miranda

Question 1

compassionate

Answer 1

Miranda is a compassionate, dutiful daughter, and her only harsh words in the play are directed at Caliban, who tried to rape her at one time.

“I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer”

Question 2

isolated

Answer 2

Miranda is amazed when she sees other humans, and immediately falls in love with Ferdinand, even though he is only the third man she has met

“O brave new world
That has such people in’t!”

Question 3

miranda and caliban

Answer 3

“poisonous slave,”

Miranda believes Caliban owes her a debt of gratitude for trying to civilize him.

Question 4

Miranda and ferdinand

Answer 4

“I am your wife, if you will marry me; if not, I’ll die your maid”

Question 5

her naivete

Answer 5

“How beauteous mankind is”

Miranda’s words reflect her naiveté—some of the men she admires are morally corrupt. Prospero’s comment “Tis new to thee,” implies that Miranda will learn that people aren’t really so “beauteous” at all.

Question 6

inexperienced

Answer 6

“Miranda is inexperienced but not naive” - Frank Kermode

Question 7

Adaptations in the romantic mode

Answer 7

focus on the relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda and the issues of reconciliation, repentance and forgiveness.

Question 8

Claribel a version of Miranda

Answer 8

both have arranged marriages, that are dynastically important

both daughters used as a “commodity” - Richard Jacobs

Question 9

only female

Answer 9

the absent women’s’ identities are forged their the language the male characters use to describe them

Question 10

motherless

Answer 10

Coppelia Kahn - the lack of mothers is a significant factor in many of Shakespeare’s plays

Question 11

Miranda’s mother

Answer 11

was a “piece of virtue, and/ She said thou was my daughter” - highlights male anxieties about the power that comes with a woman’s ability to bear a child

Question 12

Calibans attempted rape

Answer 12

“people else this isle with Calibans” - not Mirandas - male superiority

Question 13

Miranda is presented as passive

Answer 13

when Caliban offers her as a fertile prize, “she will become thy bed” - “she is an object onto which domineering male conflicts attempt to play out” - Lilla Grindlay

Question 14

brought up

Answer 14

far away from the restrictive social attitudes of the time

Question 15

talent for harsh invective

Answer 15

learnt from her father - “Abhorred slave” - not the sort of language expected from the daughter of a Duke

Question 16

rebellious streak

Answer 16

disobeys her father as she is motivated by the positive force to love for ferdinand, rather than being deterred by his threats of violence

superficial obedience

Question 17

Miranda’s apparent freedom

Answer 17

is illusory

Prospero “choreographs every aspect of her life” - Mike Brett

Question 18

“a nonpareil”

Answer 18

true in literal terms, as she is the only female character on stage

Question 19

as the only woman

Answer 19

she becomes, by default, the focus of male sexual attention

it’s Caliban’s attempted rape of her that sparks the animosity between master and slave

Question 20

Caliban’s attempted rape

Answer 20

could be seen as him trying to overturn the hierarchy that makes her his teacher, and therefore his superior

Question 21

Caliban is aware of

Answer 21

the political value of Miranda’s sexual appeal in an all-male society - offers her to Stephano as his queen, which then motivates him to kill Prospero

Question 22

used as a bargaining tool

Answer 22

by marrying her to the Prince of Naples, Prospero doubles his own political influence

“my rich gift” - this reinforces the perception of Miranda as something to be “bartered over and traded between men” - Mike Brett

Question 23

image of female perfection

Answer 23

“so perfect and so peerless”, “goddess”, “cherubin”

idea that she is an angelic or ethereal creature

Question 24

miranda is the symbol of

Answer 24

“female perfection and male oppression” - Mike Brett

Question 25

she is a

Answer 25

“pawn in a patriarchal society” - Mike Brett

Question 26

subservient

Answer 26

“I’ll be your servant” - shows the archaic attitudes to women

may appear romantic in the context of their courtship but shows how she is conditioned to accept male authority - prevailing attitude of the time

Question 27

her innocence of gender

Answer 27

difference leads her to believe that lifting logs “would become me / As well as it does you” - A Findlay

Question 28

she is crucial to Prospero’s plan

Answer 28

as she is a walking emblem of chastity - Lenininger

Question 29

2010 Julie Taymor film

Answer 29

adaption depicts Prospero as a woman accused of witchcraft - this highlights the significance of women in the play, despite there usually being only one onstage female character

Question 30

Miranda in Herrin’s interpretation

Answer 30

roles her eyes when Prospero threatens Ferdinand about breaking her “virgin knot”

similarly, Orgel suggests that she’s keen for conjugal pleasures