Social Roles In The Tempest

While reading The Tempest there were very obvious social aspects regarding the class system, with the representations of the characters that stuck out to me. It seemed as though during Shakespeare's time when he was writing this story, the opinions on the social classes was much more valued than it is today, and because of that some members of his society were considered superior to other members based on several different things. I think as a result of this fact, when writing this story, Shakespeare attempts to provide an example of this strict social structure for the reader to understand and be exposed to. Shakespeare shows within the story how superior men used race, class and gender to classify people as lesser than them.
In this type …show more content…
They were considered to be objects and were treated as property. I noticed that all positions of power are held by males and that The Tempest has only one prominent female character, Miranda, which directly shows how women are not represented equally at this time. However, on their island where the majority is men, she has one important purpose, which is to be a bride for Ferdinand. It seems as though her primary value is in her virginity, which determines her worth as far as marriage goes. Upon seeing Miranda, Ferdinand quickly asks, "If you be maid or no?" (citation). His first concern is for her fertility rather than for the actual person she is. The reason is because if she is a virgin, she has value to Ferdinand, who can only get married to a virgin because he cannot get married unless the woman he marries is pure. He wants the woman to be pure because he wants to ensure that his children will truly and definitely be …show more content…
He came, saw that there was someone already living there and completely disregarded it. Caliban and Sycorax had been living there for years, but because Prospero had more power than Caliban he declared himself to be above him. Prospero saw Caliban as a savage, so he assumed it was his job was to civilize him. Caliban says "This island's mine by Sycorax my mother," (citation), but Prospero came and made himself King over the island. Caliban and Sycorax, as the only two non-white characters, seem to never be described using anything other than negative terms which is a direct result of pure racism. I also think this is even more interesting because Prospero never actually met Sycorax, whoever he still makes this accusations just simply because the color of her skin. This all shows how racism is very prevalent within The Tempest and just by looking at the background of the play like I mentioned earlier, it is easy to see why the racism is