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CHOOSE ANY PART IN THE PLAY AND DO A “PRESENTATION PASSAGE”

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:

CONTEXT:

This passage occurs in Act I Scene 2, after Prospero has told his daughter, Miranda, of their “sea-sorrow” (I.ii.170), and how they came to be on the island. Ariel returns from causing the tempest that seemed to sink the “brave vessel” (I.ii.6) Miranda worries about–she, a spectator of the play that Ariel has orchestrated at Prospero’s command, “suffered / With those that [she] saw suffer” (4-5).

This passage occurs in Act I Scene 2, after Prospero has told his daughter, Miranda, of their “sea-sorrow” (I.ii.170), and how they came to be on the island. Ariel returns from causing the tempest that seemed to sink the “brave vessel” (I.ii.6) Miranda worries about–she, a spectator of the play that Ariel has orchestrated at Prospero’s command, “suffered / With those that [she] saw suffer” (4-5).

PARAPHRASE:

Ariel, a spirit that is bound to Prospero, has successfully completed his task and demands his “liberty” as promised.  He first tells Prospero how the ship and the mariners on it have fared–they have been “dispersed” around the island, and the King’s son, Ferdinand, has been cast ashore on his own–this will serve Prospero’s plans to have Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love, and inherit the Italian throne. Prospero commends Ariel, and the spirit asks for “what thou hast promis’d, / Which is not yet perform’d me”–” My liberty” (242-44). Prospero becomes angry and recounts all the tortures that he saved Ariel from when he arrived on the island many years ago.  We also see Prospero’s perspective on the earliest inhabitants of the isle

Passage:

ARIE  Safely in the harbor

Is the King’s ship. In the deep nook, where once                      270

Thou calledst me up at midnight to fetch dew

From the still-vexed Bermoothes, where she’s hiding;

The mariners all under hatches stowed,

Who, with a charm joined to their suffered labor,

I have left asleep. And for the rest o’ th’ fleet,                          275

Which I dispersed, they all have met again

And are upon the Mediterranean float,

Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the King’s ship wracked

And his great person perish.                                                       280

PROSPERO  Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is performed. But there’s more work.

What is the time o’ th’ day?

ARIEL  Past the mid-season.

PROSPERO

At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and now                    285

Must by us both be spent most preciously.

ARIEL

Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,

Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,

Which is not yet performed for me.

PROSPERO  How now? Moody?                                             290

What is ’t thou canst demand?

ARIEL  My liberty. PROSPERO

Before the time be out? No more.

ARIEL  I prithee,

Remember I have done thee worthy service,                             295

Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served

Without grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise

To bate me a full year.

PROSPERO  Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?                                         300

ARIEL  No.

PROSPERO

Thou dost, and think’s it much to tread the ooze

Of the salt deep,

To run upon the sharp wind of the North,

To do me business in the veins o’ th’ Earth                               305

When it is baked with frost.

ARIEL  I do not, sir.

PROSPERO

Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot

The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy

Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?                         310

ARIEL  No, sir.

PROSPERO

Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak. Tell me.

ARIEL

Sir, in Argier.

PROSPERO  O, was she so? I must

Once in a month recount what thou hast been,                          315

Which thou forget. This damned witch Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou knowest, was banished. For one thing, she did

They would not take her life. Is not this true?                           320

ARIEL  Ay, sir.

PROSPERO

This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child

And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,

As thou report’s thyself, was then her servant,

And for thou wast a spirit too delicate                                       325

To act her earthy and abhorred commands,

Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,

With the help of her more potent ministers

And in her most unmitigable rage,

Into a cloven pine, within which rift                                          330

Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died

And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans

As fast as mill wheels strike. Then was this island

(Save for the son that she did litter here,                                   335

A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honored with

A human shape.

ARIEL  Yes, Caliban, her son.

PROSPERO

Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban

Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st                     340

What torment I did find thee in. Thy groans

Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts

Of ever-angry bears. It was a torment

To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax

Could not again undo. It was my art,                                      345

When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape

The pine and let thee out.

ARIEL  I thank thee, master.

PROSPERO

If thou more murmur’s, I will rend an oak

And peg thee in his knotty entrails till                                       350

Thou hast howled away twelve winters.

ARIEL  Pardon, master.

I will be a correspondent to command

And do my spriting gently.

PROSPERO  Do so, and after two days                                    355

I will discharge thee.

Significance & Question

We are asked to see Ariel, here, as somewhat like Caliban–the airy spirit who seems to be so opposite to the earthy “monster.”  Both have at one point been imprisoned, and both are at the mercy of Prospero, their so-called “Master.” But so too is Prospero like Sycorax–both have power, both have children, and both, are banished for “mischiefs”.

We learn that Ariel understands that he is indentured, in a way, to this man; and he desires something other–he desires his “Liberty.”

As we hear of the island’s past, we see that there was a metaphoric and a literal struggle for authority and power here as in Italy (and Algiers/Algiers, the present-day capital of Algeria).

It also shows us something of Prospero’s character–he is quite testy, becoming easily angered at any apparent resistance to his authority. (We see this earlier in the scene, too, when Miranda is trying to listen to her father’s long-winded tale.)

It gives us a sense of the time of the play; and it also suggests the location–the “still-vexed Bermoothes.”

This section illustrates many of the themes of the play–authority, right governance, freedom, and obligation–and it allows us to compare Prospero and Sycorax, Ariel and Caliban. What makes Prospero’s magic different from Sycorax’s? How is Ariel different from Caliban?

This passage occurs in Act I Scene 2, after Prospero has told his daughter, Miranda, of their “sea-sorrow” (I.ii.170), and how they came to be on the island. Ariel returns from causing the tempest that seemed to sink the “brave vessel” (I.ii.6) Miranda worries about–she, a spectator of the play that Ariel has orchestrated at Prospero’s command, “suffered / With those that [she] saw suffer” (4-5).

If you need a similar but plagiarism-free “presentation passage”, then feel free to contact us!