Orlando Furioso as influence in the hero and setting of the Harry Potter series

Orlando Furioso by the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto is an epic poem that is considered to have influenced many writers of fantasy literature. The poem is filled with magical items, wizards, legendary creatures, transfiguration, magical spells, and a prophecy that must be fulfilled, which are also present in the Harry Potter series. The appearance of the hippogriff in Rowling’s work leads to the belief that she has knowledge of Ariosto’s poem, since he was the creator of this creature. However, the similarities between the texts go further than these superficial elements that could be merely coincidental.  Harry Potter and Orlando Furioso have heroes that are flawed and find out that there is a magical world in existence along with our non-magical world. These imperfect, human heroes, and the mixed magical and non-magical world in which they live gives the readers a heightened sense of connection to these characters. The Harry Potter series can be said to have been influenced by Orlando Furioso because it uses similar constructions of hero and setting to obtain akin effects on the reader.

One of the important magical creatures that appear in the Harry Potter series is the hippogriff, which was created by Ariosto in his epic poem (Borges, 79). The Italian poet describes it as “No empty fiction wrought by magic lore, / But natural was the steed the wizard pressed; / For him a filly to griffin bore; Hight hippogryph” (IV, 18); the poet also talks about the hippogriff’s pride: “But what to do with the hippogryph? This is / a question few of us worry about. To ride / is risky. The beast might not take any of his / suggestions and could go off on its own from pride” (VI, 57). In the Prisoner of Azkaban Hagrid teaches Harry and his friends about this creature emphasizing that “they’re proud … easily offended” (114), which is proven true when Buckbeak hurts Draco Malfoy after being offended by him.

Although it seems likely that Rowling’s source of the hippogriff is Aristo’s poem, there is a distinction in the symbolism of the creature in both titles. In Orlando Furioso, the hippogriff symbolizes the impossible love made real of Ruggiero and Bradamante who are knights at opposite sides of a war, as suggested by Joe Nigg in The Book of Gryphons (32). In the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry and Hermione ride the hippogriff together (413), but they do not have a romantic relationship as the couple in the poem does. According to Dendle, in Harry Potter the hippogriff represents “[T]he emotional need to express domination symbolically” (171), exemplified by the death sentence given to Buckbeak as means of vengeance by Draco and his father (Dendle, 172). It could be argued though that the impossible relationship that the hippogriff represents in Harry Potter is that of the hero with his godfather, Sirius Black, who could only be saved from losing his soul by flying off with the Buckbeak. This connection between the two texts, leads the readers to notice other similar elements that might have otherwise been overlooked.

Even though the name of the poem is Orlando Furioso the central hero is not Orlando, but Ruggiero, who is the subject of a prophecy that says he will become the forebearer of the future powerful d’Este dynasty in Italy. Harry and Ruggiero are very similar heroes; they are both of humble origins and become orphans when they are very young, growing up to find out that there has been a prophecy made about them, and their future is already decided. Both characters are flawed, not like the tragic heroes that have one fatal flaw, but many little flaws that bring them close to failing to achieve their expected destines. For example, Ruggiero is alerted by Astolfo about Alcina’s manipulations of men that she wants for lovers, nonetheless he lets himself be fooled by her soon after and is captured in her enchantments. He needs to be saved by Melissa, the sorcerer who guides him and Bradamente to the fulfillment of their prophecy. Likewise, Harry is easily played upon by the Death Eaters that successfully lead him to the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix, needing to be saved by his guide, Dumbledore. The response these mistakes draw from the readers is one of sympathy with these characters, because they have probably lived a similar situation in their lives, even if the consequences would not have been so grand, letting them understand the impossibility of these heroes always making the right choice.

The two heroes are also connected in that both have inside knowledge of what represents the evil side in both stories. Orlando Furioso tells a tale of Christianity versus Paganism, the latter being the evil side. Ruggiero is originally a pagan that in the end converts to Christianity, and being the hero of the story, shows to the readers that the side he chose is the right one. In Harry Potter the hero is aligned with the good side from beginning, however, he has been marked as an equal by the villain, and therefore has knowledge and abilities that are not among what are considered good qualities, like the ability to speak Parseltongue and to hear Voldemort’s thoughts. As pointed out by Dumbledore in Chamber of Secrets, it is Harry’s choice that shows his true values (333) and points to the readers which is supposed to be the good side. The heroes’ morality in something that was very important at the time Orlando Furioso was written, because the society was extremely influenced by Christianity, therefore Ruggiero had to represent these values. Even though Harry Potter was not written in the same context, it still needs takes into consideration the influence the hero will have on the readers, especially the young children who formed the majority of its public. The fact that the hero is representing what is considered morally correct in both stories is significant, because that is usually the character that the readers look up to in order to understand that world and what is right or wrong.

Besides the similitudes between the heroes of both texts, the world in which both stories happen is one where we, normal non-magical people live, but that is inhabited by magical creatures, wizards, and sorcerers that have the power to influence our world while living in their own magical existence. This blending of the two worlds is very entrancing because it allows the readers to immerse themselves in the story very deeply, making it possible to almost believe in the existence of this magical universe around us, unlike other fantasy worlds that are totally different or separated from the real place we know and do not allow such a profound connection. The appearance in Harry Potter of a famous place like Kings Cross with commoners like us in it makes a real link to the readers’ world and allows their imagination to firmly believe in the existence of the wizardry community. This connection between real and fantastic world is explored in Orlando Furioso with the same tactics. While flying on the back of the hippogriff, Ruggiero notices that “they’ve passed the Hercules’ Gates” (VI, 17), which is a landscape mark belonging to the non-magical world. For the readers of Orlando Furioso, the magical world viewed by the hero is almost within reach. This feeling is fomented in these works by the recognizable places of the readers’ world in them.

The Harry Potter series is a work that has certainly been influenced by many books and authors. Nonetheless, it is possible to see the influence of Orlando Furioso in the way that Rowling brings back this hero with whom her readers feel connected to by his normal, humble origins and human flaws; and by giving life again to this world that is a fusion between the world as we know it, and the one where the readers would like to inhabit, making it seems like the magical world is right here, almost within our reach. The Harry Potter series recall the hero figure of Orlando Furioso adapting it to contemporary culture and the target audience, but what is clear is that the effect both heroes have in the reader are the same; Ruggiero and Harry excite a feeling of affinity in the readers that guide them into the story and allows their imagination to be enchanted by their world, so much that they always want to go back there.

Bibliography

Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso. Trans. David R. Slavitt. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009. Ebook.

Borges, Jorge Luis. The Book of Imaginary Beings. Trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni. London: Penguin Books, 1974. Ebook.

Dendle, Peter. “Monsters, Creatures, and Pets at Hogwarts Animal Stewardship in the World of Harry Potter.” Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter. Ed. Elizabeth E. Heilman. New York: Routledge, 2008. 163-176. Ebook.

Nigg, Joe. The Book of Gryphons. Apple-wood Books, 1982. Ebook.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Scholastic Press, 1999. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. New York: Scholastic Press, 1999. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York: Scholastic Press, 1999. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Scholastic Press, 2000. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic Press, 2003. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York: Scholastic Press, 2006. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Scholastic Press, 2009. EBook.

[Final Paper] Diana Warwick and Sue Bridehead as heirs of Milton’s Eve

In Paradise Lost by John Milton, Eve gains pivotal importance as a character when she eats from the forbidden fruit and sets in motion the fall of mankind; likewise, in the novels Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, Diana Warwick and Sue Bridehead are vital characters who trigger many of the events in the novels through their desire for knowledge and independence. The three women are connected not only by this, but also by the temptation to assuage their vanity, their struggle in choosing between the spirit and the flesh. Eve, Diana and Sue seek to find their own identities in their male dominated environments, where they are seen by men as the necessary companions for their external completion. According to Luiz Sá, Jacques Derrida’s concepts of Destinerrance "unites under one heading destiny, inheritance, and errancy" (102) which can be applied to the connection between these three characters; it can be said that Diana and Sue are heirs of Milton and Eve through Meredith and Hardy. In Diana of the Crossways and Jude the Obscure, Diana and Sue inherit from Eve not only the desire to learn and be independent, but also the supposed blame of being the cause of men’s falls and mistakes, they are the new Eves of their societies.

In Paradise Lost Eve is not allowed to take part in the conversations between the visiting angels and Adam. When Raphael is sent by God to warn them about the presence of an enemy in Eden he is told to “Converse with Adam” (5.230); later, when Michael is sent to show Adam the future, he “drenched [Eve’s] eyes” (11.367) so that she would sleep while they talked. In a similar way, Diana and Sue are kept from positions of power and decision making, even if they have some access to knowledge. Diana is an intelligent woman who knows a lot about politics, but she can only have the position of hostess in her own home, throwing dinner parties where politics, literature and other subjects are discussed; she cannot be a member of the Parliament herself and her published novels are signed with a pen name . Sue is also intelligent and had more opportunities to study and learn than Jude had; however, she needs the endorsement of a man to get a position of training teacher. Furthermore, Jude withholds from her the information that he is married; he purposefully avoids telling her something that is essential for her to make decisions about her own life. Diana and Sue are, in a way, in a better position than Eve because they have a chance to acquire more knowledge than she had before eating from the Tree of Knowledge; nonetheless, their situation is very similar, Diana and Sue, like Eve, do not truly retain the power to choose as they wish because society imposes their ideals and beliefs on them; Eve was put to sleep, Diana and Sue need to submit to their husbands, the church and society rules.

Marriage is an important discussion in Diana and Jude, the lives of Diana and Sue revolve around the need to be married in order to be respected by society. Redworth and Jude see the two women as the companions they need for their completion, in the way that Adam asks God for a companion (PL book 8) and later decides to eat form the Tree of knowledge so that he and Eve could stay together (PL book 9). Diana marries Mr. Warwick following an implusive need to distance herself from her best friend's husband who had made advances towards her. She understands that the only way to avoid living with her friend is to have her own home, which she can achieve only by marriage. Sue marries Phillotson in an impulsive move to distance herself from Jude as soon as she learns that he is married. These impulsive decisions prove to have been wrong for both women because they are too different from their husbands and cannot have a real connection to them. Eve does not choose to be Adam's wife, but she also does not feel like she has an equal relationship with him and when Satan, disguised as a serpent, plays on her vanity she chooses to appease the flesh, in detriment of the spirit, which would be obdience to God.

Following in the footsteps of their predecesor, Diana and Sue also give in to their vanity in ways that gain society's disaproval and their banishement from its good grace. Diana not only has an affair and abandons her husband to live on her own, she also sells the secrets of the man she falls in love with to assuage her vanity of being better informed than a famous newspaper editor,  she has a vision of "Mr. Tonans petrified by the great news, drinking it, and confessing her ahead of him in the race for secrets" (4478). Sue also shows her vanity in many instances, for example when, after she is already married, she writes Jude that if he wants he can love her (3133). Sue's abbandonment of her husband and her unmarried life with Jude also places her as an outcast from society. Diana and Sue regret their decisions and choose to live according to what is expected of them by marrying respectably and being good wives; however, they do not find the contentment and peace that Eve finds with Adam when they leave Eden for Earth. The difference in their feelings adds meaning to the original ideas in Paradise Lost and are in agreement with Milton's ideas on marriage expressed in his The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, in which he advocates that a marriage where there is "indisposition, unfitnes, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable" should not be enforced on any couple.

Eve is blamed for eating from the forbbiden fruit and leading to the loss of Eden by both her and Adam, who also eats from the fruit to accompay her. It is ironic that Sue, while asking Phillotson to let her go live with Jude, also accuses Eve of being the cause of her problems and wishes she had never fallen, she tells him that "no poor woman has ever wished more than I that Eve had not fallen" (4302). The irony is accentuated by the fact that as soon as Phillotson lets her go she is also blamed for the misfortunes that he encounters becasue of this. Like Eve and Sue, Diana is also blamed by society for Mr. Warwick's decline in health, they argue that he is sick because of her abandonment and that if she went back to him, he would certainly get better.

It is clear that Eve, Diana and Sue are connected to one another by their personalities and the events in their lives. Analyzing their conection through the concept of Destinerrance it can be said that Milton's Eve errs and meets Diana and Sue, even though they were not the intended destiny the author had for her. Diana and Sue are heirs of Eve through Meredith and Hardy, who are in their turn heirs of Milton through the tradition that they have elected to be a part of. Diana and Sue are the new Eves of their society because they choose to search for knowledge and freedom, trying to find their identities independetly of a man and marriage. They defy society as Eve defied God's orders and the angels' and Adam's counsels for caution. Eve finds peace in the end with Adam because she is now on equal footing to him and she can reach her inner paradise. Diana and Sue do not have such a happy end, they have to choose between the life they really wish for and that would banish them from society, and a life of contentement at most which is the price they pay to be respect in their enviroments. The choice they make is to appease society and become good, obdient wives, which shows that they are heirs of Eve not only becasue of who they are, but also because society in general still expects women to present a certain behaviour in order to avoid being another Eve, destined to fall and take men with them.

Works Cited

Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. Ed. Amy M. King. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003. Ebook.

Meredith, George. Diana of the Crossways. United States of America, 2004. Project Gutenberg. Ebook.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. Philip Pullman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Ebook.

Milton, John. "The Doctrine & Discipline of Divorce." The John Milton Reading Room. Ed. Thomas H. Luxon. Dartmouth College, 2014. Web.

Sá, Luiz F. F. "Shalimar, the Ex-Centric: Rushdie Reads Milton Through Derrida." Itinerários, 37 (2013): 97-109.

Literature and Other Arts and Media - The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

[Final Paper] Cultural identity representation through food in Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms

Chorus of Mushrooms is the first novel by Hiromi Goto’s and it deals with themes that would be present in all her subsequent works. The novel relates the struggles of three generations of women while they try to adapt to the life of a Japanese immigrant in Canada. Goto makes use of food and the eating habits of these three women to represent how each of them react to being in a space “between cultures” (Hinnerova, 68), and how they construct and understand their identities and their places in the multicultural space of Canada. (Hinnerova, Gunew, Padolsky)

One of the narrators, Naoe, is an old Japanese woman that refuses to be assimilated by the Canadian culture. She speaks only Japanese, even if her words turn out to be only “noises in this place I call a home” (179). She regrets seeing her daughter, Keiko, renounce her Japanese identity, and she sees this happening through the eating habits she adopts in Canada: “Keiko. My daughter who has forsaken identity. Forsaken! So biblical, but it suits her, my little convert. Converted from rice and daikon to weiners and beans." (185) Keiko’s preference for Western food is a reflection of her “fear of being perceived as different” (Hinnerova, 77) and, therefore, being excluded from the community she is trying to insert herself and her family into.

Keiko and her husband decided to blend in the Canadian culture when they immigrate to Alberta; they desired to see their daughter, Muriel, grow up as a Canadian. Therefore, they banned anything that is related to Japan from their house, they would not speak the language and they did not teach it to Muriel. When the young girl has a friend over the house, Keiko leaves them “Oreos for a snack” (1199), something completely different from the gingko nuts that Naoe and her brother used to eat when they were growing up in Japan. The only exception to the rule were the Jap Oranges that Keiko bought for Christmas. However, when Muriel eats too many of them, and her skin begins to turn yellow, Keiko’s reaction shows her fear of being identified as Japanese: “‘Yellow’, she was muttering, [...] ‘Yellow, she's turningyellow she'sturningyellow’" (1175).

According to Hinnerova (74), it is the Japanese food that Naoe sneaks inside the house that gives her the strength “to oppose her child [...] and it constitutes a link to her cultural heritage and her memories that she is nor willing to cast off.” It is also through these secret Japanese treats that she is able to form a connection with her granddaughter and pass to her some knowledge of the cultural heritage that Muriel has been denied access to. It is while she is in her grandmother’s “bed of feasts” (256) that Muriel/Murasaki hears the stories from Japan and establishes her connection with the Japanese culture.

When Naoe decides to leave the family in search of adventures and her true self, Keiko’s life is disrupted “because she suddenly realized her total uprootedness and the artificiality of her constructed identity.” (Hinnerova, 79). The only thing that is capable of bringing Naoe back to reality is the Japanese dinner prepared by her daughter. Keiko’s feelings of belonging in the Japanese culture are revived by the ceremony of eating Tonkatsu with her family and finally teaching her daughter something from their cultural heritage, how to eat using ohashi (chopsticks).

According to Scholliers (7), the sentiments of belonging to a group is not only closed related to the consumption of food and drink, but also to the “preparations, the organization, the taboos, the company, the location, the pleasure, the time, the language, the symbols, the representation, the form, the meaning.” These ideas can be seen in Chorus of Mushrooms when the granddaughter, Muriel shares Japanese food with her grandmother, hidden in her bedroom; and when the Tonkatsu family sits down to eat Japanese food together for the first time, finally establishing a connection between them, even though they do not speak during this dinner, they share more with each other than when they used to eat Western food and talked about things that “would never have the power to linger.” (1269)

Food is used by Goto as a metaphor for these characters cultural identities, they refuse to be a part of a certain culture and embrace another through their choices of what they eat. The three women finally accept their place in between cultures in the end of the novel: Keiko has finally allowed herself to enjoy a Japanese meal once in a while, but she is still connected to Canada through Western food; Muriel learns how to cook Japanese food, but she does not abandon the culture she was brought up to belong to, and eats a variety of different things from both cultures; Naoe learns that she has to embrace the Canadian culture too and leaves behind her stubbornness that only allowed her to eat and get involved with Japanese related things. Through their choices of what to eat, the three generations of women in Chorus of Mushrooms identify themselves with the culture space that belongs to them, not entirely Japanese, and not entirely Canadian, but a space that encompasses both.

Bibliography

Hinnerova, Katarina. “Food as a Transcultural Metaphor: Food Imagery and Ethnocultural Identities in Contemporary Multicultural Women Writing in Canada”. Diss. Masaryk University of Brno, 2007. Dissertations and Theses. Web. 13 Oct 2013

Scholliers. Peter. Food, Drink and Identity. Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe Since the Middle Ages. Ed. Scholliers, Peter. Oxford: Berg, 2001, 3-23.

Gunew, Sneja. "Introduction: multicultural translations of food, bodies, language”. Journal of Intercultural Studies 21.3 (2000): 227-237. Web. 13 Oct 2013

Padolsky, Enoch. “You are where you eat: ethnicity, food and cross-cultural spaces”. Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal 37.2 (2005): 19-31. Web. 13 Oct 2013

Goto, Hiromi. Chorus of Mushrooms. NeWest Press: Alberta. 1994. Ebook.

The “single effect” in the short stories “The Dead”, “The Chrysanthemums” and “Desiree’s Baby”

According to Ricardo Piglia, “a short story always tells two stories”, the second story is constructed in a fragmented form hidden in the first story and the surprise comes to the readers when the ending of this second story emerges (63). The emergence of the second story creates what Poe called “the single effect” of a short story, and reveals to the readers the “undercurrent of significance” (Marler) that is concealed in the obvious plot. The second story brings new and deeper meaning to the apparent plot and poses new questions to the readers, instead of giving final answers about its significance.

The short story “The Dead” by James Joyce presents the readers with what appears to be a very simple plot: a traditional family and friends’ party that goes on as it had the previous years. The characters Gabriel and Gretta seem to be a common loving couple as their easy banter and the support they give each other lead the readers to think. However, the mood of the short story changes after the song “The Lass of Aughrim” and that is the point where the second story emerges. From this moment on it is clear to the readers that “The Dead” is telling more than the story of a party. After listening to his wife’s love story and to her description of the passion that moved her former lover, Gabriel reflects about his own life and the fact that “he had never felt like that himself towards any woman”. The realization comes to him that he has been dead in life, that he and everyone else were “becoming shades”, and this gives new meanings to his earlier discomfort in the midst of the merry making at his aunts’ party. It is only after this epiphany that the readers can see the subtle hints for this second story wreathed in the entire plot, such as the constant mentions of dead people and Gabriel’s insecurity and hesitance in expressing himself.

In a similar way, “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck has a very simple plot: a couple that lives in the countryside and a tinker that passes by their farm offering his services while the wife is gardening. Elisa initially seems to be happy and satisfied with her life; she tends to her chrysanthemums garden with great care and is very cheerful about dining out with her husband. When the tinker shows up the readers encounter some hints as to the truth of her feelings, for she is initially dismissive of the visitor, but when he pays attention to her flowers she glows as if he had shown an interest in her and she expresses a desire to live a life like his: “It must be very nice. I wish women could do such things.” The turning point is when Elisa sees the chrysanthemums she had given to the tinker abandoned on the road; apparently he discarded the flowers, but kept the pot. Elisa’s epiphany happens at this moment because she is finally able to see her life clearly; she understands that she cannot have the life of the tinker, she feels trapped just like her flowers are limited to their garden bed. The sense of entrapment is present in the story from the beginning, for example in the description of the valley as “a closed pot”, but the significance of this undercurrent meaning is only made completely clear when the second story emerges with Elisa’s epiphany.

Another example of the “single effect” can be found on “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin. This short story is unlike the two mentioned before because the second story does not emerge through an epiphany of one of the characters, it has more to do with the readers than with the characters. In “Desiree’s Baby” what reveals the hidden nuance of the short story is an ironical reversal of the readers’ expectations for its ending. “Desiree’s Baby” begins by making the readers believe that a happy ending is to come by using a narrative form reminiscent of fairy tales. When Desiree “awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace”, it becomes clear that this expectation will not be fulfilled. Yet, the readers are once again misled for they believe that Desiree is the one with black ancestry. At the very ending of the short story, it is finally shown that Armand was the one with black blood in his veins. This ironical change of direction finally justifies all the half spoken hints that appear throughout the story, such as Armand’s description as “dark, handsome”. The single effect is created by the readers’ ultimate perception of the irony of the story and the dangers of judging by appearances.

Finally, it is interesting to notice that the three stories end without a defined closing. The readers are not told if the epiphanies from Gabriel and Elisa are going to bring about any changes in their lives. Likewise, the readers are not told what happens with the characters of “Desiree’s Baby” after the events narrated in the short story. The readers are left with the varying possibilities of what could come next; there is the potential for many different outcomes, but the short stories do not clarify what happens and this maintains the “single effect” alive for the readers. These short stories provide the readers with a second story that is underneath the obvious plot and it is this second story that contains the main meaning and leads the readers to reflect on the story and what it is telling. The “undercurrent of significance” (Marler) and its revelation is what involves the readers in the narrative and creates the “single effect”.

Bibliography

Chopin, Kate. “Desiree’s Baby”

Joyce, James. “The Dead”

Marler, Robert F. “From Tale to Short Story: The Emergence of a New Genre in the 1850's”. American Literature. 46.2 (1974): 153-169. Web. 26 Jun. 2013.

Piglia, Ricardo. "Theses on the Short Story". New Left Review 70 (2011): 63-66. Web. 26 Jun. 2013.

Steinbeck, John. “The Chrysanthemums”

[Essay] The Tempest by William Shakespeare as a representation of the theater

William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is often described as his most elusive work. It has been read as “a romance of reconciliation, a Christian allegory of forgiveness, a meditation on the powers of the imagination and the limits of art” (Lindley 1) among other readings. These different interpretations can be supported by elements in the text, which makes all of them valid and does not allow one reading to be pointed out as the right one. Although the play can be read in many different ways, the similarity the story being told has to theater itself is a relevant reading of the playwright’s work. The Tempest is a reflection on theater and art and constantly reminds us of the made-up quality of what we are reading while highlighting its reformative power in the real world. From the beginning of the play when Prospero uses his art to cause the shipwreck to the epilogue, in which the character, and not the actor, is the one closing the play, we are presented with many metatheatrical elements that emphasize this reading of the play. (Egan, Johnston)

In the first scene of the first act of The Tempest we watch a terrible storm in the sea and the fight of mariners to avoid the wreck of their ship. The King of Naples, Alonso, and his companions are not happy with the tempest and the threat it represents to their lives and want to talk to the master of the ship. The boatswain tells them to go back below deck because they are not helping them by standing in the way. Even when Gonzalo remembers him that he is talking to a king he is still adamant that they should leave. On the next scene we learn that the storm was actually caused by Prospero, it was not a natural occurrence: “MIRANDA: If by your art, my dearest father, you have / Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them” (1.2.1-2). Prospero orchestrates the storm, being careful not to cause harm to those in the ship, as a director or a playwright orchestrates a scene in a play. Here we can already recognize Prospero as the one who will direct all the other characters, through his art, into following the necessary steps for them to better themselves.

Prospero proceeds to tell his daughter, Miranda, the story of how they came to live in the island. He tells her of how he was betrayed and lost his dukedom, but confesses that he was not a good ruler because he was more interested in his books than in his duties as a Duke. According to Johnston, Prospero’s admission of his own fault in losing his position reminds us that “whatever the powers and wonders of the illusion, one has to maintain a firm sense of what it is for, what it can and cannot do, and where it is most appropriate” for art cannot substitute life. He then puts Miranda to sleep by use of his magic so that he can talk to Ariel, the spirit that serves him. The dramatic, metatheatrical aspect of Prospero’s magic is again evidenced when he asks Ariel: “PROSPERO: Hast thou, spirit, performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?” (1.2.193-4), the tempest was no more than a performance by the spirit. The servant gives a report of the wreck and the ship passengers and is then requested to continue to help Prospero, which is actually an order since Ariel is not free but bound to the exiled duke by his magic.

As the play progresses we learn that Prospero uses his powers to control the islander Caliban who, according to Egan, knows that Prospero’s powers are not natural to him, but gained with his studies (173): “CALIBAN: Remember first to possess his books; for without them he’s but a sot, as I am” (3.2.83-5). Caliban is calling attention to the fact that without his books, Prospero is just a human being like any other, as any dramatist is a human being offstage.

Prospero also uses his art to contrive the meeting between Miranda and Ferdinand, the king’s son, and to prevent the murder of Alonso and Gonzalo by the hands of Sebastian and Antonio. The way that Prospero conducts the events in the island is reminiscent of the way the writer or the director controls a play, he is a “magician as well as a dramatist” (Egan 174). The betrayed duke guides the events and the people on the island to fit his own purpose of revenge and of transformation, for he intends to make those who wronged him see their mistakes and alter their attitudes as the banquet scene shows: “ARIEL: But remember […] that you three from Milan did supplant good Prospero […] for which foul deed the powers […] have incensed the seas and shore, yea, all the creatures against your peace” (3.3.68-75). Prospero’s art, or the theater, is an instrument of renovation and improvement for those involved in it, even if you are simply part of the audience for the spectacle.

The epilogue of The Tempest is unique amongst Shakespeare’s plays because the one speaking is not the actor, released from his characterization and asking for applause, but Prospero himself addresses the audience from the island and asks them to get involved in the art of the theater and send him back home: “PROSPERO: I must be here confined by you, or sent to Naples, let me not, since I have my dukedom got and pardoned the deceiver, dwell in this bare island, by your spell” (Epilogue 4-8). As Egan asserts, “the play’s art has no terminal boundaries but rather subsumes the ‘real’, extra-theatrical world of its spectators, supplanting their sense of reality with its own” (173).

The Tempest implies that the art of theater has power of reformation because it “reminds us of things we may too easily forget; it can liberate and encourage youthful wonder and excitement at all the diverse richness of life” (Johnston). During the play, Prospero constantly asks Miranda if she is paying attention to what he is saying, “Dost thou attend me?” (1.2.78). This could also be seen as a way to ask the audience if they are paying attention, because theater can serve as a way of bettering oneself, but, as the epilogue shows, it is necessary to go back to real life afterwards and apply what you have learned in the world of illusion to your reality as a human being.

Bibliography

Egan, Robert. “The Rough Magic: Perspectives of Art and Morality in The Tempest.” Shakespeare Quartely 23.3 (1972): 171-182. Web. 19 Jan. 2013.

Johnston, Ian. "You Can Go Home Again, Can't You? An Introduction to The Tempest". Vancouver Island University. Nanaimo, BC. Lecture. Web. 19 Jan. 2013.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Ed. David Lindley. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 2002.