In “’Virtue Rather Than Vengeance’: GENESIS and Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST,” author Brian Sutton points out many correlations between William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis in The Bible. He breaks down the two tales, juxtaposing them, assisting the readers by pointing out the connections and making them even more obvious. He explains in detail the extent of the parallels, mentions the differences, and occasionally, as he did when referencing the banning of mentioning God onstage (Sutton, pg. 228), even provides a possible reason as to why Shakespeare may have deviated from the storyline of Joseph. The connections are evident between the two men, despite their ages. With the mischievous siblings, the
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While it is not known whether or not there are people who believe the events that took place in The Tempest were factual, there are members of the Christian faith that believe the books in The Bible were written from actual events that took place. If The Tempest were written to be a believable story, then it would be more plausible that the ending could not be so ideal, but that was not the case. The Tempest was not written as a play that viewers would believe was based off of real life events, the clearest evidence for that being the use of Caliban, who was described as “legged like a man, and his fins like arms!” (Tempest 2.2.34-35), as well as the use of harpies in Act 3, Scene 3. As the readers readily accept the use of Caliban, harpies, and other unrealistic elements in the story, so would they accept an optimistic ending, despite its improbability. In the story of Joseph, the elements are more realistic. It is much more plausible that there was a boy who was the favorite of his father, whose brothers became jealous and plotted against him, sold him to the nomads travelling through the land, and through fortunate events, came to a place of power over those who had earlier wronged him. The feasibility of God relaying prophecies to Joseph may seem less plausible to some, but that is more of a debate of the Christian faith, which this is
While it is not known whether or not there are people who believe the events that took place in The Tempest were factual, there are members of the Christian faith that believe the books in The Bible were written from actual events that took place. If The Tempest were written to be a believable story, then it would be more plausible that the ending could not be so ideal, but that was not the case. The Tempest was not written as a play that viewers would believe was based off of real life events, the clearest evidence for that being the use of Caliban, who was described as “legged like a man, and his fins like arms!” (Tempest 2.2.34-35), as well as the use of harpies in Act 3, Scene 3. As the readers readily accept the use of Caliban, harpies, and other unrealistic elements in the story, so would they accept an optimistic ending, despite its improbability. In the story of Joseph, the elements are more realistic. It is much more plausible that there was a boy who was the favorite of his father, whose brothers became jealous and plotted against him, sold him to the nomads travelling through the land, and through fortunate events, came to a place of power over those who had earlier wronged him. The feasibility of God relaying prophecies to Joseph may seem less plausible to some, but that is more of a debate of the Christian faith, which this is