Prospero is paternalistic benevolent authority-
however he causes the storm (so opposite)
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But paternal when speaking to Miranda he
reassures her ‘no harm done’ making sure she understands the reasons behind his
actions for the storm.
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Motivation for actions are caring for his
daughter ‘nothing but in care for thee’ use of ‘care’ demonstrating benevolent
nature, he also explains reasons and dictators don’t explain reasons.
Prospero is tyrannical dictator.
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‘Obey, and be attentive’- patriarchal order, an imperative
verb is used ‘obey’ which emphasises an order that of a dictator as people
listen to them.
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Prospero is wanting to control power, he wants
to control the land over Caliban.
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Prospero also controls information that Miranda and
audience know – he is a controller of history.
·
Prospero creates the storm- power malevolent,
starts the whole play, wrathful, angry side over people, revengeful.
Characterization
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What he does
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What people say to him
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What people say about them
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Appearance
‘My dearest father’ Miranda to Prospero
Shows close relations, a personal pronoun is used ‘my’ and
superlative ‘dearest’ which is indicative.
Or can be seen as desperate, groveling or flattery
Shakespeare is suggesting people’s language around power
attempts to gain hand hold in power struggle.
Analysis of language
Iambic pentameter- 5 beats per lie of unstressed/stressed
pattern (de dum)
Eg. Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmers DAY?
An example from The Tempest- @have sunk the sea within the
earth, or ere’
‘I have nothing but in care of thee’—‘nothing’ is trochee,
emphasize of the word.
High class characters speak with iambic pentameter
BLANK VERSE VS PROSE
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Blank verse- unrhymed iambic pentameter
(Prospero and King)
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Poetry- rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter
(Prospero and King)
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Prose- no rhyming of metrical structure.
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ALL ABOUT CLASS AND STRUCTURE
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CASURAE- punctuation in blank verse
‘Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.’
‘pieces.’- dramatic stop, its broken, there is nothing
she can do to fix it, blunt.
‘O, the cry’- caesura, reflects on what she has heard
lost for words for a second while thinking about traumatic experience she
witnessed.
‘Against my heart’- personal pronoun ‘my’- makes it
personal, sympathy, emphasis of compassionate nature.
‘Poor souls,’ caesura- reflecting on people no longer
alive, spiritual, imagining their death, has to pause because it’s too painful
reliving the suffering as she couldn’t stop it.
‘They perished.’- ending is blunt with the use of a full
stop, indicating finality of death. Sense of silence to line stops everything.
Act I scene II
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Confrontation of Ariel
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Prospero alone seems to understand that controlling
history enables one to control the present. When he speaks to Miranda he calls
his brother ‘perfidious’ then immediately says that he loved his brother more
than anyone in the world except Miranda.
·
He repeatedly asks Miranda ‘dost thou attend me?’
through questioning he commands her attention almost hypnotically as he tells
her his one sided version of the story.
·
Prospero doesn’t seem blameless, his brother did
betray him, and he also failed in his responsibilities as a ruler by control of
the government so that he could study.
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He contrasts his popularity as a leader
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‘The love my people bore me’ with his brothers ‘evil
nature’
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When speaking to Ariel- treats him as a
combination of a pet whom he can praise and blame as he chooses, and a pupil
demanding that the spirit recite answers to questions about the past that Prospero
has taught him.
Spark notes: themes, motifs and symbolism
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Prospero’s idea of justice and injustice is somewhat
hypocritical—though he is furious with his brother for taking his power, he has
no qualms about enslaving Ariel and Caliban in order to achieve his ends. At
many moments throughout the play, Prospero’s sense of justice seems extremely
one-sided and mainly involves what is good for Prospero. Moreover, because the
play offers no notion of higher order or justice to supersede Prospero’s
interpretation of events, the play is morally ambiguous.
·
As the play progresses, however, it becomes more
and more involved with the idea of creativity and art, and Prospero’s role
begins to mirror more explicitly the role of an author creating a story around
him. With this metaphor in mind, and especially if we accept Prospero as a
surrogate for Shakespeare himself, Prospero’s sense of justice begins to seem,
if not perfect, at least sympathetic.
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Caliban’s
exact nature continues to be slightly ambiguous
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Miranda
and Prospero both have contradictory views of Caliban’s humanity. On the one
hand, they think that their education of him has lifted him from his formerly
brutish status. On the other hand, they seem to see him as inherently brutish
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Nearly
every scene in the play either explicitly or implicitly portrays a relationship
between a figure that possesses power and a figure that is subject to that
power.
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The
object of chess is to capture the king. That, at the simplest level, is the
symbolic significance of Prospero revealing Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess
in the final scene. Prospero has caught the king—Alonso—and reprimanded him for
his treachery
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The
play explores the psychological and social dynamics of power relationships from
a number of contrasting angles, such as the generally positive relationship
between Prospero and Ariel, the generally negative relationship between
Prospero and Caliban, and the treachery in Alonso’s relationship to his nobles.
