AOS essay: Tempest

[ashley.tang2]

Can someone roast my essay for me thanks <3

How does the representation of a character’s discovery in “the tempest” and ONE related text of your own choosing affirm important understandings about the human experience? In your response, you must analyse relevant language forms and features.
The human experience of the world is not only transformed by the empowering or disempowering discoveries that we face, but also, more importantly, by our perceptions and responses to such discoveries. This idea is explored in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, in which the deposed duke of Milan Prospero utilises magic to educate his usurpers on the importance of repentance while he discovers the qualities and sacrifices necessary for good governance. Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story The Third and Final Continent also probes this notion as the story captures the displaced experience of a married Indian man leaving his native country for work in America; but after he finds residence with an elderly landlady named Mrs. Croft, his attitude towards his situation changes. Thus, both texts highlight how the essence of human experience is reflective of an individual’s perception and response to their discoveries.
Discoveries of knowledge can empower and assist an ambitious individual to achieve their aims; howbeit, it is ultimately how an individual allows this discovery to transform their identity that bestows meaning to their human experience of it. In The Tempest, Prospero uses magic to send “three men of sin” through a difficult ordeal on the island, in order to educate them on their past misdeeds and allow them a chance to repent for their past misdeeds. The play commences Act 1 Scene 1 with a “tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning”. It is the juxtaposition of this scene with Prospero and Miranda’s peaceful conversation in Act 1 Scene 2, where Prospero confesses his orchestration of the storm and assures Miranda of the sailor’s safety.  The stark contrast between these two scenes emphasizes the extent of Prospero’s control over the discoveries of the other characters through magic. Thus, this highlights the empowering role that magic has in assisting Prospero’s aim as the humanly abilities of both Miranda and the sailors are powerless in this situation. Prospero’s exertion of control and order on the island is further exemplified in subsequent events in the play through the use of stage directions such as “enter Prospero on the top, invisible”, depicting a scene that is exclusively visible to the audience. This insight highlights Prospero’s use of magic to quietly observe and direct the discoveries of the other characters, which furthers his exertion of control and order on the island. However, as Prospero continues to rely on magic to achieve his aims, his perception of it changes, which prompts an inward and outward response from his character. An inward change in Prospero’s character is exhibited in Act 4 where Prospero’s sudden remembrance of Caliban’s planned usurpation causes the masque to vanish from the stage and Prospero subsequently makes a realisation of the need for him to abandon his magic. The imagery used in his monology such as “cloud-capped towers” and “melted into air, into this air” propagates an image of weightlessness and insubstantiality, which illustrates how Prospero has finally come to understand how magic has given him nothing but an illusory vision of control and order over the island. This causes Prospero to explore, and eventually exhibit, qualities that have meaning and relevancy in his human experience of life, such as compassion and forgiveness. These qualities are displayed through the staging direction “he [Prospero] embraces Alonso”, illustrating outward change in Prospero’s actions towards the other characters. This action is a physical representation of how Prospero has used his response to his discovery to better himself as a human and a leader. Therefore, although his discovery of magic has empowered him to achieve his aims, Prospero’s perception and realisation of the valuelessness of this discovery has transformed his identity, values and thus his human experience of the world.
The discovery of new places may displace, and thus disempower, an individual struggling to inhabit this unfamiliar place; however, an open-minded individual that is curious about the world they live in can appreciate all discoveries, even if they are disempowering, and use these discoveries to increase their understanding of the world. This claim is supported in the narrator’s initial experience of America in The Third and Final Continent, which is accentuated through the analogy of “I felt it deep in my ribs, just as I had felt the furious drone of the engine on the SS Roma”. The narrator uses this analogy to describe the “distracting” noise in America that was “at times suffocating” and illustrate a feeling of discomfort, which amplifies the narrator’s displacement and disempowerment in his early experiences of America. The notion of displacement is further emphasized through the use of first person narration that never reveals the name of the narrator. The presence of this nameless narrator gives the story a rather ordinary essence and suggests a commonness in the narrator’s experience, as he does not seem to have a strong sense of identity to empower his experiences in America. However, it is the discovery of this unknown place that permits the narrator’s encounter with the elderly Mrs. Croft. The narrator’s interaction with Mrs. Croft as a tenant and landlady incites his innate curiousity of the world, which is expressed through rhetorical questions such as “I beg your pardon, Madame. The piano?” and “excuse me, Madame, but is it enough? The soup in the pans. It is enough food for Mrs. Croft?” Through these questions, the narrator presents himself as a character who is naturally curious of his surroundings and utilises his displacement in America as an opportunity rather than a burden to expand his understanding of the world. His refreshing attitude towards learning has a transformative impact on himself, as he applies his newfound knowledge of the world to his past experience. This is supported in the story by the narrator’s high modality in “I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept”, emphasizing the transformation of the narrator’s ordinary and common experiences into something “beyond his imagination”. Therefore, the narrator’s refreshing outlook to his experiences in The Third and Final Continent affirms the importance of an individual’s attitude in perceiving discoveries and its transformative effect on their human experience of it.
The human experience of the world is a dynamic journey characterised by not only our discoveries, but also our perceptions and responses to these discoveries. In their texts, Lahiri and Shakespeare explore this notion, showcasing how empowering discoveries can be brought about by knowledge and disempowering discoveries can challenge individuals residing in new places. However, Lahiri and Shakespeare also illustrate how it is eventually our own perception and response towards our discoveries that reshapes our understanding of the world and transforms the human experience of our discoveries.