Tuesday, Jan. 3: A New Semester Weaves its Way in

* Choose any new seat you wish

* Pray

* Semester II Overview

* Return final exams.

*Underline the titles of plays, books, and anything long.

* In most cases, move chronologically through a work (not plot review, but thesis-significant scene to thesis-significant scene). When possible, save your best argument for last.

The rubric defined.
The rubric percentages.

On your essay: Circle examples of your matured, educated vocabulary. Circle marks of sentence variety (semi-colon, dash, or colon). Did you treat characters (plural) and views (plural). Did you give a number of specific supports for each topic in you body paragraphs? Did you make it through three pages (usually about the minimum for a well-developed idea, given our time; handwriting will make this vary)? Write down two things you did well and two to improve for your next essay.

Many interpret Prospero's handling of Ariel as cruel oppression, freedom stealing; however, the tree-binding was certainly worse. Why the verbal heavy handedness or Prospero toward Ariel (and others)? We may imagine a qualitatively different being like a spirit of the air could be a deadly danger to manage. Look at the confidence and superiority one must command when taming a lion or other predator (Ariel means "Lion of God" in Hebrew..and he literally pre-dates mortals). Also imagine that the strain of the entire production must have been heavy on Prospero, like a wound-up, fiercely accomplished director. One imagines a less-than-patient director during an opening-night performance...even, perhaps especially, to his own family.

Interesting ideas you had:
1. Why didn't Prospero use his powers to get them home earlier (twelve years waiting)?

2. Caliban probably would have died without Prospero's help. (If we take this a step further...was Prospero's teaching and training a greater overall freedom to Caliban than the service he must render?)



J26
1. So, Caliban was really never free (until the end); now, if Caliban may serve as a representative of enslaved people, can you think of any more modern example where this trading one slavery for another has occurred? Explain. 

2. Could trading masters actually be good for Caliban?  Is freedom synonymous with autonomy?  Is anyone really free in the play?  In the world?  

3. Prospero's magic was the instrument of his fall and rise. What is our distracting "magic" today? Where have we, too, abdicated our natural and civic duties, fascinated with "magical" sparkling wonders. Where has it isolated us from our natural rights and rulership?  Any rise on the horizon?  

4. Choose one: A.  Compare slavery in The Tempest and THS.  B.  Compare magic in The Tempest and THS.

5. Is college the tempest your culture (Prospero) has magically constructed for you? Will it end in tragedy or comedy? Drunkenness, failure, and ridicule (Stephano and Trinculo) or marriage and rule (Ferdinand and Miranda to be Duke and Duchess, Prince and Princess, King and Queen)?

6. It appears that Caliban will remain on the island (and perhaps, though less likely, Trinculo and Stephano). What commentary on freedom might this be? If all three stay, who will rule? Were you director, how would you conclude? Why?

HW: Read Perrine's Ch. 4, J26