The role of the teacher can often be a negative one Essays

The role of the teacher can often be a negative one Essays The role of the teacher can often be a negative one Essay The role of the teacher can often be a negative one Essay Essay Topic: The assault The definition of a teacher is one who teaches or instructs; one whose business or occupation is to instruct others; an instructor; a tutor. The Tempest was written in 1611, following the discovery of the Bermudas and the colonisation of Ireland, during what is known as the Jacobean period. King James I resided over the throne. The most important themes are language and power: or to blend the two word power. The Tempest can be viewed as an allegory for power. The institution or individual that controls language: controls society. Prospero has a great control of language; his magical powers and intellect separate him from the other characters within the play. Prosperos magical powers signify his academic ascendancy and he becomes the teacher figure within the play. Prospero emerges as the most obvious teacher within The Tempest. He was a scholar in Milan and he imposes his intellectualism on his daughter. This shows the chain of transmission of knowledge. Miranda is educated and empowered by her knowledge. Miranda is under the thumb of her dictatorial father. Prospero even refers to Miranda as his foot. Prospero has educated his daughter, Miranda, the savage and deformed slave Caliban, and acts as a spiritual teacher to all the corrupt members of the shipwreck. It would be easy to cast Prospero as the omniscient, judicious, transcendent type within the play, but that would lend Prospero a positive role. Prospero is a bad teacher because he is abusive and misuses his gift, language, he is dictatorial towards Caliban. Prospero is continually mourning the loss of his dukedom, which his own brother usurped. Therefore, Prospero had political power but lost it. Prospero rarely accepts responsibility for his actions as a bad leader; he neglected his dukedom for magic, the occult, this links in with the Jacobean theory of the body politic. Prospero was an absent duke; he was presented with a choice between his dukedom and his study, and opted to lock himself in an ivory tower with his magic books. It can thus be argued that Prosperos magic was the reason he lost his dukedom and magic is exactly the means by which he regains his dukedom, so as a play it goes full circle, and Prospero disowns his magic and retakes his dukedom. Prospero teaches Ferdinand, the importance of being a good king, for the king to be a good ruler, he needs to know what its like to be a servant and thus he is forced t o carry logs, a punishment usually reserved for Caliban. Prospero is solipsistic. He enters his own private world as opposed to public one. Prospero, the usurped; ultimately becomes Calibans usurper. The fundamental hypocrisy is that if Prospero was a man of principle, he would have lived peacefully side-by-side with Caliban, but he chooses instead to dominate over Caliban as his ruler, he chooses to usurp, instead of co-operate. Furthermore, Prospero is obsessed with achieving revenge on the men that betrayed his trust, the same crime is scorns Caliban for. From a biblical perspective Prosperos obsession with revenge completely contradicts the Christian principle of forgiveness and fails the aphorism forgive and forget. Prospero is embittered by what has happened to his family and he wants to get his own back on them and achieve retribution. It can be argued that this subconscious fury is the fuel which fires his unfair treatment of Caliban. Prospero is not only a bad teacher, but a bad person. The colonial disposition of the language is a corruption. Prospero and Miranda have a very Eurocentric view of the world. Calibans original language is stigmatised as babble and gabble. Caliban is made to feel inferior by Miranda; hes called ugly, on a physical and mental level. Prospero brings in the idea that Caliban is un-educateble. Prospero uses teaching to put across a right-wing view. This Conservative views of factory fodder. Prospero has a fascistic view of education and human nature; he thinks Caliban is innately, genetically bad. From a post-colonial perspective Caliban is analogous to Sarah. Prosperos teaching methods are very right-wing; he clearly sees no hope for an uneducateable Caliban who is viewed as innately bad and therefore cannot be reformed as a character. While preaching Christian values and using them as a basis for his actions, the deep-seated duplicity is he does not practice these elevated values; instead he takes on an ad hoc basis for elements of Christ ianity that he needs to substantiate his actions. Prospero takes a pick and mix attitude to an all or nothing doctrine/ religion. One might question the use of having a teacher who does not practice what he/she preaches, on what foundations can Prospero claim superiority over Caliban, when the civilisation and cultural values Prospero is forcing Caliban to digest do not seem to apply to Prospero and his actions. Caliban resents Prospero for colonising/liberating him, and says, You taught me language, and my profit ont/Is I know how to curse. He sees Prospero as entirely oppressive; while Prospero claims that he cared for and educated Caliban before he tried to rape Miranda. Prospero feels that Caliban is ungrateful for the blessing of civilisation and language. Language for Caliban, however, is not empowering, rather oppressive. It highlights the changes Prospero and Miranda have caused and the extent to which they have changed him from what he was. Caliban uses language as an attempt to create a separate identity from his colonisers by using it against them and cursing them; the red plague rid you/for learning me this language!. Caliban has had a false identity impose on him. The role of teacher is destructive for Caliban because Prospero attempts to homogenise Caliban to be morel like himself. Prospero is a bad teacher because he imposes his language and cultural values on Caliban. In doing so he has made the assumption that Caliban is inferior. This stresses the recurring theme of hegemony, the domination of one culture over another. He says to Prospero, Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself/ Upon thy wicked dam, come forth! Prospero defends his mistreatment of Caliban saying that Caliban must be punished for attempting to rape his daughter and desiring to populate the island with little Calibans. It could be argued that Caliban achieves a different type of dignity to that of Ariel (who serves willingly) by refusing, if only sporadically, to bow before Prosperos intimidation. Calibans forced servitude and his native status on the island have led many critics to interpret him as a symbol of the cultures occupied and suppressed by European colonialists, which are represented by the power of Prospero. Aime Cesaires Une Tempete Calibans attempted rape of Miranda is intolerable in any culture. However, it only questions Prosperos ability as a teacher, he clearly hadnt taught Caliban as well as hed like to believe because Caliban doesnt understand his place within the island and this shows confusion, a great theme within the play. Caliban has had no experience of society apart from the love of a mother; the much missed witch Sycorax. Perhaps another reason he raped Miranda, was for the affection of a woman, he wanted to feel loved just like he had with Sycorax. Caliban has not been nurtured by society and clearly did not know any better. From a modern perspective, Caliban is punished for conduct he could not control, as Caliban acts according to his nature, his basic nature to do as he feels. Caliban, confused his position within the islands new found hierarchy when he attempted to rape Miranda, his aims were pro-creation he wanted to populate the island with little Calibans, he was clearly not aware of the repercussions and trauma Miranda might have experienced as a result of his actions. Caliban knows not of the crime he has committed, he does not understand, so like a young child he should have been taught and made to understand why his actions were wrong. When he needs Prospero the most, Prospero fails Caliban. Prospero decides instead to disown Caliban. Caliban thus becomes a product of Prosperos incompetence. Prospero has double standards, he is able to forgive the cold actions of his brother Antonio, his brothers motives were destructive; Antonio wanted his brother and niece dead so that he could achieve power. Whereas Calibans only aim was creation, his purpose did not knowingly involve anyone being harmed. Prosperos treatment of Caliban might be more aptly equated with a thing of darkness. Translations were written in 1980. It is set in Baele Beag and is written in a naturalistic style with symbolic elements. Northern Ireland was created in 1920 to avert a civil war between the Catholics and the Protestants; it was a disastrous attempt to mend the conflict and until very recently the creation of Northern Ireland was commonly regarded as illegitimate. It was viewed as a demonstration of colonial power. Translations emerge out of the troubles. In Translations, Hugh is, a professional teacher, as is Manus. Hugh like prospero is an abusive character; this is demonstrated with the treatment of his sons: Owen is the prodigal son and Manus is his lame son. Hugh even fails to notice Manus absence at the end of Chapter III. Hugh is an absent, negligent father. Hes very much broken man, he compensates for all his personality flaws with his intelligence, and this is similar to Prospero who also has many personal flaws. Hughs character is didactic, he has sacrificed the public for the private and instead of going to war, and he chooses instead to attend to his family. Like Prospero he is a moral and spiritual teacher. There is a shift in the readers perception of Hugh. Initially he is a bad teacher, drunk and negligent. He is decaying like the hedge school he teaches in. Hugh employs Chalk and talk teaching, he is dismissive and takes an arrogant attitude towards his students. He dismisses Maire who wants to learn English and makes fun of Doalty. English has a colonial function, language of cultural oppression, analogous to the language of magic. Lost his political power because of magic, than regains whats his through magic and then renounces it. Prospero becomes a teacher through magic. Hugh as a bad teacher, stuck in the past, he rejects/ignores Daniel O Connell. Throughout almost the first half of the nineteenth century Irelands history is reflected in the life of Daniel OConnell. In Dublin he associated with the United Irishmen and shred their national sentiments. When the Emmet alarm burst on the country in 1803, he flew to arms to preserve the Constitution. He was one of the Lawyers Corps that was formed for defence of the realm against the assault of French principles. . Chooses to teach hindering classical past. Hugh doesnt have an understanding of politics. Manus on the other hand, the private for the political. HE sees Sarah nothing more than an embodiment for a tradition. HE doesnt even realise Sarah is in love with him. Look at the idea of Prospero and Hugh as teachers. There can be good teachers or bad teachers. Prospero and Hugh are both scholars and teachers. Hugh is not a very good one; he takes his son for granted like a surrogate wife. Hedge schools are anachronistic; education makes Hugh an intellectual snob. Inferiority complexes manifest themselves as superiority complexes. He also manifests his superiority complex in front of Yolland, He degenerates England. He hadnt heard of Wordsworth and is therefore ignorant of English speaking culture. HE has a parochial, narrow, small-town mentality. Hugh parochialism combines with Manus nationalism. Hugh has a bad effect on Manus, he refuses to speak English, Hugh sees English in esthetical terms its ugly, inferior. Manus, however sees language in political terms, as the language of the colonisers. Maire sees language in economic terms. She ends up looking at language in aesthetic terms nice sounds 78. So the changes in the characters arent static. On the one hand, Hugh teaches Manus well. He comes to realisation. Act 3, purveyors poles political significance and intransigent attitude. Manus as a product of his father, hes a bad father because he treats Manus like a skivvy a slave a dogs body hes not just a victim. Hes a victim of not just the British but his father like Caliban. Classical analogy. Manus lameness because father drops him when he was drunk. He weeps when Owen returns. His treatment of the two sons is unfair. To juxtapose Prospero with the primitive Caliban who is analogous to Rousseaus noble savage myth exposes. Lancey views the Irish as stupid and stigmatises them. On the other hand characters such as Yolland romanticise and idealise the Irish. Gonzalo idealises them as better than that. This is similar to Edward Saids view of the Wests perception of other cultures is Orientalism, the west, the noble savage. Either stigmatise or sentimentalise. Prospero gave Miranda the best teaching possible, whereas he failed Caliban. Miranda is an echo chamber for her father. Whereas Prospero failed Caliban.