Written Task 2 Thesis Statements - The Tempest

Reader, culture and context

How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?

            The Tempest takes place in an isolated island, in which Prospero is perceived as the ruler. However, from Caliban’s dialogues we learn that he was the one who was originally entitled to be the ruler of the island, but Prospero took the right away from him by taking Sycorax’s powers. For this reason, Prospero could be viewed as the “colonizer” of the island. Because of the way Caliban is represented as a creature that is lower in status than a human, one may infer that Shakespeare intended to make a positive criticism in the colonizing agenda of the European nations of that time, when England was starting to make colonies in the New World. Despite this, a few lines spoken by Gonzalo, who is perceived as a righteous character, while describing the island in Act 2 Scene 1 may lead to believe that Shakespeare may have actually been trying to criticize the colonies in a more negative way. Gonzalo says that the island should be left untouched and the fact that everyone leaves the island at the end might also mean that Shakespeare intended to support this view more in this text, and that the negative perception of Caliban was actually just intended to make people reflect whether or not we should treat the natives in such a way. It is for these reasons that there have been different interpretations of the text regarding this topic.

Power and privilege

How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?

            In Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, the character Caliban can be interpreted as a representation of the native inhabitant of a colonized land, which in this case is the island which was colonized by Prospero. Caliban is often ridiculed in the play and is mostly represented as a character that is much less of a human being than the nobles in the rest of the play. Shakespeare most likely made this choice in order to appeal to the nobility, which also attended his plays.

Text and genre

How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose?

            The Tempest by William Shakespeare is a play that follows many of the typical conventions of Elizabethan theater. The play might be taken as an appeal to the audience by using all of the popular genres of the Elizabethan theater and mixing them all into a single play. The play has the dramatic plot of a tragedy, the stock characters and clichés of Elizabethan slapstick comedy, and a small romantic story to make it an all-inclusive play that would have for sure pleased the audiences of that time. 

The Language of the Ghosts

The “ghosts”… those beings that some believe are around us but can never interact with because they belong to another realm. Their manifestation in our world is nothing but an intangible image that can only be observed. Nothing else can be done with them. Some say that ghosts speak, but if they speak they probably have some kind of “spectral language” that we foolish mortals cannot understand. At the same time, however, they are not fully attached to our world, so our language is not really something they can easily understand. Thus, even though we and the ghosts exist in the same plane, we can never truly interact together...

Language is the main form of interaction that exists between human beings. Without language there really isn’t much we can tell others. We can grunt and wave (and if needed use violence) to make others understand us, but the messages would never be anything as concrete as what we have in our heads. If other people can’t understand us in modern society, then we become pretty much irrelevant. We are unable to truly contribute and other just ignore us. At the same time, we are unable to truly comprehend what other people are saying. Neither can we communicate what we want effectively to them. They become simple images walking around us. Only that this time they are tangible images. Images we can touch and that, most importantly, can touch us.

Going to a country where one doesn’t know the language is pretty much the same as entering an unknown realm that is ruled by ghosts. They are the majority and thus you must get used to the way they run things. Everything is designed for them and they are the ones providing it. So since you don’t really speak their ghostly language and or understand their ghostly culture you must try to adapt to it. Worst thing is, since you spent your childhood trying to live among the ghosts in order to get accepted, you end up not truly understanding your (or rather, your family’s) culture of origin. And so you end up being surrounded by a bunch of ghosts who mostly cannot communicate effectively with you, and vice-versa. You are doomed to lead a life of awkwardness and detachment. You cannot truly ever fit in with the rest. Unless of course, you learned how to speak ghost. And of course, taking into account that only those who speak perfect ghost with the same volume and intonation as the spirits are the ones that can properly communicate. Yeah, it’s really hard. C’est la vie.