The Tempest

1
The Tempest

• Problem To avoid making Prospero seem paternal,
  Miranda insipid.
• Method Understand their quirks and problems,
  including their relationship to Caliban.

2
Solution

• The Tempest is about freedom.
• Prospero promises to set Ariel free, asks the
  audience to free him by applauding, frees himself
  from need for vengeance, his enemies from their
  crimes by pardons, but cannot free Caliban
  (scapegoat, his own dark side, unfortunate
  dependent child).

3
Pursuit of illusions, an ordeal, and symbolic
vision

• Ferdinand led by Ariels music, trial at the
  woodpile, and vision of wedding masque
• Stephano and Trinculo hunt for Prospero, ordeal
  of the horse-pond symbolic vision of trumpery
• The Naples court party hunt for Ferdinand,
  ordeal of meandering, banquet of symbolic desires
• (from Northrop Frye, intro to Pelican edition)

4
Romance as myth of renewal

• life of discipline represented by Mirandas
  chastity, contrast Alonsos despair
• Gonzalos speech comes from Montaignes essay on
  cannibal (anagram of Caliban) how can Europeans
  who murder each other in the name of religion
  condemn savages for merely eating each other?
• Fourth and fifth acts give a renewed and
  ennobled vision of nature.
• Play combines comedy, tragedy and history, both
  primitive and sophisticated, childlike and
  profound.

5
Biblical echoes

• Iriss rainbow like rainbow God uts in heaven
  after Noahs flood as a promise or covenant that
  he will not again destroy the world again
• St. Pauls shipwreck (Not a hair perished, Acts
  2734)
• Ariel from Isaiah 291.
• Contest of magic Prospero v. Sycorax Moses v.
  Pharaoh
• Virgil was considered a Christian based on Fourth
  Eclogue about the birth of a son his Aeneid
  about personal costd of founding agreat
  civilization.

6
Masks and Visions

• Ariels shipwreck
• The Banquet destroyed by Harpies (Alonso and
  others worse than devils 3.3.35)
• Prosperos Vision of Ceres (bountiful wedding,
  his present fancy 4.1.122)
• Hounds chasing the would be murderers 4.1.252.

7
Songs of Freedom

• Ariels invitation to Ferdinand 1.2.375 and song
  about Ferdinands dead father, 1.2.398.
• Stephano drunk, 2.2.45
• Caliban going to work for Stephano, 2.2.177.
• Ariel dressing Prospero, 5.1.87

8
Comic bits

• Antonio and Sebastian make aside comments,
  mocking Gonzalos attempts to cheer up Alonso,
  2.1
• Drunken Stephano finds a four-legged monster 2.2
• Invisible Ariel does voice imitations to sow
  dissension between Trinculo and Stephano, 3.2

9
Magic bits

• Ariel controls the weather.
• Prospero puts Mirando to sleep, 1.2.
• Prospero controls goblins the pinch Caliban
  Ariel conjures up music.
• Ariel puts Alonso to sleep, 2.1
• Prospero contains the court party inside his
  magic circle, 5.1.55, before releasing them.
• Prospero abandons his art.

10
Colonialism

• We should be aware of the brutalities of history
  and how they can be hidden.
• The play takes hierarchical power as a premise
  but reminds us of its unsteadiness.
• It uses the language of firm obedience and also
  alerts us to its costs.

11
Colonialism

• You need to be aware of the horrors of European
  settlement George Washington burned the Indian
  settlement at Vincennes.
• But that does not make Shakespeare a dead white
  man, but one who unflinchingly recorded and
  imaginatively resolved the contradiction between
  English ideals and practice.
• Romance finds an imaginative way (via magic) to
  resolve contradictions.

12
Rules for Action Statements

• Only one character can perform the key action of
  the scene.
• Decisions do not count.
• Anything planned before the scene starts does not
  count.
• The action is something the character does in
  thoughtful response to some cause or causes.
• Talking to the audience can be an action.
• When writing a full statement, put the main
  action in the main clause of the sentence.

13
Moral Action

• The origin of action is choice proairesis, and
  the cause of choice is desire and reasoning with
  a view to an end. This is why choice cannot exist
  either without reason . . . or without a moral
  state for good action and its opposite cannot
  exist without a combination of intellect and
  character ethos.
• (McKeon trans. 1024Aristotles Nicomachean
  Ethics 1139a30-35).

14
Action

• 1.1 Gonzalo recommends himself to the will of
  the gods.
• 1.2 Prospero orders Miranda not to intercede in
  his dealings with Ferdinand.

15
Tempest 1.2 (Ross)

• Having arranged at length for Miranda to ready
  herself for a socially conditioned marriage and
  sent Ariel to bring Ferdinand to her presence,
  and then ordering Caliban to carry in more wood
  even though its not normally need since he wants
  enough for Ferdinand to labor on (we cant figure
  this out till later), Prospero orders Miranda not
  to intercede in his dealings with Ferdinand when
  he orders Ferdinand to follow him (to a job on
  the wood pileno free ride from dad-in-law),
  presumably since he doesnt explain things to
  her, or us.

16
1.2 Paul Brown

• Prospero interpellates the various
  listeners--calls to them, as it were, and invites
  them to recognize themselves as subjects of his
  discourse, as beneficiaries of his civil largess.
  Thus for Miranda he is a strong father who
  educates and protects her for Ariel he is a
  rescuer and taskmaster for Caliban he is a
  colonizer whose refused offer of civilization
  forces him to strict discipline for the
  shipwrecked he is a surrogate providence who
  corrects errant aristocrats and punishes plebeian
  revolt. Each of these subject positions confirms
  Prospero as master.
• From Paul Brown, This Thing of Darkness I
  Acknowledge Mine The Tempest and the Discourse
  of Colonialism, in Political Shakespeare, ed.
  Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester
  UP, 1985), 229-246.

17
Problems with Brown

• Does Miranda think Prospero is strong? (Dad!)
• Does Ariel object to his tasks? (flying around)
• Does Prospero colonize Calibans island (or leave
  it as soon as he can)?
• Do the shipwrecked know how Prospero pardons his
  enemies?

18
Orgel, p. 15

• Prospero calms Mirandas fears for the victims of
  the shipwreck, then narrates his and her history
  in order to control it, blaming himself and
  others.
• (His point is to show the characters are complex,
  the play open to interpretation, not to focus on
  the scene as a structural unit.)

19
Action Statement Pattern

• 1.1 Gonzalo commits himself to the will of God.
• 1.2 Prospero hides from Miranda why his
  mistreats Ferdinand.
• 2.1 Gonzalo prays for Ferdinands protection.
• 2.2 Caliban sings a song of (mistaken) freedom.
• 3.1 Miranda asks Ferdinand to marry her, wthout
  consulting Prospero
• 3.2 Caliban leads Stefano and Trinculo in
  pursuit of Ariels music.
• 3.3 Gonzalo sends others, younger than he, to
  protect the those with guilty consciences
  (Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio).
• 4.1 Prospero keeps Ariel loyal by promising him
  that his moment of freedom is nearing now that
  all his enemies are at his mercy.
• 5.1 Prospero charges Ariel to provide calm seas
  for everyones return to Italy, which if Ariel
  does, he will be free