The Tempest

New criticism might suggest we read ShakespeareÆs The Tempest as if it were a text that made perfect sense, whereas biographical criticism would urge us to examine the life and experiences of the author to glimpse meaning in the play. Deconstruction maintains that the text will ultimately ôcontradict itself,ö while meaning is forged ôby binary oppositions, but one item is unavoidably favored or privileged over the otherö (Primer 3). For this reason, the unavoidably favored or privileged position of Prospero over Caliban in ShakespeareÆs The Tempest lends itself most readily to deconstructive analysis.

As one scholar on deconstruction maintains, ôIf anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over anoth

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he could not adopt English values is Caliban considered inferior or beyond hope, even as something less than human, ôBut thy vile race / Though thou didst learn, had that inÆt which / Could not abide to be with: therefore wast thou / Deservedly confined into this rockö (Shakespeare 5). The authority and values of Prospero are in conflict with the natural rights and values of Caliban. Prospero comes to the island on which Caliban was born. On the island, there are spirit forces and magical happenings in an environment where time and space and mutable and often blurred. In this environment, similar to colonialism, Prospero feels the moral justification to impose English values that have forged his own in the indigenous culture of which Caliban is part. In this manner, we see that attempt to prove truth or absolute rightness only because of values due to oneÆs own culture. As one literary analyst maintains, ôDeconstruction is not an enclosure in nothingness, but openness to the otherö (Deconstruction 2). We see this openness is lacking with respect to the treatment of Caliban. Even though Caliban may seem uncivilized, brutish, and ignoble to Prospero or those of English culture, in his own culture his values are congruent
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Approximate Word count = 1926
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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