“Where’s mum?” I asked. There was no reply for a brief period but then a nurse walked to my bedside and began stroking my hair. “There, there, your mum is in intensive care – a unit for people in critical conditions”. I barely had the energy to open my eyes. I suffered a fractured spine, along with a couple of cuts and bruises. However, compared to mum it was like a championship wrestler to a battered fly. I was going to be ‘fine’, as far as I could hear from the whispering doctors by my bedside. But I couldn’t come to terms with seeing mum in that awful state. She had been so brave to battle through what she did, especially now it had come clear to me that this abuse had been a continuous process ever since I was born, just not to this extent. But it wasn’t such good news for mum. The doctors also whispered that she was ‘in a severe and critical condition’ when they had put her on a stretcher and took her in..
Dad had the audacity to come and visit me, although I wasn’t particularly grateful in seeing him. I instantly turned away from his face and cried, “How could you?” There was no reply. He just sat there and stared out of the window. I didn’t know why he had come. There was a sudden outburst through the ward door - two policemen had come to question dad. Our neighbour reportedly heard the screams and thumps and thankfully called the ambulance for us. The police took dad away and I never saw him again.
I was temporarily put into foster care until mum was able to regain her health and I was reunited with her two years later. Although this was a short-term joy, I never forgot the trauma we went through especially as I was so young at the time. I’ve had to live with the physical and mental scars, which will never heal for the rest of my life. Mum isn’t fully better, but that doesn’t matter, as long as we have each other, mum and me, the hero and I.
‘The Tempest’ assignment
“ ‘The Tempest’ explores both political and magical power.
What do you think Shakespeare was trying to say to his audience about how people use their power?” Focus on a minimum of four characters.
In ‘The Tempest’, there are many magical elements, both political and mystical, and the main structure of the play revolves around the ‘art’ of Prospero.
He is the rightful Duke of Milan, though his brother Antonio usurped his kingdom and title. Prospero was able to survive a plot on his life, and he and his daughter Miranda were set aboard a wrecked craft, but managed to land safely on the island. Prospero is able to gain control of the spirits of the island, and uses his vast knowledge and control over the spirits to direct acts of magic as he pleases.
The whole sequences of events revolve around the tempest caused by Prospero. It leads the ship containing Antonio, Sebastian, Alonso - King of Naples and the conniving Stephano and Trinculo to be shipwrecked on the island. Prospero assures Miranda that everyone on board the wrecked ship is safe:
“Be collected;
No more amazement.
Tell your piteous heart
There’s no harm done.”
(I. 2. 11-13)
The play establishes how Prospero had great power from being a duke and when his dukedom was overthrown by his bother Antonio, he became an isolated being from society. Through the tempest he plots to gain back his dukedom by making his enemies feel remorse.
“By accident most strange, Bountiful Fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I found my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star; …”
(I. 2. 178-182)
By this, Prospero is explaining how through the tempest, fortune is on his side (‘Now my dear Lady’) and his enemies have been brought to him in order to have punishments inflicted on them.
But Prospero’s power is only limited to the natural world. For instance, he cannot make Ferdinand and Miranda fall in love, he can only bring them together and hope that they will do so. This in turn will help him achieve one of his key aims, which is to reclaim his power over Italy. Furthermore, he cannot cause his enemies to repent for their evil deeds.
Shakespeare wants to tell his audience that magic can’t always bring them happiness and accomplishment. It’s always limited.
But Prospero has dominion over three ‘servants’ – Ariel, Caliban and Alonso’s son Ferdinand. Ariel is a spirit of the island, over whom Prospero becomes master after exiling Sycorax – previous controller of the land. He is the source of Prospero's magical powers, causing the tempest and many of the conspiracies in the play, and works for Prospero somewhat against his will. Ferdinand is heir to the thrown of Naples, but ‘falls’ in love with Prospero’s only daughter Miranda. Out of his infatuation with Miranda, agrees to become Prospero's servant for a period. Caliban is a native of the island on which Prospero lands, and the one from whom Prospero steals control of the island. He becomes Prospero's subject, doing all of his dirty work. But they all seek to gain their freedom or ‘rewards’ for their doings at the end of it all. Ariel is promised her liberty if she continues to serve him:
“Thou shalt be as free as mountain
Winds; but then exactly do
All points of my command”
(I. 2 498 –500)
Caliban wants his independence – although with the help of the ironic and humorous Stephano and Trinculo later plots to kill Prospero and gain his vengeance. Ferdinand is after the love of Prospero’s beloved daughter Miranda and fetches wood for Prospero in return for his daughter’s approval of him:
“The very instant that I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service, there resides
To make me slave to it, and for your sake
Am I this patient log–man.”
(III. 1 66 –69)
Miranda, Prospero's only daughter, is intelligent and headstrong, having learned a lot from her father; but, when under Ariel's enchantment, she follows her father's plan, and ‘falls’ in love with Ferdinand willingly. She and Ferdinand end up together, bound by their mutual infatuation.
What's more, power is almost given to some of the characters. A great example of this is through Alonso – King of Naples, who almost takes Prospero’s power by accident. Prospero neglects his power of the thrown, and the population of the Elizabethan era were often thriving to reach a greater position in society and life, and so Alonso seized his chance. This relates to the modern secular society in which everyone is pushing to reach the ‘top’.
Shakespeare is trying to tell us that power is hard to give up and we shouldn’t neglect our power or we may end up regretting it.
Trinculo, one of the more memorable characters of the play, is a consistently drunken jester, who is a servant of Alonso's, and brought ashore in the shipwreck. He is a dull fool, not capable of any real action, and providing a good deal of comic act. When Caliban meets him, he immediately dislikes him and his inebriated insults; but Trinculo does become a part of Caliban's plan to murder Prospero and have them take over the island, though Trinculo proves completely ineffective of this.
Stephano is Trinculo's friend, a consistently drunken butler too. He is jolly, intoxicated, and somehow Caliban takes him on as a new master, thinking that he has magical powers:
“These be fine things,
and if they not be sprites.
That’s a brave God,
and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him.”
(II. 2. 104-106)
He agrees to Caliban's plot to make him ruler of the island by murdering Prospero:
“(Caliban to Stephano)
I say by sorcery he got this isle;
From me he got it. If thy greatness will
Revenge it on him…
Thou shalt be lord of it, and I’ll serve thee…
I’ll yield thee asleep,
Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head”
(III. 2.48-57)
However, like Trinculo, he is not cunning, and is completely incapable of carrying out the plan. They are foolish to take advantage of Caliban’s kindness and begin abusing his trust in them.
Shakespeare wants us to see that we shouldn’t always trust the people around us, because they may easily try to take advantage of us. Caliban hopes to get away from his duties to Prospero and doesn’t think about what may lie ahead. This also relates to the idea of ‘utopia’, living in a world free from monarchs, armies and everything else, in order to live life free from the abuse of other people’s power.
Shakespeare wrote ‘The Tempest’ with specific purpose. Shakespeare sounds as him he is describing Prospero as himself bidding farewell to his art as a playwright. ‘The Tempest’ is commenting upon politics in seventeenth – century Europe and the criticism of colonialism. Shakespeare had many ideas about the idea of magic in his play and he probably didn’t have a single purpose in his mind as it is stated in the book The Tempest. Like all of Shakespeare’s plays, ‘The Tempest’ gives the audience an opportunity to discover the hidden depths of the symbolic play and the magic within it.
Simon Farid 10W.