need, or curiosity provoke reconsiderations of an individual's self and their context, to the extent of transforming their ideas and beliefs. In William Shakespeare's play The Tempest and Craig Silvey's novel Jasper Jones, the protagonists Prospero and Charlie Bucktin respectively experience confronting self-discoveries as their need for knowledge and justice develops into narratives of hardship, fostering their renewed introspection. While Prospero’s desire for vengeance leads him to forgiveness and Charlie’s desire to seek the truth leads him to cynicism, both gain new perspectives through their need to uncover

In The Tempest, Alonso’s realisation of his son’s probable death is articulated through apostrophe in ‘my son is lost...O thou mine heir…’ and this knowledge propels his need to make amends for his guilt in betraying Prospero. Miranda’s physical discovery of Ferdinand leads her to love, delineated through hyperbole as he declares ‘I,/beyond all limit… i’th’ world,/ Do love, prize, honour you.’ Miranda’s wonder and the liberation of her insular views are further portrayed with ther exclamatory tone of ‘o wonder!...how beauteous mankind is!... O brave new world.’ Contrarily, Charlie’s newfound knowledge about the horrors of his town lead him to despairing reflection. The paradox of his sense of loneliness in ‘I’d never felt so utterly alone as then, hemmed in and trapped by every person in this town… Like I spoke a different language,’ exemplifies the oppressive weight of his guilt while alluding to the injustice and exclusion of marginalised individuals within Corrigan. From a colonial context, both ‘half-caste’ Jasper Jones and The Tempest’s Caliban discover the need to escape the discrimination against them for being indigenous to their land, and the expectation that they are ‘capable of all ill’ (Act 1) by fleeing from their oppressors. The repeated rhetorical questioning in ‘what kind of lousy world is this?’ that ‘lets [monsters] torment the innocent and make good people afraid?’ enforces Charlie’s growing social awareness and foreshadows how he witnesses the ingrained racial prejudice in his town. Thus, while Miranda’s intellectual discoveries inspire new ways of thinking and allow her to connect with the broader world, Charlie leaves the comfort of ignorance for the burden of personal discoveries about