tempest critics

Question 1

‘magic in the power of a male character is a thing of

Answer 1

awe and wonder, but in the hands of a female character it represents a dangerous empowerment’
Grindlay
talking about Sycrorax

Question 2

the Claribel story ‘undermine Prospero’s

Answer 2

authority and stage management’
Jacobs
doesn’t show any knowledge of the story of Claribel

Question 3

‘despite the occasional disobedience and

Answer 3

outspokeness, Miranda remains the chaste ideal of early modern womanhood’
Vaughan

Question 4

‘Miranda’s main role is to

Answer 4

obey her father’
Valdiviesco

Question 5

‘Caliban is a lonely, oppressed

Answer 5

and dispossessed slave.’
Rex Gibson

Question 6

‘Caliban creates our

Answer 6

pity more than our destation’
MacDowell, 1838

Question 7

‘Caliban’s rebellion […] provides a

Answer 7

counterbalance to Prospero’s autocratic regime and offers room for speculation that Prospero’s authority is challengeable’
Rufo

Question 8

‘Caliban must be controlled to

Answer 8

maintain the island’s hierarchy’
Charry

Question 9

‘the tempest is

Answer 9

a play about power’
Hirst

Question 10

‘Miranda and Ferdinand’s marriage is orchestrated

Answer 10

by Prospero for his own political ends’
Cherry

Question 11

‘when Prospero renounces his magic art, it is not a sign of guilt,

Answer 11

but a necessary step to resuming his worldly duties as Duke’
Hebron
no remorse

Question 12

‘the play’s central action […]

Answer 12

is not simply revenge’
Rufo

Question 13

[Miranda] is a pawn

Answer 13

in a patriachal society’
Brett

Question 14

“Cutting the umbilical cord is a very different relationship between mother and daughter. There’s a guilt that I haven’t given

Answer 14

Miranda the life she should have had. When she was a baby, Prospero was off in the library.”

• Alex Kingston, playing Prospero, RSC The Tempest 2023

Question 15

“A female Ariel creates another

Answer 15

daughter for Prospero, one that Miranda can’t see.”
Abrahams

Question 16

“Trinculo’s role is combining with

Answer 16

Stephano in providing comic relief”
Todd

Question 17

“only Caliban’s

Answer 17

body is enslaved”
Todd

Question 18

‘Alonso emerges from the experience

Answer 18

as purified and repentant”
Todd

Question 19

“Stephano’s murder plot is based

Answer 19

on folly rather than evil”
Todd

Question 20

“The real monsters of the island

Answer 20

are Sebastian and Antonio”
Tanner

Question 21

“Stephano and Trinculo are

Answer 21

comic and incompetent”
Adams

Question 22

“Stephano and Trinculo are far more

Answer 22

repulsive than Caliban”
Moseley

Question 23

“Miranda and Ferdinand’s royal blood gives them an innate

Answer 23

nobility while Antonio and Sebastian show how noble birth can be betrayed by unnatural vices”
Kermode

Question 24

“The comedy involving Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo is

Answer 24

delightful but scarcely subtle”
Knight

Question 25

“Stephano parodies the

Answer 25

essential absurdity of tyrannic ambition”
Knight

Question 26

“Prospero’s darker side is

Answer 26

emphasised by his being the mirror image of Sycorax”
Vaughan