Tempest Essay -- essays research papers

The Tempest According to Elizabethan beliefs an individuals fond position was more or slight(prenominal) fixed. The King was King as he had been given a mandate by God, and all positions below this were based on a rigid social hierarchy, which were also dictated by birth.This ideology was decidedly conservative and used politically as a means of social control forcing people with less status to internalise their inferiority and subservience, assuming it part of the natural order of the universe. Any rebellion, personal or collective, was therefore seen as an act of defiance not only against the State but God. This can be seen as a highly effective means of keeping order and perpetuating the power structures already subsisting in society.We can read literature as expressions of universal themes and investigations into human nature and the human conditions, but we can also give alternative readings that hesitation natural assumptions and investigate the silences in a text. In esse nce, reading the politics of the play. A traditional reading of The Tempest would position Prospero as the victim of unjust betrayal, who detached on an island with his beautiful, virtuous daughter, uses his magical powers to right the wrong done to him. It is the old story of the rightful ruler who is disposed by the bad guys, but manages to get approve his power and live happily ever after.A post-colonial reading, which foregrounds issues of race and power inequalities, would give quite a different interpretation.The play contains rebellions, political treachery, mutinies and conspiracies. There are many challenges to authority, however, the text resolves these problems in the end by having peace, harmony and order restored, with the rightful ruler placed back in his position of power. In this centering any disruption to order is seen as evil and those who dare question it need to be punished, thus perpetuating the social set of the time.It is true that Antonio seized power f rom his sr. brother, Prospero, and that this usurpation is viewed as wrong by the dominant values of the time and by the text. This viewpoint is constructed by presenting Antonio as a treacherous, evil character who is free to murder Alonso and Gonzalo. This is the view foregrounded by the play, but little is mentioned about why this state of affairs arose. The silences of the story, involving Antonio being ... ... values demand restraint, controland self-discipline (as seen later in Prosperos warnings to Ferdinand and Miranda) and the text equates indigenous values as barbaric and violent. In essence the European colonialist has invaded a new country, taken possession and set up their systems of values as the only legitimate code of behaviour. Through this Caliban has been dispossessed and forced to give up his ways of living and language.Caliban is constructed as innately inferior and brutal because of his race. This is articulated by the supposedly sweet and tender Miranda Bu t thy vile race -/Though thou didst learn - had that int which good natures/Could not abide to be with ..(31) In these lines Calibans race is seen as the reason for his barbaric behaviour - it is his very nature that makes him savage and dangerous. In this the text constructs other non-European races as savage, less human, incapable of questionable civilisation all because of their race this is a damning indictment of non-Europeans as it positions them as naturally inferior and unable to change their ways so that they will neer be able to develop the fine sensitivity and refinement of Western civilisation.