Storm The Tempest

Have you seen a movie trailer in the past week advertising a new thrilling apocalyptic movie? Of course, you have! In the modern culture, marketers have convinced us that true entertainment is imaging our demise. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Shakespeare uses the storm in the beginning of the play as a set up for the entire show, but why? Cataclysmic episodes are used in shows throughout history to portray how human’s desperations and aspirations don’t change as dramatically as we think when put in a survival setting.
By making our worst fears into a movie, something intangible, it convinces us that nothing bad could ever happen to us. It provides a comfort, a sense of gratitude, an affirmation that we lead a privileged life. In modern culture, video games and movies give a sense of control, we can predict the unpredictable: disasters. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Shakespeare uses the storm in the

The storm was used to recall the corrupt past Prospero had gone through when robbed of his dukedom. Storms in this age were seen as a punishment, and a reminder that elements (they believed) were intertwined with the fortunes or misfortunes occurring in one’s life. The purpose of the storm in a literal sense was to inform the audience of Prospero’s past and why that has affected his future.When put in a disastrous situation, Prospero made a life for his daughter, Miranda. They lived a life that they built for themselves despite the circumstances they were given. Their desires as human beings don’t change, the still seek to fulfill their purpose in life, a purpose that varies from character to character in the show. For Prospero, he sought to give his daughter a good life. For Miranda, her pursuit of Ferdinand fulfills her desire of human intimacy. For Caliban, although not fully human, his desires are human like when he seeks to be free from Prospero’s power. When Shakespeare created these characters, his