The Tempest Unit 2 Area Of Study 1: The Text, The Reader and Their Context

Transcription

1 The Tempest Unit 2 Area Of Study 1: The Text, The Reader and Their Context Week Day Activity Homework 1 Mon 13/7 Staff Day Thurs 16/7 Fri 17/7 Story Overview and Characters Themes to Ideas Mapping Character Web (30min) Critical Reading (90 min) 2 Mon 20/7 Year Level Event Wed 22/7 Act 1 Close Reading and Passage Analysis Fri 24/7 Passage Analysis Tutorial 3 Mon 27/7 Act 2 Close Reading and Passage Analysis Thurs 30/7 Act 3 Close Reading and Passage Analysis Fri 31/7 Leadership Seminar Act 1 Scene Review (30 min) Act 1 Passage Analysis (90 min) Act 2 Scene Review (30 min) Act 2 Passage Analysis (90 min) Act 3 Scene Review (30 min) Act 3 Passage Analysis (90 min) 4 Mon 3/8 RSC Film Viewing Wed 5/8 Fri 7/8 RSC Film Viewing Act 4 Close Reading and Passage Analysis Act 4 Scene Review (30 min) Act 4 Passage Analysis (90 min) 5 Mon 10/8 Act 5 Close Reading and Passage Analysis Thurs 13/8 Fri 14/8 Practice SAC Passage Analysis Forbidden Planet Film Viewing Act 5 Scene Review (30 min) Act 5 Passage Analysis (90 min) 6 Mon 17/8 Scene Reinvention Workshop Wed 19/8 Fri 21/8 Scene Reinvention Workshop SAC - Scene Performances Scene Scripting and Rehearsal (2 hours) 7 Mon 24/8 Prac SAC Feedback Thurs 27/8 Fri 28/8 SAC Passage Analysis SAC Passage Analysis Prac SAC Reflection (1 hour) Passage Revision (1 hour)

2 Unit Outline This area of study focuses on the interrelationships between the text, readers and their social and cultural contexts. Students reflect upon their own background and experience in developing their response to the representation of social and cultural concerns and values of a text from a past era. Students explore the text to understand its point of view and what it endorses and questions. They identify the language and the representations in the text which reflect the period, ideas and concerns of the text. Students respond critically and creatively to reflect or comment on the text. Key knowledge evidence in the language that the text reflects a particular era; ways in which characters, situations and ideas convey the social and cultural concerns of a past era; aspects of society, ideas and behaviour which the text appears to endorse or question; the extent to which the text enables the student to imagine or understand other contexts; approaches to developing both critical and creative responses. Key skills identify the social and cultural contexts of the text; comment on how the text represents its social and cultural contexts; develop critical and creative responses to the text. Assessment Journal (10 percent of Semester Report) Analytical Focus: In this unit I am focusing on the way in which you practice and revise extended analytical writing tasks. There are five writing tasks (50 marks) that you will complete over the unit and these will be assessed to establish the journal mark. The assessment will be based on the pieces you write and also on a reflection and self-assessment process you will use for each one. There is also a practice essay (20 marks) which will contribute to your journal mark. Creative Involvement: Much of the unit will involve you undertaking drama type activities in class to work through scenes and come to terms with the ideas of the play. I will be making careful observations of each of you during this time and keeping track of your progress and involvement. (30 marks) Creative Response (15 percent of Semester Report) In a group you will have a chance to reinvent and reinterpret a scene from the play in a new location, making changes relevant to the location and reinvention you have undertaken. Your piece will explore at least one of the core ideas or preoccupations in the original text and use as much of the original script as makes sense for your reinvention. Your scene should be five minutes long as a minimum and ten minutes as a maximum. Passage Analysis (25 percent of Semester Report) The major written assessment for this unit is a passage analysis essay. This is an aspect of the Year 12 program that contributes to your results significantly so it is good to begin practicing it now with some additional time to refine your thinking and writing skills. You will have two sessions to plan and write a response to the text based on three key passages This task will draw heavily on your weekly homework.

3 Story Outline, Characters and Ideas Storyline We will have looked at an outline of the story of The Tempest together. You can reflect on your holiday homework task to consolidate your understanding of the storyline. It is important to have a concrete understanding of what happens when and to who so that you can locate passages in context. Characters Just as important as the storyline are the characters. Having reviewed the storyline I would like you to make a detailed character web. Your character web should: - indicate each character in the play, - link characters into the groups they belong to - indicate the way characters interact with the other characters. You could indicate the relationships along the line joining the two characters. I would also suggest using colour to help your diagram make sense. Do a better job than this:

4 Ideas The core of this unit is exploring the ideas in the play. By exploring the ideas we, as readers, can make sense of what the play means to us today but also consider what the play may mean to other audiences as well. This may mean audiences at the time of the play being written or it may mean audiences in other contexts all together. We will begin considering these ideas together but you will need to do some wider reading around these concepts. I have taken a selection of notes on some of the core ideas from critical analysis available on the web. Motifs: These are elements in the story that are central to exploring the main ideas. It helps to know of the significance of these before you begin. Strat by reading through these notes and then move onto the three core ideas included below. Masters and Servants Nearly every scene in the play either explicitly or implicitly portrays a relationship between a figure that possesses power and a figure that is subject to that power. The play explores the master-servant dynamic most harshly in cases in which the harmony of the relationship is threatened or disrupted, as by the rebellion of a servant or the ineptitude of a master. For instance, in the opening scene, the servant (the Boatswain) is dismissive and angry toward his masters (the noblemen), whose ineptitude threatens to lead to a shipwreck in the storm. From then on, master-servant relationships like these dominate the play: Prospero and Caliban; Prospero and Ariel; Alonso and his nobles; the nobles and Gonzalo; Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban; and so forth. The play explores the psychological and social dynamics of power relationships from a number of contrasting angles, such as the generally positive relationship between Prospero and Ariel, the generally negative relationship between Prospero and Caliban, and the treachery in Alonso s relationship to his nobles. Water and Drowning The play is awash with references to water. The Mariners enter wet in Act I, scene i, and Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo enter all wet, after being led by Ariel into a swampy lake (IV.i.193). Miranda s fear for the lives of the sailors in the wild waters (I.ii.2) causes her to weep. Alonso, believing his son dead because of his own actions against Prospero, decides in Act III, scene iii to drown himself. His language is echoed by Prospero in Act V, scene i when the magician promises that, once he has reconciled with his enemies, deeper than did ever plummet sound / I ll drown my book (V.i.56 57). These are only a few of the references to water in the play. Occasionally, the references to water are used to compare characters. For example, the echo of Alonso s desire to drown himself in Prospero s promise to drown his book calls attention to the similarity of the sacrifices each man must make. Alonso must be willing to give up his life in order to become truly penitent and to be forgiven for his treachery against Prospero. Similarly, in order to re-join the world he has been driven from, Prospero must be willing to give up his magic and his power. Perhaps the most important overall effect of this water motif is to heighten the symbolic importance of the tempest itself. It is as though the water from that storm runs through the language and action of the entire play just as the tempest itself literally and crucially affects the lives and actions of all the characters. Mysterious Noises The isle is indeed, as Caliban says, full of noises (III.ii.130). The play begins with a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning (I.i.1, stage direction), and the splitting of the ship is signaled in part by a confused noise within (I.i.54, stage direction). Much of the noise of the play is musical, and much of the music is Ariel s. Ferdinand is led to Miranda by Ariel s music. Ariel s music also wakes Gonzalo just as Antonio and Sebastian are about to kill Alonso in Act II, scene i. Moreover, the magical banquet of Act III, scene iii is laid out to the tune of Solemn and strange music (III.iii.18, stage direction), and Juno and Ceres sing in the wedding masque (IV.i ). The noises, sounds, and music of the play are made most significant by Caliban s speech about the noises of the island at III.ii Shakespeare shows Caliban in the thrall of magic, which the theater audience also experiences as the illusion of thunder, rain, invisibility. The action of The Tempest is very simple. What gives the play most of its hypnotic, magical atmosphere is the series of dreamlike events it stages, such as the tempest, the magical banquet, and the wedding masque. Accompanied by music, these present a feast for the eye and the ear and convince us of the magical glory of Prospero s enchanted isle. Ideas: You should read through the notes below and: - highlight points you agree with in green - highlight points you disagree with in red (or pink) - highlight points you have questions about in orange - for each major idea you should list three moments in the text (you may like to flag them in your copy also) which explore this idea.

5 The Illusion of Justice The Tempest tells a fairly straightforward story involving an unjust act, the usurpation of Prospero s throne by his brother, and Prospero s quest to re-establish justice by restoring himself to power. However, the idea of justice that the play works toward seems highly subjective, since this idea represents the view of one character who controls the fate of all the other characters. Though Prospero presents himself as a victim of injustice working to right the wrongs that have been done to him, Prospero s idea of justice and injustice is somewhat hypocritical though he is furious with his brother for taking his power, he has no qualms about enslaving Ariel and Caliban in order to achieve his ends. At many moments throughout the play, Prospero s sense of justice seems extremely one-sided and mainly involves what is good for Prospero. Moreover, because the play offers no notion of higher order or justice to supersede Prospero s interpretation of events, the play is morally ambiguous. As the play progresses, however, it becomes more and more involved with the idea of creativity and art, and Prospero s role begins to mirror more explicitly the role of an author creating a story around him. With this metaphor in mind, and especially if we accept Prospero as a surrogate for Shakespeare himself, Prospero s sense of justice begins to seem, if not perfect, at least sympathetic. Moreover, the means he uses to achieve his idea of justice mirror the machinations of the artist, who also seeks to enable others to see his view of the world. Playwrights arrange their stories in such a way that their own idea of justice is imposed upon events. In The Tempest, the author is in the play, and the fact that he establishes his idea of justice and creates a happy ending for all the characters becomes a cause for celebration, not criticism. By using magic and tricks that echo the special effects and spectacles of the theater, Prospero gradually persuades the other characters and the audience of the rightness of his case. As he does so, the ambiguities surrounding his methods slowly resolve themselves. Prospero forgives his enemies, releases his slaves, and relinquishes his magic power, so that, at the end of the play, he is only an old man whose work has been responsible for all the audience s pleasure. The establishment of Prospero s idea of justice becomes less a commentary on justice in life than on the nature of morality in art. Happy endings are possible, Shakespeare seems to say, because the creativity of artists can create them, even if the moral values that establish the happy ending originate from nowhere but the imagination of the artist.

6 The Difficulty of Distinguishing Men from Monsters Upon seeing Ferdinand for the first time, Miranda says that he is the third man that e er I saw (I.ii.449). The other two are, presumably, Prospero and Caliban. In their first conversation with Caliban, however, Miranda and Prospero say very little that shows they consider him to be human. Miranda reminds Caliban that before she taught him language, he gabbled like / A thing most brutish (I.ii ) and Prospero says that he gave Caliban human care (I.ii.349), implying that this was something Caliban ultimately did not deserve. Caliban s exact nature continues to be slightly ambiguous later. In Act IV, scene i, reminded of Caliban s plot, Prospero refers to him as a devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick (IV.i ). Miranda and Prospero both have contradictory views of Caliban s humanity. On the one hand, they think that their education of him has lifted him from his formerly brutish status. On the other hand, they seem to see him as inherently brutish. His devilish nature can never be overcome by nurture, according to Prospero. Miranda expresses a similar sentiment in Act I, scene ii: thy vile race, / Though thou didst learn, had that in t which good natures / Could not abide to be with (I.ii ). The inhuman part of Caliban drives out the human part, the good nature, that is imposed on him. Caliban claims that he was kind to Prospero, and that Prospero repaid that kindness by imprisoning him (see I.ii.347). In contrast, Prospero claims that he stopped being kind to Caliban once Caliban had tried to rape Miranda (I.ii ). Which character the audience decides to believe depends on whether it views Caliban as inherently brutish, or as made brutish by oppression. The play leaves the matter ambiguous. Caliban balances all of his eloquent speeches, such as his curses in Act I, scene ii and his speech about the isle s noises in Act III, scene ii, with the most degrading kind of drunken, servile behavior. But Trinculo s speech upon first seeing Caliban (II.ii.18 38), the longest speech in the play, reproaches too harsh a view of Caliban and blurs the distinction between men and monsters. In England, which he visited once, Trinculo says, Caliban could be shown off for money: There would this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian (II.ii.28 31). What seems most monstrous in these sentences is not the dead Indian, or any strange beast, but the cruel voyeurism of those who capture and gape at them.

7 The Allure of Ruling a Colony The nearly uninhabited island presents the sense of infinite possibility to almost everyone who lands there. Prospero has found it, in its isolation, an ideal place to school his daughter. Sycorax, Caliban s mother, worked her magic there after she was exiled from Algeria. Caliban, once alone on the island, now Prospero s slave, laments that he had been his own king (I.ii ). As he attempts to comfort Alonso, Gonzalo imagines a utopian society on the island, over which he would rule (II.i ). In Act III, scene ii, Caliban suggests that Stephano kill Prospero, and Stephano immediately envisions his own reign: Monster, I will kill this man. His daughter and I will be King and Queen save our graces! and Trinculo and thyself shall be my viceroys (III.ii ). Stephano particularly looks forward to taking advantage of the spirits that make noises on the isle; they will provide music for his kingdom for free. All these characters envision the island as a space of freedom and unrealized potential. The tone of the play, however, toward the hopes of the would-be colonizers is vexed at best. Gonzalo s utopian vision in Act II, scene i is undercut by a sharp retort from the usually foolish Sebastian and Antonio. When Gonzalo says that there would be no commerce or work or sovereignty in his society, Sebastian replies, yet he would be king on t, and Antonio adds, The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning (II.i ). Gonzalo s fantasy thus involves him ruling the island while seeming not to rule it, and in this he becomes a kind of parody of Prospero. While there are many representatives of the colonial impulse in the play, the colonized have only one representative: Caliban. We might develop sympathy for him at first, when Prospero seeks him out merely to abuse him, and when we see him tormented by spirits. However, this sympathy is made more difficult by his willingness to abase himself before Stephano in Act II, scene ii. Even as Caliban plots to kill one colonial master (Prospero) in Act III, scene ii, he sets up another (Stephano). The urge to rule and the urge to be ruled seem inextricably intertwined.

8 Act 1 Close Reading and Homework Tasks In our classes focussing on each act we will be looking at selected scenes. These scenes will allow you to build confidence in working with the language and also explore central ideas in the text. It is important that you note that we will not be able to cover every aspect of the text, explore all the key sequences or deconstruct and explain each line. Hopefully as the unit progresses you will be able to re-read and make sense of sections that previously had you baffled. Each scene will be broken down into three sections: - An indication of the moments being looked at in class and some brief note about how we will look at them. You can look over these to remind yourself of what we did or use these techniques to work with scenes on your own. - A few key passages to focus on through deconstruction of quotes, questions or other activities. - Three selected passages for analysis. The type of analysis and writing you will do on these will vary from week to week but this will be designed to have you build up to the essay at the end of the unit. This task will result in some writing that you will hand in for feedback and contribute to your journal assessment. Play Activities 1. Retelling the story of coming to the island In pairs you will have just under 100 lines of dialogue to work with. Lines of Scene 2. In this scene Miranda is learning of how she and her father came to the island and the audience learns why Prospero is so bitter as to want violent revenge on his brother. Your task is to pair back the script to just 20 lines and communicate a sense of the story and emotion present in the story. Both Prospero and Miranda must speak and you cannot add any words. You will need to signal changes in emotion with movement and staging, facial expression and gesture. 2. Ariel s recount of the shipwreck As a class we will look at lines I will play Prospero and you will all play Ariel. I will give you each (in groups of three) a couple of lines to perform and you will need to decide how to perform these as we play the whole scene through. 3. Prospero s servants In groups of four you will have a set of lines for Caliban and Ariel relating to their service of Prospero. You will need to match each line with a tableaux depicting Prospero and his servant. The tableaux and the reading of the line should reflect the sense of the relationship. 4. Three way pull Prospero, Miranda and Ferdinand. In groups of six you will have to perform the scene covering lines which is a confrontation between Miranda, Prospero and Ferdinand. You will need to edit the lines to roughly half and pair these with movement to show the shifting tensions, power and allegiances. IN the group of six you will work in pairs to represent the characters. One person will deliver the lines retained while the other moves according to a set of rules given depending on how the line is interpreted.

9 Homework - Scene Review 1. Act 1 is full of challenges to authority. The Boatswain orders the King and courtiers to leave the deck. Prospero recounts how he was overthrown by his brother Antonio. Ariel and Caliban question Prospero s right to keep them as servants. Prospero accuses Ferdinand of wanting to take the island from him. Look at each of these examples and decide whether the challenge is justified. Then rank each example in order of most just to least. Support you positioning with a quote from each moment that you explain. 2. Lines contrast with lines in describing Ariel s experiences serving Prospero and being imprisoned by Sycorax before being set free. Describe the visual imagery conjured by Prospero in these two moments and explain what this imagery reveals about both Prospero and his relationship with Ariel. 3. We hear an account by Prospero of what happened when he arrived on the island. Do you think Prospero really tamed Caliban who later revealed his true nature when he tried to rape Miranda? Is there a possibility that there are other reasons for Caliban seeming so monstrous? Consider lines and the reading we, as a post-colonial audience, may make. 4. Ferdinand has been shipwrecked, washed up on an island, mourned his father s supposed death and been overwhelmed by Ariel s spells. He then falls in love with Miranda and is berated by her father, Prospero. Find three quotes that capture Ferdinand s feelings and explain what they show. 5. Below is a key quote from Claiban. Following it is some analysis. Consider the quote and it s significance and then work with the critical analysis. Do you agree with it? Why or why not? What supports your response in the quote itself or in the play more broadly? You taught me language, and my profit on t Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! (I.ii ) This speech, delivered by Caliban to Prospero and Miranda, makes clear in a very concise form the vexed relationship between the colonized and the colonizer that lies at the heart of this play. The son of a witch, perhaps half-man and half-monster, his name a near-anagram of cannibal, Caliban is an archetypal savage figure in a play that is much concerned with colonization and the controlling of wild environments. Caliban and Prospero have different narratives to explain their current relationship. Caliban sees Prospero as purely oppressive while Prospero claims that he has cared for and educated Caliban, or did until Caliban tried to rape Miranda. Prospero s narrative is one in which Caliban remains ungrateful for the help and civilization he has received from the Milanese Duke. Language, for Prospero and Miranda, is a means to knowing oneself, and Caliban has in their view shown nothing but scorn for this precious gift. Self-knowledge for Caliban, however, is not empowering. It is only a constant reminder of how he is different from Miranda and Prospero and how they have changed him from what he was. Caliban s only hope for an identity separate from those who have invaded his home is to use what they have given him against them.

10 Homework Passage Analysis Rather than placing instructions for this within each act I shall explain this task once. For each scene you are given three passages to analyse. What I will ask you to do with each set will be the same but the writing task you will produce will be a little different as the unit moves forward. When you get your three passages you need to spend about 30 minutes on each passage. In this 30 minutes you should: 1. Re-read the passage and ensure you know what it is saying and what all the lines mean. This might mean using the copy of the script and the notes there to help you. Remember that having a sense of what is going on will get you a long way but for this sort of analysis you will need a fairly robust understanding of the lines. 2. Note the two or three ideas raised in the passage. Try and focus on the views and values being explored or exposed. Keep your ideas to 4 or 5 words at most. 3. Go back and highlight

11 Passage Analysis Tutorial The core skill in VCE Literature is to critically examine short passages of the text and develop interpretations that relate to that passage (or passages) that also hold true for the entire text. When we do this there are a number of processes that we can follow. Every Literature teacher will approach this differently and as you move through the years you will discover your own methods and processes for doing this. Below what I will outline is a process I feel will allow you to work through the passage and develop an interpretation you can discuss and justify. Be prepared for this process to take you up to an hour. Step 1 - Read The Passage (5 min) The idea here is simply to read the passage to understand what is going on. You should also aim to identify where the passage falls within the text, what happens before and after it, and be able to identify what is significant about this moment in the text. These will just be ideas floating in your head at this stage. Step 2 - Annotate The Passage (10 min) Using a pencil you should re-read the passage and look for important language features, words, images and moments that you think are important in constructing meaning. You could use this short list of elements to consider as a starting point: - Word choices that strike you as holding important meaning - Word or language choices that have connotations (such as the colour red representing anger, violence, lust, romance etc) - Words that affect our views of characters, events and settings - Recurring images - Symbols (images that represent another idea) - Language features, grammar, punctuation or words that suggest tone of voice - Moments that suggest character motivation, values or personality traits - Structural features such as sentence length or section breaks, direct speech or long detailed descriptions, narrative perspective (first person vs third person or past vs present tense) - Moments that explore the preoccupations of the text or offer the authors opinion You might like to circle key words, underline important lines or put brackets around larger important sections. You should write yourself brief notes in the space around the passage that indicate why you have picked out that particular word or moment as being important in constructing meaning. Step 3 Consolidate Your Thoughts (5 min) Take a couple of coloured highlighters and go through your annotations looking for common links. This might be how various points you have selected explore a particular idea or it might be highlighting different types of features.

12 Step 4 Developing An Interpretation (10 min) Part A Brainstorming Having read and thought about the passage (or passages) closely you should be able to dot point the big ideas that are raised. Do this on the page or on some loose paper. Part B Links Think about using those big idea words in one sentence what might bind them together. You can map this out if you like. Part C Your Interpretation The sentence you write should be true of the text ads a whole even if it doesn t cover all of the ideas in the text but it can refer to this moment specifically too. This would become the introduction of a longer discussion so shouldn t have any justification or evidence in it. Step 5 Justifying Your Interpretation (5 min) If your interpretation is complex it may have more than one part each part is a paragraph of discussion. Each part should also have a few bits of evidence that you could use to justify it. Select the most important part of your interpretation and choose one major piece of evidence that prove it. Then select two pieces of evidence that support the idea as well. Finally, think of something you know about the rest of the text that also back up your thinking this should be another quote, key image or moment from another part of the text. Step 6 Discussing Your Interpretation (15 min) This evidence can be used to write a literature analysis paragraph. Literature analysis paragraphs have 7 elements. They can be blended together or presented in this order: - Topic Sentence - Elaboration of your topic sentence / idea - Context for your main evidence - Explanation of how your main evidence justifies your idea - Supporting evidence and explanation of how it supports the justification - Link to the text as a whole using external evidence - Link to your overall interpretation A literature analysis paragraph is usually about sentences long depending on your sentence length and complexity. That means you can take a full minute to write each sentence to make sure you they are well worded and cover the information needed. Step 7 Audit Your Work (5 min) You can do this informally or formally. The trick is to go through your paragraph and check that it has all of the above elements. You can do this with a checklist or you can highlight the individual elements if you have blended them together.