The Tempest
why is miranda so merciful towards the shipwreck victims but only has contempt and hatred for caliban?
Tempest act 1 scene 1
Tempest act 1 scene 1
The character of Miranda does not appear in Act I/ Scene I of the play.
This question pertains to Scene II, in which Miranda chides her father for causing death and destruction. Her heart is with the good people who've been killed by the storm of Caliban's making, and the shouts of the dying have broken her heart.
"If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out. Oh, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer. A brave vessel
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her
Dashed all to pieces. Oh, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed and
The fraughting souls within her."
The Tempest/ Act I/ Scene II
I would argue that this is a representation of the emerging rhetoric towards black people, in order to de humanize them a give precedence to the slave trade. Shakespeare is using both Miranda and prospero to so the extreme otherness of both caliban and his mother.
Also he did try to rape Miranda,so there not friends anymore
rape
shakespeare had rape fantasies