A Marxist analysis of 'The Tempest'

Marxism states that capitalism ‘thrives on exploiting its labourers’. This means that the upper class are rich, and stay rich, because the labourers that work for them get less than their work is actually worth.

Caliban in The Tempest is one of the most interesting and sympathetic characters. He is described using very derogatory terms, such as a ‘tortoise’ a ‘fish’ and a ‘beast’. The only information we receive about Caliban’s parentage and background is that from Prospero. ‘Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam.’ Prospero, here, is very prejudiced. He shows no respect for Caliban, despite the fact Caliban shows great intelligence when he tells Prospero ‘You taught me language; and my profit on’t Is, I know how to curse.’

Caliban is made unwillingly Prospero’s slave, even though he claims the island is really his – ‘This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, Which though tak’st from me.’ This shows that the way we think and the way we experience the world around us are either wholly or largely conditioned by the way the economy is organised. Here, social class is important – Prospero’s supremacy means that Caliban is powerless to stop or refuse him.

More recently Prospero is now portrayed as the cruel power hungry master who enslaved Caliban simply because he didn’t understand him. However, a Marxist analysis would say that capitalism turns people into things – Prospero rarely calls Caliban his name only ‘slave’. Caliban is given a lower, working class status even in the stage directions – ‘Enter Caliban, with a burthen of wood.’. Shakespeare shows that Caliban is made to work for Prospero in painful and difficult conditions, yet Prospero is the only one who gains from this - another example of the labour the working class go through in order to benefit the rich.

'Macbeth' at the Nuffield (20/09/2011)

Performed by Winchester based 'Platform 4', Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's great plays, and one of my set texts for my A2 exam, was meant to create a 'taut psychodrama that crackles with a wild electricity'.

I have always believed that Shakespeare has to be seen and you cannot just read it alone. You have to be able to listen to the words to really appreciate their beauty. Having previously seen a very successful adaption of 'The Tempest' at the Nuffield a few months before, I had high hopes for another excellent production. However, when the famous three witches came on with a piece of cloth over their heads, my heart sank. Where was the originality?

Sadly the lack of new and exciting ideas that performances of Shakespeare can bring continued. I thought I knew the play well, having already looked at the play before, however, for most of the two hour production I was trying to figure out who was who. Banquo (?) and Donalbain (?) particularly were two I could not tell apart - their expression was minimalist and their physical appearance was identical - same colour hair, same hair cut, same beard and same long, greenish coloured coat. Lady Macbeth was weak and should have been played by the only other woman in the performance who ended up playing one of the witches, Malcolm, Lady Macduff and a messenger. She had clarity and most importantly she had presence.

However, Macbeth was good - he was the only one who 'felt' the words he was speaking, so was sadly let down by the other performers.

There were some clever parts, where some events which were significant, yet needed no speech were done behind a net curtain - made prominent by the use of lighting. The lighting really was excellent - it evoked the passion and terror Macbeth involves.

Overall, my opinion is that the perfomance would have been very good if a school or college had presented this. On the otherhand, for paid actors, it did not live up to expectation.

Gothic Literature

"There, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white... something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell."- Bram Stoker, Dracula

 

Dracula is one of the most famous and typical gothic novels and was written in 1897. It is written in the form of diary entries and letters from several narrators’ perspectives. The name ‘Dracula’ came to be when Stoker was reading about Romanian history and chose this to replace ‘Count Wampyr’, which was his original name for the villain.

 

Stoker was living in Whitby when he was writing Dracula and parts of the novel are set there. This accounts for the continuing popularity of Whitby as a gothic site – many gothic festivals and ‘ghost walks’ are held here.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j6b4Cd3OZo

 

 

 “The night is chill; the forest bear; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? ­There is not wind enough in the air to move away the ringlet curl from the lovely lady’s cheek” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from Christabel

 

 

“For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.” Coleridge’s best known poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner displays many gothic characteristics, however the end of the poem reaches a relatively tame conclusion.

 

 

 

 

 

“An awful silence reigned throughout those subterraneous regions, except now and then some blasts of wind that shook the doors she had passed, and which grating on the rusty hinges were re-echoed through that long labyrinth of darkness.”- Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto

 

 

 

 

 

Christabel was written in 1816 and its strong theme of seduction and corruption of innocence has a strong gothic dimension, however the poem was never finished. This left Coleridge questioning his poetic ability.

Written in 1764, The Castle of Otranto is widely considered the first truly gothic novel. Walpole introduces many set-pieces that the Gothic novel will become famous for, such as mysterious sounds, doors opening independently of a person, and the fleeing of a beautiful heroine from an incestuous male figure.

 

 

“I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might by the least scruple of an overdose or at least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

 

 

Written in 1886, the theme of horror is combined with deep psychological insight. Sigmund Freud later said that literary creations could tell us a great deal more than rational explanations about the real workings of the human psyche. His paper The Uncanny acknowledges the gothic appeal – ‘the uncanny…undoubtedly belongs to all that is terrible – to all that arouses dread and creeping horror.’

 

 

 

 

 

“It excites me to be close to him, to think over and over, I can kill him and I will kill him but not now.”

- Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

 

 

After suffering the terrible grief of her young child, Anne Rice began to write her novels The Vampire Chronicles. She was writing at a time when novels, films and stories about vampires were uncommon. A film version was released in 1994 starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst.