Thursday, April 23, 2020
Prospero: the good and the bad
Lets finish up talking about how good Prospero is and talk about how bad he also is!
6 comments:
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Could we view Shakespeare portraying Ariel as an indentured labourer/servant due to him having a sort of contract with Prospero? Ariel either goes back living a harsh life in the bark of the tree similar to how most indentured servants were poor and weren't satisfied as much with their lives back in their original country. OR Ariel could work for a certain amount of years to gain his freedom similar to how some indentured labourers signed contracts that would make them work for a certain period of years at the price of a good sum of money and housing. Even though both Ariel and the indentured labourers had contracts with slave owners or masters they were still treated bad but not as bad as a slave, not as bad as Caliban.
ReplyDeleteNakeisha Cantzlaar
I like this idea, especially with our knowledge that like Prospero, people who hired indentured servants often did not stick to the contract strictly and would keep people in their servitude long after they promised to let the indentured servant go.
Delete-CF
I contended with this idea at the beginning, Prospero is this guy who uses his power in bad ways, though he gets seen as perfect by Miranda. He is also this bookish sorcerer- which is cool! And he eschewed his dukedom, even though he didn't mean for his brother to take over his position, there is a part of him that doesn't care for that sort of thing. He brags about his abilities of art but he relies a lot on other magical creatures. These paradoxes continue for the length of the play and it is a relief that Prospero (who is implicitly forgiven by others) is willing to unequivocally forgive everyone else as well. It's a comforting conclusion after so many contrasts and so much conflict.
ReplyDeleteShakespeare must have felt conflicted about how he treated people or about what he used his influence to do within plays. At first I thought about Shakespeare worrying about writing propaganda when he wrote plays for royalty but after some cursory research, I doubt this is the case. I would have to know more about his life though as far as I know it is pretty mysterious.
-Chloe Friedman
His life is mysterious — and his plays are too complex to ever be propaganda!
DeleteProspero's enslaving, and torturing Caliban is maybe a way of making sure that Caliban doesn't try to rape Miranda again, maybe it's a way of protecting his daughter and himself from what Caliban could do.
ReplyDeleteAlso Prospero did not treat Ariel badly, he just gave him things to do; sure Ariel wanted his freedom. But when Prospero freed Ariel, maybe he was not sure if he could trust Ariel. If he had freed Ariel, and Ariel was not trustworthy, his daughter and himself would be at Ariel's mercy. And since Prospero is passionate of magic, he got carried away, and did not release Ariel when he was supposed to; but at the end he kept his word.
I think not letting people leave and giving them things to do instead is just Slavery — also he threatens to reimprison him in the tree.
Delete