Foolish Masters and Naive Slaves

     One thing that really caught my attention in the play was that Trinculo and Stephano, the two drunk, foolish characters, were the ones who took Caliban as their slave and guide on the island.  I think this has a lot of meaning if you look deeper into it.  I think that Trinculo and Stephano were meant to symbolize nobility.  The two men argued sometimes but were never fully sane during the play because they drank the whole time.  This was similar to nobility because while they didn't drink all the time, they did act as if they were not sane in some of their actions.  They would fight over colonization, power, money, and greed.  Shakespeare used the two comedic characters to represent the foolishness of the actions of nobility at the time.  Caliban willingly led Trinculo and Stephano around and obeyed their commands.  This was similar to colonizers and slaves during that time.  The native people would obey the nobility because of an incentive in many cases, which was alcohol in the play.  Caliban did not know what the drink was or who Trinculo and Stephano were.  Similarly, he did not know the difference between a drunk, foolish person and a normal, sane person.  That was also the case with the natives in real colonized areas.  They were just as naive as Caliban was.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 4, 2017 at 7:13 PM

    Olivia,

    I thought it was interesting how you interpreted the characters of Stephano and Trinculo as representations of the nobility. I do think that there is a commentary being made here on the absurdity of power and the desire to be worshipped (as displayed through their condescending attitudes towards Caliban). In the context of the rest of the characters, however, I think that Stephano and Trinculo represent the lower classes of society. There is a physical divide that seems to separate all of the characters on the island: the power-hungry members of the nobility (Alonso, Antonio, Sebastian…) are confined to one area of the island, Stephano and Trinculo foolishly stagger around in drunken stupor in a separate location, and Prospero seems to be directing the action from above. I think that this physical division between the characters represents the social ladder of European society, with the laboring, drinking poor confined to the bottom rung. The petty ambition of Stephano and Trinculo, although comically pathetic, mirrors the power struggles of their noble counterparts. It seems as if Shakespeare is commenting on the prevalence of greed and corruption regardless of social status.

    Ben

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marlow's Loyalty to Kurtz

     Once I finished Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, I thought about the one part that really stuck with me from the book.   After Marlow had been sick and on the verge of death, he reflected on Kurtz who also had been sick but passed away from his illness: “I was within a hair’s-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say.   This is the reason I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man.   He had something to say.   He said it” (Conrad 65).   I wondered why Marlow was so loyal to a man who had been kicked out of his company for his actions in Africa.   For example, he threatened to kill one of his fellow workers over ivory.   The wilderness in Africa and the greed for the wealth and money that comes from ivory changed Kurtz for the worse.   In that quote, though, Marlow stated that he still respected him and would stand by him, mainl...
Read more

The Masks in "Imitation"

     After reading all the stories in The Thing Around Your Neck, I kept going back and thinking about the symbolism and meaning in the story “Imitation.”   The chapter starts off with Nkem learning that her husband may be cheating on her, but it is important to note that she is staring at the Benin mask the whole time.   There are many masks around the house that Obiora, her husband, collected.   I think these masks symbolize Nkem’s life for many reasons.   The first is that Nkem says she wonders what life is behind those empty masks, and by the end of the chapter, she can’t remember where her life had gone.   She too became an empty mask that was lifeless behind it.   The second reason the masks relate to Nkem’s situation is that she said she wondered if the people behind those masks that had to kill people for the king wished they didn’t have to kill and that maybe they could have a say.   Those people represent N...
Read more

Feminism in "Mrs. Dalloway"

One of the discussions brought up in class that struck my attention and interest was that some people thought that Virginia Woolf did not have specific instances of feminism.   I disagree with this though.   After reading the first few pages I had already found a few specific lines that stuck out at me as directly feminist and challenging the social spheres and obligations of women and in some cases the sexism that went on during that time. It seemed obvious to me that Woolf wanted to get her feminist ideology across (being one of the main themes of the novel), but I will say, I have a feeling it was subtler than what I imagine in “A Room of One’s Own.” The two lines that really stuck out to me are as follows: “She would marry a Prime Minister and stand at the top of a staircase; the perfect hostess he called her (she had cried over it in her bedroom), she had the makings of the perfect hostess, he said” (7) and “And her old Uncle William used to say a lady is known by her sh...
Read more