The Tempest Comparative Essay

1242 Words3 Pages

All stories within plays, books, movies, and pictures are never finished. However, unfinished doesn’t simply imply they have missing pixels or words. Texts and pictures, actually, as they age, are interpreted by all; yet, the original story intended by the writer is endlessly changing. Directors, actors, and readers use original stories as a baseline for augmentation. Specifically, after studying multiple forms of The Tempest, a play about a magical Prospero who was once duke of Milan and is now banished onto an island with his daughter, continual creation and interpretation are evident in how director Julie Taymor directed her perception of The Tempest in 2010. Additionally, actors Djimon Hounsou, Russell Brand, and Ben Whishaw used their own …show more content…

For example, movies, reviews, or any adaptation of the original work is an assertion that changes how we interpret the piece. To elaborate, Caliban’s appearance in the text was never fully described; however, after watching Taymor’s adaptation people started to assume that Caliban looked more like a slave than a servant because of his skin color. Given so many influences already, websites like “sparknotes”, “shmoop”, and “goodreads” also offer presumptions through reviews and summaries and influence how one might think of the text. Moreover, even everyday peers that are also trying to interpret the text alter each other's understanding in group discussions. This alteration isn’t necessarily a negative attribute though, as it still adds to just a baseline of a story. Similarly, imagine The Tempest without ideas and interpretation. There will never be a solid understanding as one will always try to comprehend what is already understood by another. Contrastingly, with a collective set of ideas, people build, understand, and change Shakespeare’s original

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