On January 1 a new law went into effect in Arizona
prohibiting K-12 classes that “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government,
promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for
pupils of one ethnic group, or advocate ethnic solidarity.” The purpose of the law is to eliminate the
ethnic studies curriculum in Tucson public schools. (Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/01/01/20110101arizona-ethnic-studies-ban.html#ixzz1kVeUY0j5.)
Among the works that is taught in this curriculum is
Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Though the Tucson administration denies the
book has been banned, high school teacher Curtis Acosta was told not to teach
the play using the “nexus of race, class and oppression” or “issues of critical
race theory.”
“What is very clear is that ’The Tempest’ is problematic for
our administrators due to the content of the play and the pedagogical choices I
have made,” Acosta said in an interview. “In other words, Shakespeare wrote a
play that is clearly about colonization of the new world and there are strong
themes of race, colonization, oppression, class and power that permeate the
play, along with themes of love and redemption.”
(http://www.salon.com/2012/01/18/tucson_says_banished_books_may_return_to_classrooms/singleton/#comments)
This stunning violation of academic freedom and crude
imposition of ideological control over public school curriculum spurred me to
reread Shakespeare’s mysterious final play and review some of the history of
its critical reception and interpretation.
Since its first production in 1611 (just four years after
Jamestown was founded) The Tempest
has been read theologically, mythically, aesthetically, biographically,
psychologically, as well as politically.
One of the earliest political interpretations of the play is found in
Leslie Fiedler’s 1973 essay “Caliban as the American Indian.” However, the connections of the play to its
historical context would have been recognized by its contemporaries.
Its allusions to contemporary travel narratives of a
Virginia Company expedition to Jamestown in 1608 are well established in
scholarship. The flagship of this fleet
was separated from the rest and, having failed to arrive in Jamestown, was
presumed to be lost. Nearly a year later
the admiral and sailors of the flagship arrived in two small boats, having run
aground on the island of Bermuda, where they found food, shelter, and wood to
build their boats, despite the site’s reputation as an “Isle of Devils.” This adventure became sensational news in
England, and in Act I, scene ii, of The
Tempest, Ariel makes explicit reference to “the still-vexed Bermoothes”
(always-stormy Bermudas).
It would have also been widely recognized among educated
contemporaries that “Caliban” is an anagram of “cannibal” (not necessarily
meaning eater of human flesh in this context), and that this sub-human character
constitutes a refutation of Montaigne’s well-known essay “Of Cannibals,”
translated into English in 1603. This
essay is now widely understood as a source of the “noble savage” image of
American Indians and the utopian view of the “New World,” in which American
Indian society is represented as a kind of ideal state. Gonzalo’s description of his ideal
commonwealth in Act II, scene I, of The
Tempest echoes the very same language of Montaigne’s description.
In addition, at a time when the transatlantic slave trade is
at its height, Shakespeare presents both Ariel and Caliban as slaves to
Prospero. It is difficult to deny the
connection between Shakespeare’s play and the larger historical context. In order to avoid “the nexus of race, class,
and oppression” must teachers in Tucson avoid teaching The Tempest, ignore history entirely while teaching it, or distort
history by treating the “New World” metaphor strictly in positive terms and
Prospero as a benevolent slave owner so as to avoid creating resentment against
white Europeans? Presumably, the malevolent, revengeful characteristics of
Caliban, an indigenous creature enslaved by Prospero, would have to be ignored
in order to avoid creating resentment against racial groups that have been
historically enslaved. In other words
some of the most obvious features of the text would have to be distorted.
Like most European literature of Shakespeare’s time, The Tempest is Eurocentric, aristocratic
and patriarchal in its world view. Under
the Arizona law, that world view could presumably not be critiqued for fear of
creating resentment toward Europeans, European-Americans, aristocrats, and
men. On the other hand, that world view
could not be approved for fear of creating resentment toward non-Europeans, non-European-Americans,
commoners, and women. Pity the poor
teacher trying to navigate those shoals! Better to avoid the text entirely than create
one’s own pedagogical shipwreck in the classroom.
Not surprisingly, The
Tempest is a far more complex and ambiguous text than any crude political
ideology, and it offers a study in power that Arizona legislators, Tucson
administrators, and teachers could learn from.
First, it accurately reflects two competing European visions
of the “New World.” On the one hand, it is a Utopia, as Montaigne described—a
new Eden, a Promised Land, a “land flowing with milk and honey.” On the other, it is a “hideous and desolate
wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men,” as William Bradford described
Plymouth upon the Pilgrims’ first landing—“a wild and savage” place, primitive,
barbaric. If the magic island where
Prospero and Miranda are exiled represents the new world, then the sub-human
creature Caliban represents the savage view, while the airy spirit Ariel
represents the idyllic view. Ariel had
been left imprisoned by Caliban’s witch-mother until Prospero arrived after her
death, freed him, and then enslaved both Ariel and Caliban. If Prospero represents the Europeans, then,
allegorically, does this mean that Europeans have power over both the worst and
best of the New World? When Prospero frees Ariel at the end of the play, having
used him to achieve a redemptive resolution to the injustice done him by his
enemies, does that mean that Europeans will bring out the best in the New
World? By keeping Caliban enslaved at the end, does that mean that Europeans
will keep the worst of the New World under control? If so, then the play reinforces the
contemporary European idea that western conquest had the providential purpose
of improving the conquered lands.
Perhaps, but Caliban’s grievances against Prospero are
sympathetic, given Prospero’s harsh treatment of him.
This
island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,
Which
thou takst from me. When thou cam’st
first,
Thou
strok’st me, and made much of me; would’st give me
Water
with berries in’t; and teach me how
To name
the bigger light, and how the less,
That
burn by day and night. And then I loved thee
And
showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,
The
fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile.
Cursed
be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax—toads, beetles, bats,
light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you
have,
Which first was mine own king; and
here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do
keep from me
The rest o’ th’ island. (Act I, scene ii)
And later Caliban expresses his Ariel-like, spiritual side:
Be not
afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds
and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes
a thousand twangling instruments
Will
hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That,
if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will
make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The
clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready
to drop upon me, that, when I waked,
I cried
to dream again. (Act III, scene iii)
Thus, if Caliban represents the indigenous people of the new
world, then the play does not entirely represent them in an unsympathetic
light.
Still, Ariel earns his freedom at the end of the play by
obeying Prospero’s orders, while Caliban must do penance for his plot against
Prospero, and, perhaps if he reforms himself, can earn his freedom as
well. Liberty, it seems, is not a
natural right but a privilege to be conferred by one of greater power.
Prospero, himself, had lost his freedom, when his brother,
Antonio, usurped his throne as King of Milan and cast him, with his daughter,
Miranda, away on the sea to die. Even royalty cannot rest secure in either
their liberty or their power. Prospero
and Miranda survive, however, having been shipwrecked on the magic island,
where Prospero continues with his studies of the magical arts, educating
Miranda, and using Caliban and Ariel as slave labor. When Prospero uses his powers to cause the shipwreck
of his brother and his co-conspirator, the Duke of Naples, and bring them under
the control of his magic on the island, he does not seek revenge. On the contrary, he arranges for the Duke’s
son, Ferdinand, and Miranda to fall in love, and then, after allowing the
others to believe Ferdinand has drowned, arranges for a reunion and for the
redemption of his enemies through the power of his forgiveness. In the end the impending marriage of Ferdinand
and Miranda symbolizes the restoration of both family and political harmony, as
Prospero resumes his “proper” place on the throne. Of course, Shakespeare’s version of family
and political harmony is based on what in his day was considered the natural
order of gender and class, a patriarchal and aristocratic “great chain of being,”
with men ruling women, and aristocracy, with its own ranking order, ruling
commoners.
The treatment of power in the play relies on this
hierarchical world view. Order in the
world depends upon each level in the great chain of being keeping its
place. When a lower level seeks to
dominate a higher level, disorder and destruction break out. Thus when Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo
allow themselves to be ruled by their physical craving for wine, they become
foolish, greedy, vengeful, and violent. It was selfish ambition that led Antonio and Alonso
to overthrow Prospero from his rightful throne and establish an alliance that
maintained their political rule. On the
other hand, it was Prospero’s neglect of his political responsibilities that
contributed to his downfall. Prospero’s
restoration to his rightful place partly depends upon his recognition of having
neglected “worldly ends, all dedicated/To closeness [seclusion] and the
bettering of (his) mind….” (Act I, scene ii) Each place in
the great chain of being has a responsibility appropriate to that place and
failure to execute that responsibility likewise results in disorder. Prospero’s pursuit of knowledge, however,
leads to the development of his intellectual and magical powers, which in turn
enable him to regain his political power.
In addition to physical, social, and intellectual power, the play
demonstrates the power of romantic love as Miranda and Ferdinand fall under
each other’s spell, the power of filial devotion as Alonso refuses to give up
Ferdinand for dead and insists that his compatriots help search for him, the
supernatural power represented by Ariel and the island’s barely heard music
that even Caliban responds to, and finally the power of compassion,
forgiveness, and redemption, as Prospero, once he has his enemies in his power,
pardons them rather than taking revenge.
Today, democratic notions of equality and freedom have
replaced the Shakespearean aristocratic world view, but we do expect
individuals to earn their place in the world, as Ariel had to earn his freedom
and Propero had to earn back his throne, and we distinguish between the kind of
freedom that causes harm to others and the responsible exercise of freedom that
contributes to the well-being of all.
Similarly, though we still live in a social hierarchy, we value
power-sharing and the appropriate use of social control such that it benefits
the general welfare, not the individual wielder of power.
Do teachers of The
Tempest appropriately use their power in the classroom to convey the full
complexity and ambiguity of the play or do they use the play to advance a
narrow ideological agenda? Do Tucson
administrators respect the work that teachers have done to earn their positions
and their academic freedom? Do they have the right to dictate a teacher’s
pedagogy and curricular choices in order to advance their own narrow
ideological agenda? Do Arizona lawmakers have the right to deny an ethnic group
the opportunity to learn its history and cultural traditions, again, to advance
the interests of another ethnic group that happens to have more social
power? If their goal is social cohesion
among ethnic groups, do they promote that cohesion by the raw exercise of
social control?
There are lessons in The
Tempest for all parties involved and for all who would read, learn, and act
with wisdom and compassion rather than with ignorant authoritarianism.
