The Tempest

When I first read The Tempest I enjoyed the magical element of it but I didn't fully understand it. After going through it and seeing it staged I have gradually started to understand it more, the relationships, situations and the settings have all become clear. I think this is typical of Shakespearean plays now, for most actors. It's easier to understand once you get up and start staging it.

The research that we have done about Shakespeare and the world he was born into has really helped me when acting. It's helped me understand the context of The Tempest and I have found it useful for understanding the story in more depth and what the underlying messages are.

The major theme's of The Tempest are:

• Worlds colliding
• Power and Control
• Magic

I play Iris, a Sprite. My impressions of her are that she is:

• Loyal
• Magical
• Hard working
• Excited

My notes on my scene and what I am saying

My notes on my scene and what I am saying

My notes on my scene and what I am saying

Themes, Motifs and Symbols within The Tempest and how the play echoes the times of Shakespeare

• Shakespeare wrote plays that suited what people wanted to watch

• The Tempest was written in 1611 and appealed to King James, his nobles and the London public

• It was a "mature" play that included fantasy, philosophy, spectacle and humour

• The Tempest is thought to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote entirely by himself before he left London for his hometown Stratford

• Themes of The Tempest
• The Illusion of Justice

• The Tempest tells a story of an unjust act

• The idea of justice in the play is all about the view of one character that controls what  the other characters would do

• Prospero says he is the victim of injustice and is righting the wrongs, yet his justice and injustice towards Ariel and Caliban are hypocritical, he sees wrong in his brother taking his power but does not care about enslaving Ariel and Caliban to help him achieve what he wants

• The Difficulty of Distinguishing "Men" from "Monsters"

• Caliban's nature is unclear

• Prospero and Miranda both think that the education they gave him threw away his brutish side, yet they still see him as brutish in the play

• Caliban's inhuman side forces out the human side, the good nature put on him

• All of his well-expressed speeches are contrasted with the drunken, vile behaviour he portrays

• Colonialism

• The Tempest is thought to be a comment on Colonialism

• The colonies of the English Empire were at their earliest stages when it was written

• Shakespeare would have read accounts of the settlers in Virgina, in 1610, who would have perished if the local Indians had not shown them how to fish and cultivate the local plants

• They, as Caliban also did, regretted their welcoming of the new settlers who became their oppressors

• The enslavement of indigenous people and Africans within South America and the Caribbean had began when Shakespeare was alive

• The Allure of Ruling a Colony

• The island is nearly uninhabited which gives the characters a sense of endless possibilities

• Prospero found it ideal to school his daughter on an isolated island

• Motifs of The Tempest
• Masters and Servants

• In The Tempest nearly every scene portrays the relationship of someone with power and someone who succumbs to this power

• Water and Drowning

• The play is full of references to water, it intensifies the symbolic importance of the actual tempest

• Mysterious Noises

• A lot of the noises within the play are musical, mostly Ariel's

• Symbols of The Tempest
• The Tempest

• It symbolises the suffering of Prospero during the time when his power was taken from him, which he imposes on others

• He must make others suffer as he has done so they will learn from the suffering, like he has done

• It also symbolises Prospero's huge power and how he can use it

• Prospero's Books

• They are also a symbol of his power

• They symbolise his want to withdraw from the world, it was his devotion to study that caused his power to be taken by his brother, which also makes him content to raise Miranda on an isolated island