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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 3.15.97: Top | Help
It's based on a particular interpretation of the play
more than on the play itself. Critics have often seen
Ariel and Caliban as symbolic versions of different aspects
of Prospero/humamity. Ariel is the airy, intellectual
part, Caliban the bodily and earthy
(that which cannot be fully goverened by the intellect as well). Such a reading finds
great significance when - in the general movement toward
relinquishing power at the end of the play, Prospero says
"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." So, the
argument goes, he is accepting the real world in multiple
ways: returning to Milan, accepting mortality, and
acknowledging the Caliban part of himself. The Forbidden
Planet makes this literal by turning the ungovernable into
a literal "thing of darkness" projected from Prospero's
mind.
Posted by Barnabe Googe on March 22, 1997 at 13:40:28
In Reply to "Forbidden Planet?" posted by mug on March 18, 1997 at 18:29:19
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 3.15.97: Top | Help