Opposition between Art and Reality in Shakespeares The Tempest Essay

Opposition between Art and Reality in The Tempest The Tempest is a self-reflexive play that explores the boundaries of art and reality. Shakespeares island is a realm controlled by the artist figure where the fabulous, the ideal and the imaginative are presented as both illusory and palpable, and where the audience is held in an indeterminate state, a curious repose. The juxtaposition of the world of art with political and social realities explored by representative characters is the central contrast of the play, and is foregrounded by the use of non-verbal techniques. These techniques allow the audience to deem the art that facilitates the spectacle they watch, as well as understand that the ideal remains an illusory state impinged on by concerns of the real world. This contrast does not pick itself rather, it remains inconclusive and leaves us, according to Russ McDonald, in a marginal condition between expectation and understanding, affirmation and skepticism, com edy and tragedy. The opening storm snapshot represents the collapse of all the civility and social order of the known world. The effectiveness of the storm is made possible by the opening tempestuous noise of smacking and lightning which pre-empts the events to come. The storm immediately catapults the reader into an understanding of the characters on board the ship. It exposes us to the way in which the characters social assumptions capitulate when they are exposed to adversity and leads us to expect that on their arrival on the island they will be reformed. However, quite the reverse is true - in the second act we are presented with men who come along even More zealously political now that they are free of havin... ...tion between art and reality is developed simultaneously by dialogue and a series of non-verbal techniques. Works Cited and Consulted Alan Durband. (Ed.) (1984). The Tempest. Hauppauge, New York Barrons Educational Series Inc. Deborah Willis, Shak espeares Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 29, no.2, (1989) Eric Cheyfitz, The Poetics of Imperialism Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan, (Oxford University Press, 1991) Ritchie, D. and Broussar, A. (1997). American tarradiddle The Early Years to 1877. New York Glencoe Kanoff, Acott. (1998). Your Study Guide to William Shakespeare The Tempest. Cleveland The Cleveland Play House Education Department William Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. Frank Kermode, with an introduction by Frank Kermode, (Arden, 1964)