Answer TWO of the
following as a Comment below:
1. Why does Caliban
mistake Stephano for a god—or for the “man in the moon”? How does this oddly comic scene affect our
view of Caliban, and what echoes does it carry of the early encounters of
European explorers in the New World?
2. Discuss the humor in The
Tempest, particularly in Act 2.1, where elaborate verbal puns totally
arrest the plot for several pages/minutes.
How does this act contrast with Act 1, and why might Shakespeare
introduce so many seemingly interchangeable sailors speaking so much ludicrous
(if witty) prose?
3. How is Antonio
something of a mirror-image of his brother, Prospero? What actions does he try to set in motion in Act 2.1, and how do
these mimic what we saw with his brother in Act 1.2? How does he, like Prospero, reveal who he is and what his motives
are to the audience?
3. The way Antontio (really, another Antonio?) acted in 2.1 made me re think my judgments on Prospero’s character. Antonio seems very power hungry and mischievous, and even convinces Sebastian (although he seemed pretty willing) to kill his brother so he could have the thrown. So that begs the question, was it Antonio that was treacherous and that’s why he gained Prospero’s kingdom? Or was it all Prospero ignoring his kingdom? It raises the question as to “who cheated who”? Or maybe Antonio and Prospero are both power hungry douche bags who meddle with people to get their way, Prospero with wrecking the ship and separating the passengers, and Antonio with meddling with Sebastian and manipulating him to kill the king.
ReplyDelete2. To me these pages of witty banter, or nonsense, offsets what Antonio and Sebastian talk about after everyone has gone to sleep. These puns help the audience to get to know the personalities of the characters, while letting the audience know that these characters are totally interchangeable and possibly non important. But it also serves somewhat as comic relief to what is about to happen, basically something funny before shit gets real. It’s all fun and games until the king passes out and then his brother wants to kill him. (Brother killing his brother the king, sound familiar??) It would be cool to see this play acted out, because when I was reading it seemed as though the atmosphere totally changed when everyone went to sleep; the atmosphere became treacherous.
-Tori
1. Suddenly I thought, "moonshine," with emphasis on the "oo". Caliban seems to take Stephano for a god because of the way the man and his companion talk and pun on religion, and seem to be nice to him, and apparently give him something good to drink that he's never had before. Caliban here seems very credulous, and his sneakiness seems to have vanished--so here he appears innocent and trusting, so kind of humanizes him. It echoes myths of Cortez and others being mistaken for gods even while pushing their religion on people who had no basis for understanding it, and of the "gifts" Europeans gave which made natives dependent on them.
ReplyDelete5. Caliban is... ambiguous. His mother was almost certainly human, if she came from Algiers and worshipped "Setebos." No mention is made of his father, and yet he is called a monster with no physical description whatsoever. Stephano easily mistakes him and Trinculo lying under the cloak as a weird hybrid man-creature-thing (and has weirder undercurrents if one recalls Iago's invective about Othello and Desdemona). "Fins like arms" is very ambiguous, seeing as Trinculo has never seen anyone like Caliban before. It could be that Caliban has slender arms with corded muscles (which if looked at right may imitate the outline of a fin on an arm). I don't think it's a particularly accurate depiction; with all the supernatural stuff going on and the unknown factors of how the two men made it to shore, their eyes may be playing some tricks as well. Trinculo, being a court jester, would have absorbed the prejudices of his master and the people around him, so of course that would color his view of Caliban. In my eyes, Caliban, even if he is a monster in form rather than the mind, ought to look human enough to be relatable, but strange enough that he might still be unknown to the audience, and not excessively strange, because if he were more "monster" than "man" in depiction, his words about Miranda would be even more disgusting (and might distract from the play and everything else within it). And creepier.
Jessie Randall
Felicia Doyle,
ReplyDeleteAriel is a comic character despite being a knave slave; she is just a stupid girl as Neil Young would put it. She uses dark humor and terrible singing to take out her frustrations on Prospero. Imagine if Ariel were a beautiful singer underneath her satirical cameos. If classmates have time they should consider this youtube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRhrOMp5tDM
Ignore the rockstars and concentrate on the dark solemn side of Ariel not the mermaid, not the air fairy of Chinese Opera, but the darkness of the ocean.
The man in the moon that Caliban so mistakes could include Ariel’s interpretation of Prospero, “All the infections that the sun sucks up – From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him by inchmeal a disease!” Share the anger and distrust of Prospero!
Also, Antonio is a very strangely funny character. Notice how he has to cue laughter and you can never tell when he is talking out of concern or just being a complete asshole. "O, out of that no hope What great hope have you! No hope that way is Another way so high a hope that even Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me That Ferdinand is drowned?" (Norton, 33).
Delete3. Antonio tries to convince Gonzalo to kill the king! I really felt sympathy for him in the first act, but then he turns out to be just as despicable and manipulating as his brother. I’m also confused by this Gonzalo character. Whose side is he on? I think that Antonio differs just a bit from his brother in not being quite so transparent. He is careful not to say exactly what he is up to so there is nothing really to hold against him but implications.
ReplyDelete4. I think Caliban is entirely human, but probably misshapen. He would probably have to be depicted with some sort of physical deformity and if his arms look like fins then maybe it is one where his fingers did not fully form. However, I think the most interesting depiction for modern audiences would be one that had him changing shape, maybe not elegantly, but shifting nonetheless. This could easily be attributed to his mother and the fins could be adaptations to help him live on the island.
1. Caliban mistakes Stephano’s status because Stephano got Caliban drunk. Caliban states in his aside, “That’s a brave god, and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him” (2.2.112). Caliban has likely never been drunk on a manufactured liquor from Europe, and the potion sends him into a groveling stupor. His willingness to shift his loyalty to Stephano maybe reveals that Caliban is miserable under Prospero’s authority, and any outlet he can take to escape, he will. Caliban is very quick to reveal “his” island to Stephano and offer to him his services, similar to how he is described in Act 1 Scene 2 (pg 18) to have acted toward Prospero upon his arrival. This pattern makes it clear to me that Caliban is desperate for company, structure, and purpose.
ReplyDelete3. Antonio and Prospero are both extremely manipulative. In Act 1 Scene 2, Prospero is revealed to have a master plan for the shipwrecked sailors, and in Act 2 Scene 1, Antonio creates a conspiracy to make Sebastian king of Naples by killing his brother. I’m not sure what went wrong with Antonio and Prospero while they were growing up, but something turned them into steamrolling, power-hungry individuals, even to each other.
Nikki Ennis
ReplyDelete1. Caliban mistakens Stephano as the man in the Moon because 1) he doesn't know any better. He's been kept in a cage and away from society, and 2) Stephano appears as a kind of "hero" to him, so Caliban is apt to believe he is someone as significant as the man in the Moon. Caliban is like a puppy that has been abused. Once he realizes you don't mean him harm, you are a god to him.
2. Personally, I think Caliban has to have enough human qualities for the audience to still consider him human. Once he's dehumanized, the connection and sympathies of the audience are at risk of being lost, or worse, non-existent. I think that Trinculo sees him in extremes because Caliban is not like him, or anything he has ever seen. Its easy for him to see the differences before he sees the similarities.
1.) Caliban mistakes him for a god because Stephanos liquor is “celestial”. He has probably never seen any other humans other than Prospero and his daughter, so he doesn’t really have a clear idea of what other human being look like. Therefore he sees Stephano and Trinculo and thinks these have to be spirits, but then he thinks no they don’t look like spirits, so he decides that Stepahano must be a god. Although we have to consider that Caliban is already drunk by the time he decides all this. I think this scene shows us a naïve childish side to Caliban, which evokes more sympathy for him from the reader. I think this gives us a glimpse at what his encounter with Prospero may have been like and gives us a better understanding as to how he ended up serving Prospero. I think this especially echoes how the people of the New World saw the Europeans that went there. They were just so different from what they categorized in their minds as human that they had to be some sort of other being.
ReplyDelete4.) I think he’s a human-monster. He’s defiantly both with the types of descriptions we’ve gotten. Although with the inhuman like descriptions should classify him as a monster, since he isn’t really human. But I do think he’s some sort of cross of the two. I think Trinculo’s description of him is trustworthy because he is the only one who isn’t drunk in this scene. Plus Trinculo seems to be a pretty common sense character. I think staging Caliban would be difficult. There just aren’t enough descriptions to really come up with a costume for him. I think he’s some sort of fish monster crossed with human, so he should be portrayed as closely to that as possible.
1. Caliban mistakes Stephano for a God because he concedes that they are not sprites therefore they must be Gods for they are bearing celestial liquor. Caliban asks Stephano, “Hast thou not dropped from heaven?” ans Stephano replies, “Out o’ th’ moon I do assure thee. I was the man I’ th’ moon, when time was. Caliban having been shown the man in the moon, his dog, and bush by his mistress (Miranda) readily believes Stephano’s tale. Caliban fantasizes that this God can free him of his tyrant master and he will then serve him for he is wondrous. Caliban has never had the luxury of drinking alcohol or liquor and no doubt it didn’t take much to affect him or cloud his naive thinking for he does not know that the liquor is not celestial nor made from (the) God/s. He is offered kindness and a gift from these shipwrecked drunkards and thinks them God because of it or at least able to relive him of his currant tyrant Master’s oppression. He is not accustomed to being shown kindness or given gifts and relishes in it and wishes to serve the kinder Master (Stephano). This echoes the history of mankind and the phrase “the grass is not always greener on the other side”.
ReplyDelete4. What is Caliban: a monster, a human—something in-between? From the passage I’d say somewhere in between. Note that Trinculo describes him as “legged like a man, and his fins like arms” (37). Is this an accurate description of him, or does it suggest Trinculo’s inability to see someone utterly unlike himself? I think that all depends on how Caliban is staged or costumed for instance in: The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s The Tempest from 2011 starring Christopher Plummer, Caliban’s character is portrayed visually much like the vision the reading conjures up within the imagination at least for me that is but if not being visually accurate according to text the perhaps Trinculo is blind to their similarities through their differences. Consider that the Aztecs who encountered Cortez and his men thought them four-legged beasts, not understanding they rode upon horses. How should Caliban appear on-stage for the play to work in your eyes? I really liked how Caliban is portrayed in the movie The Tempest starring Christopher Plummer pictured above. I think that Caliban is portrayed a beautifully, different yet similar still in many aspects.
Lisa Edge
1. I think that Caliban mistaking a drunken man for a god endears him to the audience. It also (instead of endearing) could convince the audience that Prospero was strict with him out of concern for his well being. He could be seen as a poor, ignorant creature that needs a master to care for or civilize him. It is amusing, because of course the audience thinks it is absurd that anyone could take a bumbling fool for a deity. It makes him seem as if he is incapable of making educated decisions. Therefore, he is almost a subject of pity. I think that it also shows that Caliban concepts about where he ranks in society,and that he has this idea that he needs a master.
ReplyDelete4. I think that Caliban does need to look somewhat supernaturally. He is human in most senses, but he needs to appear a little out of the ordinary. I think that his stature needs to be smaller than most of the men in the play, in order to really understand his perception of the people around him. I think that his appearance shapes the other characters opinions of him, rather than his actual actions. He needs to appear monstrous in contrast to his beautiful speeches, because this contrast is what helps the audience see him in a different light. I think he should be portrayed as a creature that should have some power and pride, but instead he is kept in a humble station.