Complete Conformity is Nonexistent

The debate between George Will and Stephen Greenblatt is quite intriguing. Each side presents somewhat sane ideas, but each with their own twist, and on the whole each side has a valid argument.

George Will  claims, "The supplanting of esthetic by political responses to literature makes literature primarily interesting as a mere index of who had power and who the powerful victimized." The point Will makes here seems justifiable, it is evident that in literature it is quite easy to see who had power, no matter if the author agreed with said power or not. In the Tempest, an "imperialistic rape of the Third World" as Will labels it, there is some evidence that Shakespeare intended to display the inhumane acts of his country, and whether one perceives it to be positive or negative, it undoubtedly shows what party, or particular mindset, governed the time period. Yet, as Will makes his sarcastic blows at classics such as Moby Dick, he mocks the fact that people read way too much into an author's meaning. Though the author's meaning may not have been as blunt as Will jokingly makes it seem, his point is clear, implying that instead of giving works such as The Tempest many meanings, it simply makes more sense to assess the time period given and literally follow the supposed story put forth by the author in the given piece. However, this assumption seems far fetched, for how can one ever really know what the the author truly intended?

Stephen Greenblatt's views are almost perfectly opposite from those of George Will. Greenblatt conveys "But art, the art that matters, is not cement. It is mobile, complex, elusive, disturbing. A love of literature may help to forge community; but it is a community founded on imaginative freedom, the play of language, and scholarly honesty, and not on flag waving, boosterism, and conformity." I cannot help but agree with this point that Greenblatt makes, even though it contradicts Will's, it simply makes sense to explore the depths of literature and come up with any possible undeveloped theories about a given piece of text, for it is only human nature to try and expand our horizons in every way humanly possible.

After reading through both of these articles, I believe I know where I stand, and that is on the side of Greenblatt. I completely concur with the idea that there should be freedom of literary explorations. Yes, Will does make a valid point, it is easy to assume given the time period, how the author intended their work to be portrayed. Yet, how can we ever really know what the right answer is? We'll never know, we can only guess. So how is there only one correct guess as Will makes it seem?  The truth is, there is not. No one person can make something truth. In reality everything is fictitious, one can create truths as easily as they can create lies. If there is even a distinguishable difference between the two. So given that, I think it may be reasonable to say that there are a few explanations for a given piece of text, for when you read something for the first time, uninfluenced, you form an original idea of what message the author was trying to convey. Upon conversation with peers later, you may begin to form a new idea with the thoughts of others, but even these cannot be completely similar, and it all comes down to opinion. It is a person's thought. There is no such thing as complete conformity.

The Monster

As I was reading through the chapter of Charles Bressler's Literacy Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice that we were given in class, one definition particularly stood out. This definition was that of Orientalism given by Edward Wadie Said. "Orientalism: the creation of non-European stereotypes that suggested so-called Orientals were indolent, thoughtless, sexually immoral, unreliable, and demented." This definition parallels the description that Shakespeare gives of Caliban through the eyes of the Europeans around him almost word for word. Not only does Prospero view Caliban to be immoral, but as soon as the shipwrecked men Trinculo and Stephano set eyes on him, Caliban is immediately labeled "monster".

Although Caliban is only one man, or "monster", he is a seemingly reasonable representation of native peoples.  I do believe Shakespeare was creating a negative stereotype of so-called “others”, but the intention was not necessarily surface level. Though it appears Shakespeare is bashing native peoples, why then would he waste so much time in his play to describe one single “savage”? In the mindset most Europeans had during that time, there were tribes of blood thirsty “savages” waiting for their chance to strike an “innocent” brigade of white men at any given cost. The average play watchers of the time could care less about what one “mongrel” had to say.  Trinculo recalls “When you get a good look at him, you see he’s not much of a monster. I can’t believe I was scared of him! A pretty pathetic monster. The man in the moon! What a poor, gullible monster.” Shakespeare communicates his true meaning for Caliban through lines like this one.  It may appear that Shakespeare is just making fun of the “monster” but in reality he is sympathizing with him. He points out how that he is in fact not scary, and is easily swayed by unknown people’s opinions, just like those places conquered by the Queen during Shakespeare’s time. Whether it is the influence of religion, or basic morals, it is apparent that the conquering of people’s home lands for a “greater good”, was not something that Shakespeare found to be morally justifiable.

While I watched the video that dealt with the erroneous depiction of Native Americans by Hollywood, I immediately drew a connection with the play. However, even though Caliban is also incorrectly portrayed as a native of the island, just as the Native Americans were in Hollywood, I do not believe the meaning behind the two is the same. In the Hollywood version I believe that the reasoning behind the inaccurate representation of the Native Americans was simply because at that time, the white men controlled the movie making business, and in a despicable attempt to gain profit, wrongly depicted them in films. On the other hand, in Shakespeare’s world, the portrayal of native people’s was the same, but he was an exception. Even though he appeared to be following the norm by describing Caliban in that same way, he was an ingenious writer, and crafted his play so that to the surface level viewer, all was well, Caliban was an evil savage. Yet, to a more enlightened viewer, his play called out the injustices of Imperialism, and went against the common practiced prejudices of “others”.

It seems as though the conquered “savage” is not the actual beast. It is the conqueror who is the true monster.

A Tempest is Coming...

The first act of The Tempest opens with a violent storm undoubtedly foreshadowing the catastrophic events to come. Prospero, a sorcerer of sorts, brings about the furious rage of wind and water to wreck the lives of his foes; however, will this occurrence leave his own life shipwrecked?  This is merely a prediction, yet given the way he changes the narration of the past to those around him, a misfortune in his own life seems highly plausible.

To begin, he retells the past to his daughter, always casting himself in the role of victim, yet is it not he who shipwrecked the king’s men?  He recalls “I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated to closeness and the bettering of my mind with that which, but by being so retired, o'erprized all popular rate, in my false brother awaked an evil nature.” He captivates Miranda with this tale, but is it truthful or is he just manipulating his easily swayed child? A further examination suggests that Prospero has a knack for twisting the truth to portray a reality in which he is the superior being; the victim, the leader, and the virtuous.

As Prospero’s plans begin to unfold, we stumble upon the character of Ariel, his unwilling servant.  He reminds him of his promised freedom, and Prospero angrily lashes out in reply with the horrors of Ariel’s previous mater, Sycorax, “And in her most unmitigable rage, Into a cloven pine, within which rift imprisoned thou didst painfully remain a dozen years; within which space she died and left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans As fast as mill wheels strike.” Prospero ironically reminds Ariel of this past occasion, yet is still holding him captive just as Sycorax did, and even to a greater respect, offers as punishment to send Ariel back to the dreadfulness of a tree prison. Although in his own mind Prospero has justified his interpretation of the past, he does not see that he is simply repeating the repulsive ways of the master before him.

We are introduced to Caliban soon after, the son of the horrid witch Sycorax. Prospero treats him appallingly; except for in this case it is justifiable for Caliban did try to rape his daughter. That point aside, Caliban makes a statement that is hard to ignore, “No, pray thee.(aside) I must obey. His art is of such power; it would control my dam’s god, Setebos, and make a vassal of him.” In this case, no matter what Caliban believes the correct view of reality is, he feels like he must obey, or else he could be punished ruthlessly. In this way, Prospero is able to alter and control the reality of others, simply because he holds an authoritative position.

Texas Textbook Massacre

This past week’s Socratic circle was quite interesting. Personally, I disagreed with the revision of the traditional history textbook that took place in the state of Texas. I feel that it was way too completely skewed to the right, and did not correctly cover minorities, as a history book should, for this is America after all, the land of the “free”, and if that statement still holds true then it should not matter what religion, race, or gender you are, as long as you impacted history in some way, you should have the right to be included. The state of Texas neglected to see this point, instead hardly mentioning, or even completely replacing significant minority figures.



Now to address the question that often came up in the circle, “How do we not know that our information is not already biased, or false, and is it possible that the knowledge we have is over skewed to the left as it is?” Well it’s true, we were not there, we cannot recall what really took place even a hundred years ago, let alone further back in history. I believe that the best we can do is use the given information we have already. There are probably some falsities, but to fully revise the history textbook based on a bias that does not even comply with the given rights of equality set by the founders of this country, does not seem accurate for such a nation as ours. Now to create a bias free text book seems like an almost impossible feat. Creators can change the information in any way they want, and to simply record “facts” would be difficult, for what is a “fact”? It’s truthful information in one person’s mind and a lie in another’s. Personally I believe we should just keep the textbook system how it is, yes it does seem a tad skewed to the left, but it covers all aspects of history unlike its opposition.


As in comparison to the novel “1984” by George Orwell, the Texas textbook situation draws multiple parallels. I found the Texas government to be quite similar to that of the Party in Oceania. They both took information from the past and changed it to suit their given political views so that their citizens would learn history in a way that fitted their current political stance. I also found it amusing that The Party wiped out the capitalists and made them seem like bad guys, while in the Texas textbook, they also wiped out the idea of capitalism and replaced it with the free enterprise system, suggesting that capitalism never existed, or that it shouldn’t.


Overall, I feel that Texas did a terrible job in their so called revision of the traditional textbook, and that for students in that state to get a well rounded background of historical knowledge before they enter the real world, Texas should give up their textbook massacre and go about this in a more reasonable way, by either adapting the textbook standard used by the rest of the country.