Shakespeare's Tempest: Colonialism, Psychology, and Critical Perspectives

Montaign 'of Cannibals'

Wants to use evidence and not the "common report"

Fights for the indigenous people, Shakespeare could have used it to show noble primitives

Joanna Williams "Caliban: A creature of his time"

"Caliban's appetite is the antithesis of human reason"

"(Prospero) never once thinks of himself as the usurper of the island"

Frank Kermode

Caliban is "the representative of Nature uncontrolled by Art"

Sycorac can "command, as a rule, only devils and the lowest order of spirits"

Neil Bown "Authority & Leadership"

Reads the Tempest "as a coded, but nevertheless daring critique of Jacobean ideology"

"obliquely criticises King James" as Prospero represents King James and therefore is set to learn how to be a better leader

Dr Sean McEvoy " Interpreting the Tempest"

"Prospero the Director" - The Tempest is a "play-within-a-play"

"Prospero the Colonist" - Caliban and Cannibal

"Play becomes anti-colonialist: the coloniser is shown to have no innate moral superiority which justifies his imperialism"

Malcolm Hebron " Prospero - A Reneissance Magus"

"a tempest is the term for sifting out impurities for a mixture"

"His aim is to bring his enemies to recognise their evil actions and repent"

Not from guilt to give up magic but "impossibly purity" in the world

Roy Booth "Rich Garments, Linens, stuffs and necessaries"

"able to take off his magical 'Art' magic has not taken him over" "Prospero is in control of his magic it isn't a black magic in charge of him"

"gaberdine is of course Prospero's satorial opposite"

Mike Brett " The role of Miranda in the Tempest"

"a sad but acknowledgement that she is a pawn in a patriarchal society"

"but it also seems worryingly prophetic of the future for a female character"

Barabra Bleiman "Father and daughters in Shakespeare"

"a different kind of relationship between father and daughter, a more idealised one , in which the father ends up bringing about the marriage that his daughter desires, rather than preventing it."

Richard Jacobs "Claribel's Story: The Tempest"

"only her 'obedience' to her father than outweighted her 'loathness'"

"The Claribel story, then, gives a muted ironic edge to the Miranda story"

"The fact that his daughter has grown up he has to loose her to another man"

Julie Taymor film (2010)

Female Prospero

Prospera is more protective of Miranda

Uses a cave as a metaphor into emerging into new light

Highlights Prospera's manipulation throughout the play as a figure always present, watching from above

Sam Mendes Royal Shakespeake Company (RSC) 1993

Ariel spits in Prospero's face at the end of the play

Rupert Goold Royal Shakespeake Company (RSC) 2006

Arctic location, much darker, the banquet is a dead seal with Arial emerging like Edward Scissorhands, barbaric for Caliban kept on a leash and food spat into by Patrick Stewart

Gregory Doran Royal Shakespeake Company (RSC) 2016

Russel Beale as Prospero is a much sadder and regretful Prospero, very technically heavy "I shall miss thee" with no sign of anger towards him

Globe production 2013

Sympathetic Prospero, affection between Miranda and Ferdinand, balcony to have Prospero always there but portrayed as an anxious father instead

Phychoanalytical Interpretation

Using Feudian theories of phychology:

Id , Ego and Superego represent Caliban, Prospero and Ariel,

Id "location of the drives" primitive and instinctive

Ego "one of major defences against Id" been midified by the world

Superego "which begins to form from childhood as a result of the Oedipus complex" which is the need for parents and represetnts the conflict that arises because of lacking attention, it is the unconscious behaviour that influences what we do.