In The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, a gendered reading and a contextual reading of social class can be applied to the text to explore the assumptions of women and the Divine Right Of Kings in Jacobean England. The play describes the story of Prospero, the Duke Of Milan, who is banished from Milan to an island with his daughter Miranda, which is only inhabited by a creature named Caliban and an airy sprite named Aries. When the Kings ship returns back from a wedding close to their island, Prospero conjures a storm shipwrecking their boat with his magical powers. On the island, Miranda falls in love with a man named Ferdinand and at a dinner held by Prospero, he talks of banishing the individuals that usurped him from Milan but ends up reconciling
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In Jacobean England, women were depicted to be possessions of their fathers and then would be passed onto their husbands. They had no life or property of their own and therefore women would live out their lives being sub-ordinate to men. Men were not hard to please either, as long as the woman was in a virgin state before their marriage, he would be satisfied. This is present in the play when Prospero warns Ferdinand to protect Miranda’s “virgin knot”, as a political device to ensure the advantageous marriage and the legitimacy of their children (BWD, 2017). The play assumes that Miranda is the property of her father and the traits that make the pinnacle of her femininity are the same traits that disenfranchise her: her innocence and vulnerability (Wikipedia, 2017). Miranda is more vulnerable than most women in the Jacobean era as she has not been exposed to the real dangers of society as she lives on an island with only three other figures. This makes the assumption that women are not able to survive without their fathers or husbands as they do not understand the true horrors of the world. Her innocence shines throughout the whole play as well, especially when she spots Ferdinand for the first time mentioning “How beauteous mankind is! o brave new world, that has such people in’t.” She realises that there is a whole world she is yet to discover and that she will not be stuck under …show more content…
Here in this play however, we see Shakespeare pushing back against the propaganda machine of the ruling class and deliver a rebuke to the king for overreaching his authority (Reiman, 2017). Because the Divine Right Of Kings was an assumption of the Jacobean era and was also important to King James, we see that Shakespeare purposely made the play chaotic until the resolution to show that the structure of society is regained once everyone is in their right places. In the resolution of the play, Prospero talks of returning to Naples and restoring his place as Duke. It is assumed that when this occurs, order will be restored to the people as the monarch is finally re-established, rather than taking revenge on those who wronged him (LitChart, 2017). Following the Divine Right Of Kings, comes the idea of The Great Chain Of Being. The people closest to Christian ideologies rested on the top of the hierarchal structure while the things in the world made entirely of matter like rocks rested at the bottom. This structure created by God is seen heavily in the The Tempest as every key character has its place in the structure. According to the play, Prospero’s reign is justified through a divine order and without order, the belief was the world would descend into chaos (Paplham, 2017). This is why the the play is chaotic until the resolution because Prospero loses his
In Jacobean England, women were depicted to be possessions of their fathers and then would be passed onto their husbands. They had no life or property of their own and therefore women would live out their lives being sub-ordinate to men. Men were not hard to please either, as long as the woman was in a virgin state before their marriage, he would be satisfied. This is present in the play when Prospero warns Ferdinand to protect Miranda’s “virgin knot”, as a political device to ensure the advantageous marriage and the legitimacy of their children (BWD, 2017). The play assumes that Miranda is the property of her father and the traits that make the pinnacle of her femininity are the same traits that disenfranchise her: her innocence and vulnerability (Wikipedia, 2017). Miranda is more vulnerable than most women in the Jacobean era as she has not been exposed to the real dangers of society as she lives on an island with only three other figures. This makes the assumption that women are not able to survive without their fathers or husbands as they do not understand the true horrors of the world. Her innocence shines throughout the whole play as well, especially when she spots Ferdinand for the first time mentioning “How beauteous mankind is! o brave new world, that has such people in’t.” She realises that there is a whole world she is yet to discover and that she will not be stuck under …show more content…
Here in this play however, we see Shakespeare pushing back against the propaganda machine of the ruling class and deliver a rebuke to the king for overreaching his authority (Reiman, 2017). Because the Divine Right Of Kings was an assumption of the Jacobean era and was also important to King James, we see that Shakespeare purposely made the play chaotic until the resolution to show that the structure of society is regained once everyone is in their right places. In the resolution of the play, Prospero talks of returning to Naples and restoring his place as Duke. It is assumed that when this occurs, order will be restored to the people as the monarch is finally re-established, rather than taking revenge on those who wronged him (LitChart, 2017). Following the Divine Right Of Kings, comes the idea of The Great Chain Of Being. The people closest to Christian ideologies rested on the top of the hierarchal structure while the things in the world made entirely of matter like rocks rested at the bottom. This structure created by God is seen heavily in the The Tempest as every key character has its place in the structure. According to the play, Prospero’s reign is justified through a divine order and without order, the belief was the world would descend into chaos (Paplham, 2017). This is why the the play is chaotic until the resolution because Prospero loses his