Different People

For this post I am going to talk about someone that is not from the United States and how they think that the play (movie) relates.  I feel that the place that the person is from will have great impact on how they would re-imagine the play, for example the difference of a person being from a western country or a village in Africa.  I feel that a person from a modernized western civilization would have no problem putting the story in an urban area like it was done in the movie, however to a person who has most likely never visited a city it would not seem likely for them to re-imagine the play in an urban context.  I also feel like the person from the western culture would think about the characters in the same way as the movie did, but I feel like a person from a more traditional culture would use less woman in their version due to the fact that they probably still view women as less important than men.

The Tempest Movie

I feel that the movie is a good re-imagining of the play.  I also feel that the movie follows the play a little more closely than Naylor's "Mama Day".   However, in the movie some of the characters that were supposed to be male figures were made into female roles, and I feel like this was a clever move.  The reason that I think this was a cleaver move by the writer is because it added more love interests into the story instead of just one from the play.  I also think that this movie did a good job at showing the audience a clear version of modern America.  Naylor's "Mama Day" does not show modern America as in the case of the island the story takes place is not common in America.  That being said I liked the movie much more than "Mama Day".

Mama Day to Tempest

     I believe that the play The Tempest and the novel Mama Day are not as closely related as many people think.  When I think about two story lines being closely related I think about the relations between A Thousand Acres and King Lear.  The reason that I think this is because the relationship between A Thousand Acres and King Lear is so close where the relationship between Mama Day and The Tempest is much different.  

     Some of the parallels that I have found in Mama Day when it is compared to the Tempest is that both stories for the most part take place on an island.  In addition to the island both stories deal with with some sort of magic.  I would also like to say that I feel that Mama Day is the "Prospero" in the novel and that Coco and George are the "Miranda and Ferdinand".  That being said about how I feel the characters are related that does not mean that I feel that the characters are as related as the characters in A Thousand Acres.  

     With all that being said I feel that the relationship between Mama Day and The Tempest is there, but it is not as prevalent as the relationship between A Thousand Acres and King Lear. 

Prospero's Plan(s)

I feel that Prospero's plan from the beginning was to bring the people who caused him to be on the island and took away his dukedom to the island.  I feel that his plan did not change from the beginning of the play.  Two of the reasons as to why I think this way are: he never caused harm to the people who wronged him and that his daughter listened to him when he told her to wait to get involved with Ferdinand.  The way I interpreted this play lead me to believe that Prospero's play was to not harm the people who wronged him because he had them placed on the island safely and never harmed them while they were on the island.  I also feel that the fact that his daughter listened to him while getting involved with Ferdinand just showed that all pieces of his plan stayed in place.

I feel that these plans had great affect on the other characters in the play.  I feel that the plans show this with how Prospero manipulates Ariel by the promise of freedom.  I also feel that these plans affect Caliban greatly as Prospero constantly remind him that he owes him service for teaching he had received.  

In conclusion I feel that Prospero used his plans to achieve exactly what he wanted to happen and I also feel that these plans really affected all the characters in the play, but I feel that the plans affected Ariel and Caliban the greatest. 

The character that I am going to write about is Jess Clark.  This novel has been compared to King Lear many times in class as well as most descriptions that I have read online.  When this novel was compared to King Lear in class I remember someone saying that Jess Clark was the "Edmund" of this story.  I believe this to an extent but also disagree with that statement.  I agree that he could be Edmund in the fact that when he was away in Canada and Seattle his father "disowned" him by not talking about him with others in the community.  However, I also remember that in the reading he had a party thrown in his honor by his father when he returned home.  I have also seen a little bit of "Edmund" in Jess Clark in of the fact that Ginny wishes that she was with him instead of being with Tyler just like Gonnerial wanted to be with Edmund.  On the other hand,  Reagan was interested in Edmund too, but Rose is not interested in Jess in the novel A Thousand Acres.  Another difference that I see in this novel is that there is many scenes in the novel where Jess and Ginny interact and talk while in King Lear there is not much interaction between Gonnerial and Edmund.  I also think that the length of this novel makes the reader think more about the life of Jess than the life of Edmund and that way the reader will always "like" Jess more than Edmund.  That is just a simple explanation Jess Clark's characteristics and how they differ from that of Edmund in King Lear.

Plot vs Subplot

Sam Heilshorn

Plot vs Subplot 

    I feel that there is a great resemblance between father/children plots in this story.  Some of the areas where I see the resemblance is how each father lost trust of their child who loved them the most and that each father also trusted the child or children who did not love them.  I also see similarities in the fact that the prompt mentioned how King Lear was losing his eyesight and Gloucester literally lost his eyes.  To basically summarize King Lear asked his daughters who loved him the most and while two of his daughters lied to him to receive the most inheritance his one daughter remained silent and was then excommunicated by King lear.  The summary of what happened to Gloucester is his bastard son came up with a lie that his legitimate son was trying to kill him as a plot for the bastard son to get his inheritance.  Gloucester set out to kill his legitimate son as he had been tricked into thinking that he was trying to kill him.  The funny part about both of these stories is that things are not always as they seem as Gloucester's legitimate son Edgar loved him the most out of all his children and King Lear's daughter who would not lie about her love of him actually loved him the most. 

Sam Heilshorn

Lear's Fool

In all honesty I do not understand the role of the "fool" in this play.  I tried very hard to figure out why he was in the play at all.  Now I know that I should have done more research to figure out why he was included in this play, but then thought to myself that he was such a minor character that I was not going to bother with the research.  He was such a minor character that when he was written off towards the end of the third act that I did not even notice.  In my opinion the role of the fool in this play was to add comic relief.  Also, I have no idea to why he disappeared when he did or why he would disappear at all.