Power, corruption, and hierarchy: less central characters Flashcards
Sebastian provoking Alonso about Ferdinand’s ‘death’
Sebastian says ‘the fault’s your own’ and is criticised by Gonzalo… ‘you rub the sore / When you should bring the plaster’
Gonzalo reinforcing the divine hierarchy
‘It is foul weather in us all, sir / When you are cloudy’
- metaphorical language
- imagery of weather has divine connotations (great chain of being idea)
- contrast between Gonzalo’s respect Alonso and Sebastian’s insults reveal the unstable nature of this hierarchy
Gonzalo’s utopia: reverting to the natural order
‘no occupation, all men idle, all’
‘nature should bring forth / Of its own kind all poison, all abundance’ - reverting to the natural order - maybe suggests that Caliban (and his instinctual, natural connection with the island) is actually closer to a perfect civilisation
BUT the irony is that Gonzalo wants ‘no sovereignty’ yet imagines what he would do if he ‘were the king on’t’ - contradiction perhaps reveals that even wholesome, virtuous characters like Gonzalo are corrupt at some level, longing for personal power
Antonio’s attempt to corrupt Sebastian
‘My strong imagination sees a crown / Dropping upon thy head.’
‘I feel not this deity in my bosom’ - no sense of remorse or regret
Trinculo’s corruption evident in his desire to exploit Caliban
In England… ‘there would this monster make a man’
- making a man means to make a fortune - economic exploitation
- but the sentence’s phrasing also raises the idea of Caliban being accepted as a ‘man’, and being treated as civilised rather than as savage
Caliban’s immediate submission to Stephano: ‘ingrained dependency’
‘That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor. / I will kneel to him’ - language of divinity encourages the audience to draw parallels with Prospero’s mage-like authority - Caliban is adopting a similar master, only a less sincere, less noble one (magic is substituted for booze)
Parallel to Prospero teaching Caliban about astronomy
‘Hast thou not dropped from heaven?’ then Stephano says
‘out o’th’ moon, I do assure thee. I was the man it’s’ moon when time was.’
Same topic of education, but ridiculed and meant as a parody to Prospero’s sincere education of Caliban - perhaps makes Prospero more sympathetic?
Stephano’s authoritarianism
‘Kiss the book. I will furnish it anon with new contents. Swear!’ - akin to kissing the Bible when swearing an oath, but here means taking another swig - uncomfortable, comedic play on Christianity
Caliban’s deluded sense of freedom
‘Has a new master, get a new man’ then repeats the noun ‘freedom’ four times in the next line - not really freedom, merely a new tyrannical hierarchy
Caliban’s sensitivity and stoicism
‘Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, / Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.’
- tricolon conveys awe and beauty
- imperatives show his unique understanding and stoicism
- Simple sentence structure ‘give delight’ and ‘hurt not’
‘and then in dreaming, / The clouds, methought, would open and show riches / Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked / I cried to dream again.’
Caliban realising his errors
‘I’ll be wise hereafter / And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass / Was I to take this drunkard for a god, / And worship this dull fool!’
