For this assignment, you will be writing a 1200-1500 word essay on EITHER The Tempest or A Tempest (Une Tempête) ONE of the following four topics. This is to be submitted on Blackboard. Essays handed in early are welcomed!
Please make sure that you write in full sentences, in proper MLA essay style. If you use and/or quote from another work, it must be cited properly. As in any essay, you need to make an argument, with your evidence coming from the text and fully explained. If you would like to come up with your own topic, please talk to your workshop leader, or to me!
1.In both plays, you could argue that Caliban operates either from a place of self-love or a place of self-loathing. Discuss Caliban’s feelings about himself, his masculinity, and his heritage in EITHER The Tempest or A Tempest. Is he making decisions from pride in his identity or a sense of worthlessness? Why? Does a successful revolution need to start from self-love?
2.In lecture, we have discussed whether Prospero is a good father. Do you think that Prospero’s interference in Miranda’s life in Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an act of love? Or is it an act of control? Why or why not?
3.In lecture you were asked to pay attention to where Césaire’s A Tempest deviates from Shakespeare’s play. At the end of Césaire’s version, Prospero stays on the island and refuses to free Caliban. Does Caliban end up free anyway? Or is he annihilated by Prospero? Explain Prospero’s final speech.
4.In both plays, forgiveness is a redemptive force granted to both the deserving and the undeserving alike. Choose one play and discuss the role forgiveness plays for one of the characters. What do they forgive (or what are they forgiven for)? Why? What does this say about power and revenge?