HEL PLEASETeam up with a partner and analyze Shakespeare's The Tempest. You must work independently to create annotations defining and explaining unfamiliar words in two different scenes. Then you will trade scenes, read your partner's annotations, and write a paragraph explaining how your partner's scene reveals Shakespeare's views on colonialism or imperialism.

The Illusion of Justice

The Tempest tells a fairly straightforward story involving an unjust act, the usurpation of Prospero’s throne by his brother, and Prospero’s quest to re-establish justice by restoring himself to power. However, the idea of justice that the play works toward seems highly subjective, since this idea represents the view of one character who controls the fate of all the other characters. Though Prospero presents himself as a victim of injustice working to right the wrongs that have been done to him, Prospero’s idea of justice and injustice is somewhat hypocritical—though he is furious with his brother for taking his power, he has no qualms about enslaving Ariel and Caliban in order to achieve his ends. At many moments throughout the play, Prospero’s sense of justice seems extremely one-sided and mainly involves what is good for Prospero. Moreover, because the play offers no notion of higher order or justice to supersede Prospero’s interpretation of events, the play is morally ambiguous.

As the play progresses, however, it becomes more and more involved with the idea of creativity and art, and Prospero’s role begins to mirror more explicitly the role of an author creating a story around him. With this metaphor in mind, and especially if we accept Prospero as a surrogate for Shakespeare himself, Prospero’s sense of justice begins to seem, if not perfect, at least sympathetic. Moreover, the means he uses to achieve his idea of justice mirror the machinations of the artist, who also seeks to enable others to see his view of the world. Playwrights arrange their stories in such a way that their own idea of justice is imposed upon events. In The Tempest, the author is in the play, and the fact that he establishes his idea of justice and creates a happy ending for all the characters becomes a cause for celebration, not criticism.

By using magic and tricks that echo the special effects and spectacles of the theater, Prospero gradually persuades the other characters and the audience of the rightness of his case. As he does so, the ambiguities surrounding his methods slowly resolve themselves. Prospero forgives his enemies, releases his slaves, and relinquishes his magic power, so that, at the end of the play, he is only an old man whose work has been responsible for all the audience’s pleasure. The establishment of Prospero’s idea of justice becomes less a commentary on justice in life than on the nature of morality in art. Happy endings are possible, Shakespeare seems to say, because the creativity of artists can create them, even if the moral values that establish the happy ending originate from nowhere but the imagination of the artist.

The Difficulty of Distinguishing “Men” from “Monsters”

Upon seeing Ferdinand for the first time, Miranda says that he is “the third man that e’er I saw” (I.ii.449). The other two are, presumably, Prospero and Caliban. In their first conversation with Caliban, however, Miranda and Prospero say very little that shows they consider him to be human. Miranda reminds Caliban that before she taught him language, he gabbled “like / A thing most brutish” (I.ii.359–360) and Prospero says that he gave Caliban “human care” (I.ii.349), implying that this was something Caliban ultimately did not deserve. Caliban’s exact nature continues to be slightly ambiguous later. In Act IV, scene i, reminded of Caliban’s plot, Prospero refers to him as a “devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick” (IV.i.188–189). Miranda and Prospero both have contradictory views of Caliban’s humanity. On the one hand, they think that their education of him has lifted him from his formerly brutish status. On the other hand, they seem to see him as inherently brutish. His devilish nature can never be overcome by nurture, according to Prospero. Miranda expresses a similar sentiment in Act I, scene ii: “thy vile race, / Though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures / Could not abide to be with” (I.ii.361–363). The inhuman part of Caliban drives out the human part, the “good nature,” that is imposed on him.

Explanation: I had this question as a test a couple of weeks ago, this is what I put in and when I submitted, I saw the results and it gave me an a so here you go :)

"the monkey's paw" is a rare story in that the theme is actually stated in the story. sgt. maj. morris tells the whites that the old fakir who put the spell on the paw said, "fate rules people's lives and those who interfere with fate do so to their sorrow." the message is a warning, but mr. white doesn't believe it. even though sgt. maj. morris makes it clear that he tried wishing with unfortunate results and he tries to throw the paw on the fire,   mr. white makes a wish for 200 pounds only to find that he receives the money when herbert dies in a factory accident. according to the fakir, then, because mr. white had wished for something he should not have had, his son lost his life.

the second wish that mrs. white encourages him to make is for herbert's return--one week after his death. when the strange knocking begins at the door during the windy night, mr. white panicks, believing that the previously dead but still mangled herbert could have walked home from the cemetary and is now at the door. because he fears what his wife will find if she opens the door, mr. white makes his third wish--for the noise to stop.

therefore, he uses his three wishes and to his sorrow, loses his son and disappoints his wife, who fervently believed that their son was at the door. she wanted him back, regardless of his condition.

explanation:

depends on your school

when i was in high school i took ap biology my senior year and it was the hardest one for me because my teacher finished the material within the first month of school and then went on to doing advanced college level it was horrible. but at a nearby school ap biology was one of the easier aps. also, it depends on what you are interested i like math a lot so ap calculus was easier for me than most but i hate history so ap us government was harder for me than most.