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Miranda's Speech In Prospero By William Shakespeare

1409 Words6 Pages

• The imagery in Miranda’s opening speech helps establish the setting by describing the roaring ocean, the boats struggles, and the poor fate of the passengers. She describes the ocean pushing and throwing the boat around and the “poor souls” aboard who are perishing as they speak. With her distressed cries of “O” in the forms of caesura’s Shakespeare creates a tense and stressful situation. Her emotional monologue sets the mood as terrifying and suspenseful leaving the audience on edge to find out what happens to the vessel. (page 9) • The exchange on page eleven tells the audience that Prospero and Miranda used to be the Duke and Princess of Milan, until his brother, Antonio, took over his powers and stole away his title. He is the one who exiled them to this island and took away everything. (page 11) • When Miranda says, “Good wombs have born bad sons”, she is referring to her grandmother who had a perfect child like her father, but also his brother who betrayed him. She suggests that humans do not have control over their destinies, but it is fate that balances good and evil. Also, Miranda’s line references that surroundings control fate as well because even though nature put both Prospero and Antonio in the same family, it is who they surrounded themselves with that changed their true character. (15) • At the climatic part of the story when Miranda tells her father that she must have been a burden to him while being exiled to the island on a raggedy boat, Prospero must

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