Skip to main content

How is Shakespeare's The Tempest different from his other major works? How is it similar?

One of the ways that Shakespeare's The Tempest is different from his other major works is that it seems to deal most directly with the concept of colonialism. Many scholars, for instance, have seen Prospero as a kind of colonizer, while Caliban is seen as the oppressed or enslaved native. While it can be difficult to ascertain if Shakespeare developed this theme intentionally, it's important to recognize that the play certainly does seem to deal with issues at least similar to colonialism: Prospero, a European individual, arrives at the island and establishes himself as a kind of king and forces Caliban, the native, into service. Caliban, likewise, is portrayed as a savage, while Prospero is portrayed as wise and learned. While connection to colonialism is not the only major difference in The Tempest, it certainly is one of them, and it's important to recognize, as it fundamentally changes the way you read the text or view the play.


However, for all that, Shakespeare still employs some conventions seen in his other plays. There is, for instance, the usurping brother Antonio who resembles the usurper in Hamlet, Claudius (although, to be fair, Antonio doesn't kill his brother and marry his sister-in-law) or the treacherous brother in King Lear, Edmund. Additionally, much of the plot centers around Ferdinand and Miranda's romance, thus connecting it to any number of romantic Shakespearean plays. Finally, at the end Shakespeare surprises us by showing that the ship was not actually shipwrecked after all, thus conveniently saving all the characters from spending the rest of their lives marooned on the island. This surprising and miraculous solution to one of the play's major problems resembles the quick fix at the end of The Merchant of Venice, which reveals that Antonio's ships didn't actually sink, making him fabulously rich once again. As such, though The Tempest is certainly groundbreaking in many ways, it still ascribes to some familiar Shakespearean conventions.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more