Macbeth and the Tempest

Macbeth and the Tempest

Sydney definition: the tragedies have a didactic purpose; Macbeth teaches us how even a good man can be tempted to power and then defeated by its tough mechanisms. A tragedy describes a rise and fall of an individual. Its plot is more linear than a comic plot, since it concentrates on the chain of cause and effect that ends in hero's death.

Fletcher definition: romance are the last Shakespeare's tragicomedies, as in comedy love is the central theme, music plays an important role, and the play ends with the marriage of the lovers. The plots to murder prospero and Alonso are potentially tragic events which, through Prospero's magic powers, do not end tragically, and the play concludes with reconciliation.

There a similar theme in the 2 plots: the struggle for and the maintenance of power. Macbeth is a tragedy showing the decline and fall of the central character from a position of strength to catastrophe. The hero is a usurper who is terrified at being confronted with the reality of his murderous acts. His weakness drives him to a series of gratuitous crimes and his political incompetence plunges Scotland into disorder. The supernatural keeps braking through and there are times in which Macbeth seems a victim as well as a tyrant. The imagery of the play and its linear plot all foreshadow the tragic outcome.

The tempest is a tragicomedy. It deals with a tragic theme, but the outcome is in keeping with comedy. The theme of authority and usurpation is dealt with both in the main plot and in the comic sub-plot. The hero is the ideal renaissance prince, who can dominate his subjects through punishment and forgiveness.

Power in Elizabethan society

The renaissance saw a remarkable intensification of the monarchy. The court became the centre of power and political intrigue. The Italian Machiavelli analyzes politics as they were advising a monarch on the necessity of political realism and ability. One of the man flaws was weakness and a lack of control. The ruler must be cruel and look for commanding and increase, when possible, the confidence and love of his people.  He was giving realistic advice in a tough and dangerous world. An usurper can support the throne provided he employs use and trying to substitute it with benefits for his subjects. Shakespeare set his comedies in a remote context because the monarchy in his period didn't tolerate direct criticism and live theatre was subjects to restriction.

Colonization and power: the origin of he word Caliban

The prosperity of Elizabethan age depended on foreign trade. Sea trade made contact with unknown people. The term cannibal was invented by Columbus. Columbus expresses the belief that the cannibals might have captured some men belonging to the tribe of arawakan Indians, and because they didn't return, the arawakans would say they had been eaten. Fantasy about man-eating is as old as human history and appears when meet alien peoples. The term canibal, substituted the term anthropophagi used by homer and Herodotus to indicate people beyond black sea.  The word, which meant manioc eater or valiant warrior, became synonymous with man eater and with Caribe. So naming became a means for inventing the identity of the Other and one of the main instruments and justifications for the conquest and expropriation that followed. They established that people were man eaters. Montaigne idealised the inhabitants of the new world, creating the myth of the noble savage.

The Tempest

A storm strikes a ship carrying Alonso, Ferdinand, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Stefano, and Trinculo, who are on their way to Italy. They encounter a violent storm, or Tempest. Everyone jumps overboard and are washed aground on a strange island inhabited by the magician Prospero who has conjured up the storm. Prospero is in fact the rightful Duke of Milan who had been put to sea to die with his three-year-old daughter Miranda by his brother, Antonio who was in league with of King Alonso. Prospero and Miranda live in a cave on the island which is also inhabited by Ariel, a gentle spirit of the air Sycorax had imprisoned in the trunk of a tree. Prospero released Ariel and made him his agent, and the ugly, half human Caliban. Caliban deeply resents Prospero as he believes that he is the rightful ruler of the island. He plots with some of King Alonso's company to murder Prospero. Miranda and Ferdinand fall deeply in love. Ariel reproaches King Alonso for his previous plotting against Prospero. The play ends in an atmosphere of general reconciliation: Miranda and Ferdinand marry, Prospero forgives his brother and returns to Milan to take possession of his lost dukedom. Caliban is left alone on the island and Ariel is released, free to wander as he wishes.

The dramatic technique

The plot is set in an exotic place, these works are referred to as tragicomedies because the setting and the situations, which in the tragedy lead in disaster, here resolve in the manner of comedy, with an happy end. The Prospero's loss of his dukedom is a potentially situation which seems to finish in death and revenge. The plot is different in structure, since Shakespeare adheres to the classic unities: the entire action is confined to the island.

The theme: the tempest can be read in different ways:

- as a fairy tail between white magic (pospero and ariel) and black magic (sycorax and caliban)

- as the opposition between nurture (civilization | prospero) ad nature (the natural state of man | caliban). The theme was of great interest at that time. Montaigne created the myth of noble savage, based on the idea of the essential goodness and innocence of man when unspoilt by civilization. The opposite view felt it was the duty of the colonizers to educate the "savages".

- as a metaphor of the dynamics of power in Tudor England. Power could be manifested either through spectacular public executions, which were meant to prevent rebellion and arose loyalty through fear, or through the creation of fear and anxiety followed by spectacular public pardons, showing that the cruelty of the prince could be balanced by his generosity.  Which arose loyalty into gratitude.

The merchant of Venice

It's not a satirical comedy, its plot turns around love and disguise, with an happy ending for some of the characters.

Venice was considered the most important trading centre in the world. The play centred on trade, on taking chances with the wealth deriving from sea trips and on the growing practice of money-lending. The catholic church condemned the usury as immoral. Since Christians nobles and merchants needed to borrow money for their trading enterprises , the practice of usury as often assigned to Jewish money lenders, whose position as outsiders barred them from alternative ways of earning a living. Shylock, the jewish usurer, mirrors the ambiguous attitude of the Elizabethans towards the Jews and usury, an activity that was moral condemned but accepted in practice. [plot: borrow money, pound of flesh, debt, the law of Venice is on his side]

Shylock is not a flat character driven by a fixation with money. He is a complex ure, an outsider who is driven to revenge by a strong psychological motivation: the Christian's insults and the loss of his daughter.

Machiavelli / Prospero's conduct

He disapprove his brother's affection, that he neglects his duties as prince to devote his studies, that he allows another person to be more powerful. He approve that prospero regains power by frightening his enemies, their affection through forgiveness, that he has everything in control thanks to his power.

Machiavelli / Macbeth's conduct

He approve his ambition. Disapprove the fact that his choices and actions are guided by his wife, by deceitful magic and fear, his lack of self control, as a king he doesn't know when punish and reward and the progressive loss of control over people and events.