The Tempest: Notes (2)

• The young lovers
  • "Changing eyes" at first sight (1.2.445) [videos]
  • How interesting are they?



• Caliban and Ariel
  • Are they "characters" at all?



• Caliban and the "wild man"
  • Peopling the isle with Calibans (1.2.350 ff)
  • Language (1.2.366) [video]
  • His appreciation of beauty (music) (3.1.137 ff)
  • "A born devil, on whose nature/ Nurture can never stick" (4.1.188-189)?
  • Does he learn in the end? (See 5.1.298-9)
  • Is he a colonial subject? See Frobisher's account of his voyage.



• Ariel
  • Androgynous?
  • His music
  • His moment of near-human feeling (5.1.17-20) [video]



• Prospero
  • How much control does he really have?
    • Over Miranda and Ferdinand
    • Over the other humans (Sebastian and Antonio?)
    • The battle both Caliban and Ariel have for freedom
  • The renunciation of his art (4.1.33-160)



• Forgiveness and redemption?
  • "Whom to call 'brother' / Would even infect my mouth..." (5.1.130-1)
  • The young lovers and the brave new (?) world (5.1.173 ff) [video]
  • Closure



• Epilogue

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This page last updated on 28 August 2006. © Michael Best, 2002.