The Tempest (3): Textual Gaps in
the Colonial Discourses -Act III and its Adaptations
Plot Summary
Act I
1. the sea change – Alonso and the other courtiers’
positions threatened;
2. Prospero re-telling history to Miranda, Ariel and
Caliban;
Act II
1. Sebastian and Antonio, planning the
murder;
2. Trinculo and Stefano, meeting Caliban;
Act III—
1. Ferdinand and Miranda on servitude, end with
Prospero;
2. Caliban, Stefano and Trinculo’s plotting;
3. Ariel gives indictment to the sinful three.
Plot Summary (2)
Act IV—
1. Prospero speaks to Ferdinand and asks him not to
break Miranda’s “virgin-knot”;
2. Masque and Prospero’s famous speech on life as a
dream
3. Trinculo and Stephano, coming from the wet pond,
get crazy about stealing and wearing the fine
garments in front of P’s cave, forgetting about the
plan of killing him.
Act V—
1. Prospero puts on the garment he wore as Duke of
Milan; promises to set Ariel free, and speaks to
the other characters in their trance. Forgives
Antonio without getting his response. Shows
Alonso M and Ferdinand, and announces that
reconciliation is complete.
P’s epilogue
Outline


Starting Questions
order, and gaps in Act III
– Scene I: Miranda
– Scene II: Caliban/S/T vs. Ariel
– Scene III: Prospero’s order

Filmic Adaptations and Jarman’s
version
Starting Questions
How do you characterize Miranda? Is she
a naïve girl in Act I, and grows to become
stronger, more mature individual in Act III?
 How is the order set among Caliban,
Stepheno and Trinculo, and then disrupted
by Ariel?
 What do you think about Caliban’s plan of
killing Prospero?
 What roles does Ariel play in Scenes 2 and
3 of Act III? Does he serve merely as
echoes and agent of Prospero?

Miranda and Ferdinand:
the order of love

1.
2.
The use of Renaissance sonnet
tradition in The Tempest
Act I: Prospero’s speech – (p. 108; I.
2 – ll 120-) –the sympathy of natural elements;
a transition to the miraculous?
Act III: Ferdinand’s
–- use of paradoxes to show the power of love,
-- praising Miranda’s singularity;
-- emphasizing his nobility (but a slave to love)
Miranda’s responses
Disobeys her father;
 Apparent submissiveness to F; (ll. 83 - )
 Can tell that Ferdinand is not willing to do
the work;
 Actively asking for love and marriage.
 Sexual implication: “What I desire to give;
and much less take
What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;
And all the more it seeks to hide itself,
The bigger bulk it shows.”

Miranda
wonder!” she exclaims upon
seeing the company Prospero has
assembled. “How many goodly
creatures are there here! / How
beauteous mankind is! O brave new
world / That has such people in’t!”
(V.i.184–187).
 “O
Scene 2: Caliban and S+T






The “order” of conspiracy
S- Caliban: servant monster  lieutenant 
Monsieur monster
T: --”Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard.”
Caliban – makes a distinction between the two;
subservient to S only, asking his ‘lord’ to protect
him.
His plan – shows his awareness of the human
order (1) the importance of language and
knowledge/discourse; 2) the importance of
possessing the enemy’s woman).
His rejection of S/T’s tune (p. 162)
Scene 2: Caliban and S+T

1.
The disruption of conspiracy –
Ariel’s role “Thou liest.”
– --in defense of P, he repeats Trinculo’s
words, which are also Prospero’s
(“Thou most lying slave”)—both in an
attempt to put Caliban in his old
position.
– The third repetition: “thou” = S.
2.
Ariel’s music –interpreted two ways
by the two parties (pp 162)
Scene 3 –an implicit hierarchy
Prospero, as he
does in Act I,
plays the role of
God to assert
justice 
an artificial
assertion of
order.
Prospero
Ariel
Gonzalo
islanders
Alonso
S+ T// Sebastian + Antonio
Order and Gaps
in the following Acts
Act IV:
1. virginity ensured;
2. the masque—a trio performs a masque
celebrating the lovers’ engagement.
(Iris-- Juno’s messenger and the
goddess of the rainbow , Juno--queen of
the gods , and Ceres --goddess of
agriculture).
3. Prospero startles suddenly and then
sends the spirits away.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (IV.i.148–158)
Sir, I am vex'd:
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity.
If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind. (158-63)
Order and Gaps
in the following Acts
 Prospero’s
“Last Judgment” and
reconciliation -– Gonzalo is an “honourable man” (V.i.62);
– Alonso did, and knows he did, treat
Prospero “[m]ost cruelly” (V.i.71);
– Antonio is an “[u]nnatural” brother
(V.i.79).
 But
Antonio does not respond.
The Tempest
William Woodman’s (1985)
 What do you think about its
costumes and acting?

Derek Jarman
 The
concept of forgiveness in The
Tempest attracted me; it's a rare
enough quality and almost absent in
our world. To know who your
enemies are, but to accept them for
what they are, befriend them, and
plan for a happier future is
something we sorely need." Dancing
Ledge
Jarman’s The Tempest

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
scenes of contrast –
Prospero’s treatment of Caliban
(sec. 1)
Ferdinand’s emergence from the
sea (as Venus?)
Miranda and Caliban (sec 3)
Prospero and Ariel (sec. 8)
The masque and the ending (sec 12)
Jarman’s The Tempest



intervening the production of its past;
“Catherine Belsey's: "history as costume
drama, the reconstruction of the past as
the present in fancy dress."
While it is impossible for an actor to
resurrect the seventeenth-century body
in performance, it should be possible at
least to trouble an unproblematized
reception of the body as completely
familiar or knowable. ” (Ellis)
The issue of Race
Caliban as an appetitive, physically
excessive, working-class Northerner.
 Why does the film presents a white
Caliban? For some critics, it is a glaring
mistake of Jarman’s.

The issue of Race
Ellis: in the 16th century, there is no
distinction between the Irish, the
masterless, the Renaissance ‘moor,’ the
Indian and Turks– all are 'erring
barbarians.’
 Caliban, has links with Africa, the
Caribbean, North America, and Ireland.
 “A black Caliban is thus an invitation to
unwitting anachronisms” (Ellis 268).

The issue of Race –the masque

“As such the masque was crucially
involved in the establishment of cultural
difference, so that it is not surprising that
many masques featured cultural others
who were positioned as threats to order
or as disorder itself, such as Africans,
Gypsies, or masterless men.
The issue of Race –the masque

“Jarman's version of The Tempest takes
up these crucial aspects of the masque in
order to comment on both The Tempest's
cultural history and the current state of
England. His aim, as with the early
modern masque, is to create through
spectacle the grounds for a new
community.”
References

Jim Ellis "Conjuring The Tempest
Derek Jarman and the Spectacle of
Redemption" GLQ: A Journal of
Lesbian and Gay Studies 7.2 (2001)
265-284.