Universidad de Alicante
Literatura Inglesa III
CURSO: 2011-2012
RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN PROSPERO
AND MIRANDA IN
THE PLAY THE
TEMPEST
ANA MARÍA GERMÁN SOLANO
DEGREE: ENGLISH STUDIES
YEAR: 3º
DATE: 21 DECEMBRE 2012
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T
he point that we want to expose in that paper is the relationship that is establishes between
Miranda and her Father Prospero in the play The Tempest, written between the year1610
and 1611 by William Shakespeare. The main thing that invades me to choose that topic is to remark
if that two character have a really relation between a father and a daughter or instead of that, if we
can appreciate others things. So first of all, it is important to have in our mind the question that we
have just made, because that could be answered along the whole paper.
The first aspect that I want to expose here is the figure of Miranda1, who is the only female
character in the play, we can see other but they are only mentioned, so she is represented as a
idealize women. As we know in the age when William Shakespeare wrote this play the state of the
women depended on the figure of a man in that case of her husband, so women must to be obedient
in everything they decided without having opinion, something that is not related to the situation that
we live nowadays, because you can live without the support of the husband.2 At that point seems
clear that the appreciation that the play offer of one of the main character, is a scarcity of the
feminist potential giving up less interest to the role of women, who are no important.
According to our reading of the play we understand that the figure of Miranda was specially
formulate on a complete obedience of her father3 and with a lovely reference to him as in (ACT 1,
SCENE 2, line 1 “My dearest father”). That is because she did whatever he ordered without an
opposite argument as a consequence of an afraid state, due too she must suffer bad things,
something that is thought by she and other characters that appears as Caliban or Ariel. That
condition is exposed along the play where we understand the different impositions that Prospero
gives her as in the (Scene 1, Act 2 187, when the father make Miranda sleep without any
explanation).Here make us know the power that this character has behind the others 4. (That could
be understood as a passive position instead of a point of revelation)
1.The name Miranda is derived from the Latin word mirandus, meaning wonderful, strange, and admired.
2. The reference that coul be seen in “EL TEATRO DE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HOY “, JM GONZÁLEZ. (
Capítulo 3 “Machisimo o feminismo en el teatro Shakesperiano “pp94-95)
3. That can be appreciate in “El teatro de William Shakespeare hoy”(pp. 96-97)
4. That point is a clear example of the aptitude of obedience that adquired the colonizer people, as in the play the figure
of Caliban.
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But according to what we have exposed now we have a question in our mind, why is so shy
Miranda and did not expose her feeling?, that question make us think that she is opposite with other
women characters of William Shakespeare, because she does not believe that can be free and do
whatever he wanted without the necessity of accept the situation of being considered like and object
that is dominated by someone5. But it is true that we can highlight may be the two important
moments or scene where Miranda exposes his reaction of a bad things or their personal opinion, as
in Act I Scene II, when Caliban tried to violate Miranda, and she replied with ““When thou didst
not, savage, / Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like / A thing most brutish, I endowed
thy purposes / With words that made them known” (358–361).”, something that shock us , because
that is no really a good reaction of that character who is exposed along the play with a good way
and manner that receives of his father , but that could be a good way to give that character a little
credit, also that point could be intrepreted in the terms that that girl is no please to speak about
sexual terms or acts , sometime commonly in teenagers . Other surprise moment that is represented
in the play is in Act III, SCENE I, when she exposed his proposal to get married (we are going to
focus on that later), because she exposed to Ferdinad that if he doesn´t like to married him, she will
be died (lines 83-84)
Other characters that does no presented that aptitude is for example Cordelia that appears in the
play King Lear where she is disobedient with the king and does no import the consequence that can
suffer or the case of Juliet when she really fight against her family to her really love in that case
Romeo.
An example of the obedience that she has with her father could be observed in (Act 1, Scene 2, / 53
“But that I do not” verse 85 “O good sir, I do”). Also we can appreciate how her father make his
opposition in what his daughters wanted ,as in the case of Ferdinand ,who was the man who really
wanted Miranda for himself.
5 The consideration of dominated could be found in the point that before Prospero where in the island he was the
Ducke of Miland and dominate everyone.
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But for that love she must to have the acceptation of her father6, who is especially nervous of the
consideration that her daughter could be with a wrong man. According to that we can highlight the
following parts (Act 1, Scene 2/ 459 “Speak not for him: he is a traitor “476 “silence, one word
more shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee” Act 4.Scene 1/ 145-162).7 8
Making reference to the example that we exposed before it is important the point that Prospero is
exposing her love of Miranda (Act III, SCENE I), when she met for the first time FERDINAND.
In the exposition that we pretended to that topic we can say that the explanation of the aptitude that
Prospero presented is basically expressed because we cannot find a figure of a mother in the play so
in that case he could be like a mother who preserves her daughter to do things. It is true that may be
the figure of Prospero is highly remarkable because that fact of domination is no usual in the figure
of a father. But do you think that he is only acting as a father and mother or also as a lover?
Now after all we have shown, we are going to focus especially on the question that we formulated
at the beginning of that paper.
In the play we can see how that relationship is determinate by the idealism of a paternal relation, but
if we analyze it, we can appreciate other points like the consideration that the aptitude that Prospero
adopted behind his daughter is a relation of protect she, maybe because he feel alone and the only
think that he wanted for himself is her. But that could be interpreted like her father does not wanted
that anyone appears in the life of her daughter because as I understand after reading the play, he
wanted other things, my thought gives me the conclusion that Prospero wanted to married him, as
we see in (ACT 2, SCENE 1), She is a beautiful girl that does not know anything about what
happened before they went to the island, as a consequence maybe of a magic that her father used
with him. And also that fact gives her father more acceptation to be the best man that she could
6 Here we can see how is intensify the imposition of the relation between father and daughter. ( THE SHORT
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, ANDREW SANDERS p.164)
7 That character is presented along the play as a dictatory character and bad-tempered but that fact is no presented in
the relationship with her daughter.
8 Also that aptitude is given to the figure of William Shakespeare who had two daughters and was strongly
dissaproved of the man who married his youngest daughter.
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meet and love him.
So the character in that case have an advantage between others because that domination through his
daughter is a good thing to demonstrate him the power that had , and other cannot be better than
him in that aspect9. Another aspect that give me to reflexing is that sometimes Prospero talked with
Miranda as if she was a poor people or someone to dominate, because he does no wanted that she
have the opportunity to think he wanted to give her daughter all the answers that could have as in
(ACT 1, SCENE 2 /60 “what foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or blessèd was´t we
did?) .In this part my opinion is that Prospero is giving the personal situation that he lived before
and what he wants is to convince her daughter that other men are bad so he is the best. The propose
her of the main character is that Miranda understand the story clearly but in that scene he is also
possessive with him because he ordered him to sit down , and use more repetitions to make control
of him.
9 The name Prospero is Latin and the meaning of that is “ I cause to succed, make happy and fortunate”
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. EL TEATRO DE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HOY ,J.M GONZÁLEZ , BARCELONA
:MONTENSINOS ,1993
2. THE TEMPEST, SHAKESPEARE, CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL, 1998
3. THE SHORT OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, ANDREW SANDERS,
OXFORD, 1996.
SOURCES OF REFERENCES
 SPARKNOTES
 WIKIPEDIA
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