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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page paper looking at the motif of manipulation and free will in Shakespeare's play. The paper asserts that the magician Prospero, under a misguided kind of benevolent despotism, is trying to create and enforce an ongoing living environment through magic, and it doesn't work. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Benman.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
put people in a state of suspended animation. In short, he exercises benevolent but total control over the strange and fanciful creatures who populate his strange realm, as well as
the seas surrounding it. Much attention has been given recently to a reading of Shakespeares Tempest as a manifesto of political imperialism, primarily because of its benign assumption that
Prospero, the magician, has every right in the world to rule his island completely, manipulating people and events as if they had no will of their own. And admittedly, it
is easy to see the doctrine of imperialism at work in this play; consider how the population of Prosperos island breaks down into ruling class and subject class, and how
total is Prosperos manipulation of those subjects. Prospero landed on an already-occupied island and enchants it with his magic -- again, there is some sense that the indigenous peoples did
not want to be taken over, but we have Shakespeares word that Prospero rules kindly and well, and uses his white magic to make sure everything comes out all right
in the end. But how accurate is this picture? Ben Schneider, Jr., notes that by Prosperos crediting "Providence Divine" (I.i.159) for casting them upon the island, "Prospero implies that he
legitimately rules the island by some sort of manifest destiny. But the ensuing scenes with Ariel and Caliban make it clear that Calibans mother once owned the island and that
Caliban [should have inherited] it from her. In short, the official version, for Mirandas ears only, is wrong: Prospero rules not by manifest destiny but by force" (Schneider, 120). Prospero
clearly feels that he rules by right because he is has the most inherent power. He feels that he treats his subjects justly, and that everyone benefits under his reign
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