Control In The Tempest

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Who has Control now? “The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” This is a powerful quote from Malcolm X and something that couldn’t be truer in today’s society. The media controls what we see and often controls us ourselves. We have a tendency to post blatantly to the internet without thinking of consequences because behind the protection of a screen, everyone seems to think they have full control. All of these examples fall under different types of control that we see every day. Coincidentally, Shakespeare also covers all of these examples of control in “The Tempest”. Shakespeare shows us how …show more content…
Earlier in this essay I stated how Prospero had control of all the island and everything on it, however, there’s one exception to that statement, he doesn’t really have control of himself. Prospero was robbed of the one thing he had prided for his entire life, when he lost his rightful title of Duke of Milan, he also lost a piece of himself. For most of this book he’s merely just a shadow of his former self, he’s not really in control anymore, his desire for revenge is. Drawing from our past lecture on Immanuel Kant’s “What is Enlightenment” we discussed the three main concepts of what made up the ancient Greek soul. Logos represented pursuit of knowledge, Eros represented pursuit of worldly pleasures, and Thumos represented Emotion. It was also discussed that too much of one in the soul was never a good thing and always had negative effects on the person. Well Prospero is no exception to this rule, for he possesses way too much Thumos in his soul. He allows his emotions to overtake him, and he can no longer rational think about his actions, and his desire to be the Duke of Milan is overshadowed by his overwhelming desire to seek revenge on those responsible. It isn’t until much later in text that Prospero actually realizes the damage he has done, and how pointless this revenge actually was. Ariel is the one who actually snaps him out of this blind vengeance by saying, “Him that you termed, sir, the good old Lord Gonzalo. His tears run down his beard like winter’s drops from eaves of reeds. You charm so strongly works ‘em, that if you now beheld them, your affections would become tender” (Shakespeare, pg. 75). Ariel explains to Prospero how his actions were misguided and have hurt the crew of the ship much more than necessary, and that he still has control to fix this situation and make things right. Prospero is moved by these words and agrees to finally set the crew

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