Education Flashcards
Prospero questioning Miranda on her past
‘The very minute bids thee ope thine ear. / Obey and be attentive. Canst thou remember / A time before we came unto this cell?’ Prospero 1.2.37
Reference to and personification of time (the ‘very minute’) points to the preciousness and rarity of this moment of enlightenment
Imperatives ‘obey’ and ‘be attentive’, however, reinforce the power dynamic between Prospero and Miranda
Rhetorical question is patronising and suggests he knowingly conceals information
Miranda’s empathetic reaction to Prospero’s tale
When Prospero reveals that they fell from their high status by ‘foul play’, Miranda says ‘O, my heart bleeds’ to think about it
Prospero getting annoyed at Miranda for seemingly not listening
‘Thy false uncle – Dost thou attend me?’ then ‘Sir, most heedfully’ Prospero then Miranda 1.2.77
‘false’ – language of morality establishes the Antonio as the villain
Question carries an interrogative tone, suggesting that Prospero is becoming increasingly agitated and concerned that he is not being listened too - genuinely emotional/overcome, or merely rude and controlling?
Gaps in Prospero’s education of Miranda
‘I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated / To closeness and the bettering of my mind’ Prospero 1.2.90
Antithesis of ‘neglecting’ and ‘dedicated’ highlights how Prospero’s priorities were misguided - is he really the victim here?
Prospero framing his brother as wicked
‘in my false brother / Awaked an evil nature’ Prospero 1.2.93
Prospero maintaining power through controlling what Miranda does and doesn’t know
‘Here cease more questions. / Thou art inclined to sleep’
Ariel’s initial attempt to educate Prospero on how to be less tyrannical
‘Remember I have done thee worthy service, / Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served / Without grudge or grumblings’ Ariel 1.2.146
Prospero ‘educating’ Ariel on his own past, framing himself as his saviour (2)
‘Dost thou forget / From what a torment I did free thee?’, and when Ariel says ‘no’, Prospero replies ‘Thou dost’
Ariel was confined by Sycorax in ‘her most unmitigable rage / Into a cloven pine, within which rift / Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain / A dozen years’ 1.2.276
In the RSC 2016 production, as Prospero narrates Ariel’s past, a hologram shows Ariel being imprisoned in a ‘cloven pine’ – points to the extremity of Prospero’s emotional manipulation and also draws parallels between the cruelty of him and Sycorax due to the visual merging of past and present
Ariel’s response to Prospero’s ‘education’ of him
As a result of Prospero’s education, Ariel says ‘Pardon, master, / I will be correspondent to command / And do my spiriting gently’
Prospero and Caliban’s mutual exchange of knowledge in the past
Caliban recounts how he was taught by Prospero ‘To name the bigger light and how the less / That burn by day and night.’ 1.2.336
- Echoes Genesis, which reports God’s creation of ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ lights – therefore frames Caliban’s astronomical education as something wholesome, spiritual, and generous (genuinely about the spread of knowledge)
‘And showed thee all the qualities o’th’isle: / The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile. / Cursed be I that did so!’
- Caliban regrets sharing his knowledge, precisely because Prospero then exploited it for his own power
Miranda’s education of Caliban - about knowledge/language superficially but still infused with ideas of power and supremacy
‘When thou didst not, savage, / Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like / A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes / With words that made them known.’ Miranda 1.2.356
- Miranda’s education of Prospero was at a basic level to do with knowledge of words/language, but also was evidently infused with ideas of power and supremacy (ie Miranda dismisses Caliban’s native language as meaningless ‘gabble’, and credits herself with installing sense and essentially the ability to process thoughts in him
Caliban resisting Prospero’s education in hindsight - reframing it as insincere, and all about power
‘You taught me language, and my profit on’t / Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you / For learning me your language.’ 1.2.364
- Caliban recognises Prospero’s education of him as part of his tyrannical and colonising influence, thus resists his rule and uses his language only against him
Ariel’s moral education of Prospero in Act 5
‘His [Gonzalo’s] tears run down his beard like winter’s drops / From eaves of reeds.’ Ariel 5.1.16
‘Your charm so strongly works ‘em / That, if you now beheld them, your affections / Would become tender.’ And then later ‘Mine would, sir, were I human.’ Ariel 5.1.17
- Use of the conditional ‘would’ highlights Ariel’s lack of identification with the human species, but in turn highlights how Prospero is human so should really be experiencing the empathy described by Ariel
- This is a touching moment where Ariel, despite his obvious differences, is able to guide Prospero onto a morally righteous path of forgiveness and empathy
Prospero’s education of himself (with the help of Ariel)
‘The rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance’
- antithesis of ‘virtue’ and ‘vengeance’ (emphasised by alliteration) highlights the definitive nature of Prospero’s newfound realisation
‘But this rough magic here I abjure’ 5.1.50
- ‘rough’ could be self-deprecating (imperfect, flawed, not good enough) or could mean cruel/tyrannical, suggesting that Prospero has begun to recognise his own wrongness in asserting the moral righteousness of his magic (in contrast to Sycorax)
‘I’ll break my staff […] I’ll drown my book.’ 5.1.54
- symbols of his power being intentionally destroyed (verbs connoting destruction)
Prospero’s moral education of the other characters on stage through the harpy
‘You are three men of sin’
‘yea, all the creatures / Against your peace’ - man vs nature
‘And a clear life ensuing’ - foreshadows comedic ending - Prospero’s is not just focused on punishment and condemnation, but on proactive education looking into the future
