Act 2 Flashcards
Act 2 about
-action moves to separate part of the play
- audience learns more of the shipwreck and passengers, and antionios lack of remorse for his crime against Prospero
- Ariel prevents the murder of Alonso
Provides insight into the original islands dwellers, intended to provide comic relief and sometimes described as antimasque as is parallels the masque in its use of music movement and unusual constumes
“Ill teach you how to flow”
-metaphor of water
- he’s a;ready usurped his brother, he can teach Sebastian to do the same.
“Can lay to bed for ever”
-both Sebastian and Antonio are witty here and skilful at sword play
- seemingly unaffected by the suffering of others
-Antonio is not remorseful or wanting to repent
No evidence either man truly repents
-Antonio shows little sympathy for the suffering of others
- being away from civilisation inspired Gonzalo to imagine a perfect society while Antonio and Sebastian see being on the lawless island as an opportunity to seize power, their only constraint os morality which Antonio ignores
“Receives comfort like old porridge”
-ambiguous
- may mean the comfort provided by Gonzalo is valueless
-or, Alonso is in not mood to be comforted.
caliban drinking alcohol
-encourages the audience to think about colonisation
- expresses the view that some groups of people are less able to control the effects of alcohol
-view was help about many colonised people e.g native Americans
-gives the audience a clue to character imagery used
-trinculo: related to drinking imagery
- Caliban: more tuned to nature and ruling of his land
Context for act 2
- must be careful of anachronisms
-when Shakespeare wrote this, British colonisation was in infancy, with settlers in Ireland and north and South America only
-Prospero enslaves Caliban in the way many colonising countries ensalved people of the countries they ‘discovered’
Stephanie refers to “itch” in his song
- comic scene presents punning and slapstick humour
-relates mainly to drinking and sexual behaviour - song refers to sexual desires but also effects of STIs
-scabies and skin infection are not STIs but was also sometimes called the itch - can be little doubt he was singing bout sexual desire and gratification
“Here kiss the book”
-punning bout the equation of having a drink with kissing the bible
-suggestion is the bottle is like the bible, and object to swear on
-at the time was not unusual to kiss the bible to confirm that everything one had said was the truth
“Here is that which will give language to you, cat” “this devil and no monster i will leave him;i have no long spoon”
Probverbial usage
-reference to the proverb “ale can make a cat talk
-reference to ‘he should have a long spoon that sups with the devil- means its imperative to think before taking action
“Moon calf”
-Shakespearean audience would have understood it to imply caliban is deformed
-deformities were often explained to suggest they were conceived when the moon was full
“What have we here, a man or a fish… were i in England now, as once i was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver”
-suggests if he was in England and had even a picture of this fish like ‘creature’ he would simply a it and everyone would go inside to stare at the monster
-this give the indication of the treatment of people of other cultures,
-often taken to Europe and treated like animal which people would pay to stare at
-in Shakespeare’s time native Americans were occasionally displayed at fairs
-often they didn’t survive long so their dad bodies were exhibited
“Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon, i know it by thy trembling”
-suggestion to Prosperos magical powers
-trembling was often regarded as a prelude to demonic posession
- fact that Caliban recognises this may indicate that Prospero sometimes behaves like a man possessed
‘“ riches poverty and use of service”, all women “innocent and pure “nature should bring forth”
-reveals Gonzales to be fair and kind and Noble
- unlike others such as Antonio
-he’s not power hungry and seems to believe in ideal circumstances everyone would live a simple and equal life
- ‘no use of service” contracts prospero who’s enslaved Ariel and caliban and now Ferdinand
- however
-also a typical colonial fantasy he imagines on an island like this nature should bring forth an abundance of goods
- during this age of colonial empires the reality of this kind of thinking meant local populations were oppresses and enlsaved in order for European colonisers to live out their utopian fantasies
-in other ways gonazlo is naive on his society which has no conflict or work
“Strange fish”
-refelects the desire common among Europeans in Shakespeare’s time to exploit ‘exotix’ animals plants and people living in islands visited by the,
“Ill Kiss thy foot”- caliban “here kiss the book”
-caliban mistaken belief that Stephane is good echos similar mistakes made by natives upon the arrival of Europeans
-quickly stephano takes to he idea of becoming a master rather than a servant
- like trinculo stephano is interested in capatilsing on the Europeans interest in the exotic just as American colonist used alcohol to subdue Native peoples stephano supplies caliban woth alcohol to tame him
