Tempest Flashcards
Implications of Colonialism (3)
Cal: “This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, which thou tak’st from me
P->Cal: “Lodged thee in mine own cell”
Gonzalo’s Utopia on the island depends on: “Had I plantation of the isle, my lord- and were the king on’t”
Implications of Racism (3)
Sycorax from “Algiers” - othering of the foreign
Seb->Alonso: “Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, that would not bless our Europe with your daughter but rather lose her to an African”
Mir->Cal: “Thy vile/ Race”
How is Caliban presented as inhuman? (3)
Trinc: “What have we here- a man or a fish? […] were I in England now and had but this fish painted, not a holiday-fool there but would give a piece of silver”
Prospero: “freckled whelp, hag born, not honour’d with human shape”
Steph + Trinc: repeated “monster”
How is Caliban presented as a human? (2)
Trinc: “This is no fish, but an islander, that hath suffered by a thunderbolt”
Prospero: “This thing of darkness”
–> Implications of black male
How did Prospero treat Caliban when he first arrived? (1)
Cal: “When thou cam’st first, thou strok’st me and made much of me” […] “give me” […] “teach me”
Contrast between Prospero and Stephano’s education of Caliban? (2)
M->Cal: “taught thee each hour one thing or other”
Steph->Cal: “Open your mouth- here is that which will give you language, cat”
–> Displays a sense of Prospero’s benevolence relative to Stephano + Trinculo
How does Caliban claim to initially treat Prospero+Miranda? (1)
“I lov’d thee, and show’d thee all the qualities o’th’isle”
–> Resembles colonial ventures from the British and their manipulative oppression
Link between implementation of colonial and patriarchal values? (3)
Sycorax = “Foul witch”
Cal->Pro: “This islands mine by Sycorax my mother, which thou tak’st from me”
P on Syc: “Then was this island- save for the son that she did litter here, a freckled whelp, hag born”
Representations of Caliban + Sycorax as earthy? (2)
P->Cal: “Thou Earth”
P on Syc: “Earthy, abhorr’d commands”
Quotations of monsters being more humane than humans? (2)
Gonz: “For certes these are people of the island- who they are of monstrous shape, yet note their manners are more gentle-kind than of our human generation”
Prospero: “Thou hast said well; for some of you there present are worse than devils”
Ariel: “I would sir, were I human”
How does Caliban regard his education? (1)
Cal->P+M: “You taught me language, and my profit on’t is I know how to curse”
–> Hatred of colonial invasion and cultural assimilation
What are the magical representations of the Island? (4)
Ferd on Ariel’s music: “Where should this music be? i’th’air or th’earth […] sure it waits upon some God o’th’island”
- -> Implications of Prospero as the God of the Island
- -> Displays the island in a theatrical sense, providing music as well as the visual spectacle
Cal: “Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not”
P->Gonz: “You do yet taste some subtleties o’th’isle that will not let you believe things certain”
Alonso: “If this prove a vision of the island, once dear son shall I twice lose”
–> Act 5 sees a greater reference to the island blurring the lines of the reality (meta-theatrical recognition of itself as the set of a play)
Island as representative of character’s personalities (2)
Gonz: “How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green!”
Ant: “The ground indeed is tawny”
Adrian: “The air breathes upon us most sweetly”
Seb: “As if it had lungs, and rotten ones”
Importance of magic to Prospero over leadership (3)
P on Gonz: “Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me from mine own library with volumes that I priz’d above my dukedom”
P: “I thus neglecting worldly ends”
P: “For the liberal arts without a parallel; those being all my study, the government I cast upon my brother, and to my state grew stranger”
How does Prospero describe his power over nature? (2)
P: “Call’d forth the mutinous winds, and ‘twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault”
P: “Rattling thunder”, “fire”, “rifted Jove’s stout oak with his own bolt”
–> Implications that his control of nature has usurped God (worse than the other usurpers?)
How is Prospero’s magic shown as dark/evil? (4)
P: “Graves at my command have wak’d their sleepers”
“my so potent art”
“But this rough magic I here abjure”
Cal: “I say by sorcery he got this isle”
Cal on spirits: “They all do hate him as rootedly as I”
Links to Sycorax:
Cal: “All the charms of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats light in you!”
Prospero’s magic has power over characters (3)
P->M: “Thou art inclin’d to sleep. Give it way- I know thou can’st not choose”
P: “Demi-puppets”
–> Link to role as director and meta-theatre
Cal: “I must obey, his art is of such power”
Implications of Ariel’s metamorphoses (2)
P->Ar: “Well done, my bird, thy shape invisible retain thou still”
P->Ar: “Go, make thyself a nymph o’th’sea […] invisible to every eyeball else”
Implications that Ariel is the source of Prospero’s power (1)
P->Ar: “Hast thous, spirit, perform’d to point the Tempest that I bade thee?”
How does Ariel display the loss of humanity? ((4))
Ar: “Your charm so strongly works ‘em that if you now beheld them, your affections would become tender”
P: “Dost thou think so, Spirit?
Ar: “Mine would, sir, were I human”
P: “Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling of their afflictions, and shall not myself, one of their kind?”
Ariel’s singing + it’s impact (4)
“wild waves whist” , “sweet spires”, “hark-hark”, “bow-bow”
–> Adds to the illusory, dream-like quality of the play and so allows us to analyse it in regards to our own society as an externalised event
Clothing motif + impact (2)
Gonz: “our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and gloss, being rather new-dyed than stained with salt water”
Seb->Ant: “You did supplant your brother, Prospero”
Ant->Seb: “True; and look how well my garments sit upon me”
–> Illusory aspect of clothing, merely hiding the truth; just as actors wear a costume
Motif of falling out of the sky + implications (1)
Ant->Seb: “My strong imagination sees a crown dropping upon thy head”
–> Implications of illusion + tricks: adding to the play’s externalisation, allowing us to analyse our own society in regards to it
Meta-theatre, masque + impact (2 + 4)
Ant->Seb: “All the sea swallow’d, though some CAST again- and by that destiny, to PERFORM and ACT whereof what’s past is PROLOGUE, what to come in yours and my DISCHARGE”
P: “These our actors were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air, and like the baseless fabric of this vision […] the great globe itself”
MASQUE scene:
“Bounteous woman” - Depiction of importance of virgin woman in providing love + political reconciliation
“Approach rich Ceres, to entertain” - the role of the play to ultimately provide entertainment value
“A contract of true love to entertain” -importance of love in providing political settlement
“some wanton charm upon this man and maid” - Prospero’s control of their love
-Implications of the play as a play allows audience to analyse it in respect to our own society
Implications of stagemanship + tricks (2)
P->Ar: “I must use you in such another trick”
P: “I shall bestow upon the eyes of this young couple some vanity”
–> Reference to the masque and the lavish and extravagant displays of theatrical potential
Quotes on story telling + Impact (4)
Cal: “As I told thee before”
Prospero->M: “Dos’t thou attendst me?”
P->Ar: “I must once in a month recount what thou hast been”
P->Court: “the story of my life”
–> Implications that we are all merely living out stories (“we are such stuff as dreams are made on”) + Power of theatre in lives as he prepares to retire
Twisting of class values (3)
Alon->Boat: “Good boatswain, have care. Where’s the master?
Boat->Alon: “Do you not hear him? You mar our labour. Keep your cabins- you do assist the storm”
Boat: “What care these roarers for the name of the King”
Steph->Trinc: "Put off that gown, Trinculo. By this hand, I'll have that gown" --> mimicking the upper class usurpation despite their lowly status
Marxist reading of oppression of lower classes (2)
P on Cal: “Caliban, whom I now keep in service”
“This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine”
Evidence that Antonio + Sebastian do not repent (1)
Ant only speaks one line in final scene: “one of them is a plain fish, and no doubt marketable”
Whilst Seb says nothing
–> Displays how they retain their ambition and arrogance
How is Caliban displayed as superior to Stephano & Trinculo (Humans) (1+2)
He speaks in verse, whilst they in prose
Cal: “Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not hear a footfall”
VS Steph: “Monster, your fairy” + Trinc: “I do smell horse-piss”
Depictions of Caliban as evil ((3))
Cal->Steph: “Wilt thou destroy him then”
Steph: “Ay, on mine honour”
Cal: “Thou mak’st me me merry”
Descriptions of Sycorax’s dark magic (3)
P: “her earthy and abhorr’d commands”
“potent ministers”
“imprison’d thou”
Similarities between Prospero + Sycorax? (4)
P->Ariel: “Thou, my slave/ as thou report’st thyself, was then her servant”
On Syc: “Into a cloven pine, within which rift imprison’d thou”
P->Ar: “If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak and peg thee in his knotty entrails till thou hast howl’d away twelve winters”
Syc: “This damned witch sycorax, for mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible”
Ferd on Tempest: “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here”
“But this rough magic I here abjure”
Contrast between Caliban’s and F+Ms view of work (3)
Cal: “All the infections that the suns sucks up”
F: “Some kinds of baseness nobly undergone […] the mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead, and makes my labour’s pleasures”
–> Antithetical juxtapositions represent a search for compromise
M->F: “If you’ll sit down, I’ll bear your logs the while”
-M+F see pleasure in labour as it is a means to an end whereas Caliban is imprisoned as a slave
Power of a leader over their people (1)
Prospero: “New created the creatures that were mine, I say: I chang’d’em, or else new form’d’em”
–> Control of “creatures” both on the island and the real world (Microcosm of the island)
How does Prospero issue sympathy for his usurpation? (3)
P: “King of Naples, being an enemy”
“A treacherous army levied”
“i’th’dead of darkness”
-> Prospero’s role as narrator allows him to shape the audience’s perspective of events
Prospero’s relationship with Miranda? What impact does this have? (Oppressive = 3 // Caring = 2)
P->Mir: “Thou art inclin’d to sleep”
P->Mir: “Thy schoolmaster”
P->Mir: “My foot my tutor?”
P->F: “I have given you a third of mine own life”
P->M: “I have done nothing but in care of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter
Displays patriarchal control: Both superiority of gender and of father’s position (extension of leadership position)
How does Prospero display power over events in the play? (3)
P->Ar: “Hast thou, Spirit, peform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee”
P: “Now does my project gather to a head”
P: “My high charms work […] now they are in my power”
