power in the tempest essay

The Tempest

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From the opening scene of The Tempest during the storm, when the ruling courtiers on the ship must take orders from their subjects, the sailors and the boatswain, The Tempest examines a variety of questions about power: Who has it and when? Who's entitled to it? What does the responsible exercise of power look like? How should power be transferred? The play is full of examples of power taken by force, and in each case these actions lead to political instability and further attempts to gain power through violence. Antonio and Alonso's overthrow of Prospero leads to Antonio and Sebastian's plot to overthrow Alonso, just as Prospero's overthrow and enslavement of Caliban leads Caliban to seek revenge.

Ultimately, it is only when Prospero breaks the cycle of violence by refusing to take revenge on Alonso, Antonio, Sebastian, or Caliban that the political tensions in the play are calmed and reconciled. After Prospero's merciful refusal to seek revenge, Alonso and Prospero quickly come to an understanding and unite their once warring cities through the marriage of their children. The Tempest suggests that compromise and compassion are more effective political tools than violence, imprisonment, or even magic.

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The Tempest includes elements of both tragedy and comedy. It was written around 1610 and it's generally considered Shakespeare's final play as well as the last of his romance plays. The story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, schemes to restore his daughter Miranda to her proper place using manipulation and illusion. He conjures up a storm--the aptly named tempest--to lure his power-hungry brother Antonio and the conspiring King Alonso to the island.

In The Tempest , power and control are dominant themes. Many of the characters are locked into a power struggle for their freedom and for control of the island, forcing some characters (both good and evil) to abuse their power. For example:

• Prospero enslaves and treats Caliban badly.
• Antonio and Sebastian plot to kill Alonso.
• Antonio and Alonso aim to get rid of Prospero.

The Tempest : Power Relationships

In order to demonstrate power relationships in The Tempest , Shakespeare utilizes the dynamics between servants and those who control them.

For example, in the story Prospero is the controller of Ariel and Caliban -- although Prospero conducts each of these relationships differently, both Ariel and Caliban are acutely aware of their subservience. This leads Caliban to challenge Prospero’s control by serving Stefano instead. However, in trying to escape one power relationship, Caliban quickly creates another when he persuades Stefano to murder Prospero by promising that he can marry Miranda and rule the island.

Power relationships are inescapable in the play. Indeed, when Gonzalo envisages an equal world with no sovereignty, he is mocked. Sebastian reminds him that he would still be king and would therefore still have power – even if he did not exercise it.

The Tempest: Colonization

Many of the characters compete for colonial control of the island – a reflection of England’s colonial expansion in Shakespeare’s time .

Sycorax, the original colonizer, came from Algiers with her son Caliban and reportedly performed evil deeds. When Prospero arrived on the island he enslaved its inhabitants and the power struggle for colonial control began - in turn raising issues of fairness in The Tempest

Each character has a plan for the island if they were in charge: Caliban wants to “people the isle with Calibans," Stefano plans to murder his way into power, and Gonzalo imagines an idyllic mutually controlled society. Ironically, Gonzalo is one of the few characters in the play who is honest, loyal and kind throughout – in other words: a potential king.

Shakespeare calls into question the right to rule by debating which qualities a good ruler should possess – and each of the characters with colonial ambitions embodies a particular aspect of the debate:

• Prospero: embodies the all-controlling, omnipresent ruler
• Gonzalo: embodies the utopian visionary
• Caliban: embodies the rightful native ruler

Ultimately, Miranda and Ferdinand take control of the island, but what sort of rulers will they make? The audience is asked to question their suitability: Are they too weak to rule after we have seen them manipulated by Prospero and Alonso?

• Overview of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'
• The Role of Caliban in 'The Tempest'
• Prospero: Character Analysis of Shakespeare's 'Tempest' Protagonist
• 'The Tempest' Summary for Students
• 'The Tempest' Characters: Description and Analysis
• 'The Tempest' Overview
• Top 5 Female Villains in Shakespeare Plays
• 'The Tempest' Summary
• Quotes From Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'
• Analyzing Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'
• 'The Tempest' Themes, Symbols, and Literary Devices
• "The Tempest" Act 1
• Magic in 'The Tempest'
• 'The Tempest' Quotes Explained
• Understanding Ariel in "The Tempest"
• How to Use Shakespeare Quotes

Back to: The Tempest by William Shakespeare

In the play The Tempest, Shakespeare contemplates the idea of power in various ways. The play explores the desire for control and power which is universal. It is a unique play that has yielded different perspectives of different ages.

In modern times, much has been interpreted from the play in terms of colonial and post-colonial reading . The play reflects the power of a master over its slave and as well as the power of men over women in a patriarchal society apart from other topical notions of power such as the king and his subjects.

The power which is most deciding in the play is the magical power of Prospero. Prospero controls the whole island and through his power, he can also intervene in the rhythm of Nature.

The brutal side of his power is exposed through his dealing with Caliban. His brutality towards him is justified by the fact that Caliban tried raping his daughter Miranda.

Nevertheless, his power must have blinded him from realizing certain limitations of Caliban and accepting him as a living individual. In his power, he denies Caliban any humanity rather reserves it under his fold and addresses him as an “ Other .”

Prospero’s attempt to civilize him is actually a patronizing device of power exercise. He is almost disappointed with his attempt to humanize Caliban but it feels more like a disappointment of curiosity.

At the beginning of the play, it is not clear whether Prospero is good or bad but with the progress in the plot, one notices Prospero’s use of power for just reasons reveals his goodness by the end.

Caliban is a foil to Prospero’s power. Prospero’s power has no effect upon Caliban while at the same time, his power can control even the sleep of other characters.

The power which men exercise over women in such a society as shown in the play is clearly contemplated in the play. Miranda becomes a mere object of exchange for Prospero to achieve his political gain.

Even when Ferdinand describes his love in a mode of serving Miranda, it remains a tool of patriarchal power. Ferdinand says that “ The very instant that I saw you did My heart fly to your service. ”

Miranda’s femininity has been subdued under her father and later by Ferdinand. But towards the end of the play, Prospero decides to abandon his “ rough magic. ”

He understands the value of mortal limitations and retires from the limitless adventure of power and that’s what perhaps let him go back to the position of his past. Power in its various forms remains one of the prime thematic concerns of the play.

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Explore how Shakespeare presents the theme of power in "The Tempest"

Explore how Shakespeare presents the theme of power in “The Tempest”

 In “The Tempest”, power manifests itself in many different forms. Three of the main types of power that Shakespeare explores are the power of love, the power of magic and illusion and the power of a master over his slave. He presents these forms of power in a number of ways.

 In “The Tempest” Prospero appears to hold the majority of the power. He maintains his control over other characters in various ways, for example he uses the power of love to influence his daughter Miranda. Miranda is devoted to her father, and Prospero uses guilt to maintain this. In their first conversation, Prospero’s power over Miranda becomes apparent. She says “Alack, what trouble/Was I then to you!” and it is clear that because of the guilt she feels, she will be willing to do anything for him. It is evident that Miranda is aware of how powerful Prospero is, as she says “Had I been any god of power, I would/ Have sunk the sea within the earth”. This indicates that she understands the extent of Prospero’s power, and that if she had possessed the same amount of power, she would use it differently to her father.

 Prospero is manipulative, appearing self-pitying by saying “When I have decked the sea with drops full salt/ Under my burthen groaned” but also egotistical, saying, “Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit/ Than other princesses can” to which Miranda responds “Heaven thank you for’t!” Although he tries to cause Miranda to feel sympathy towards him in order to keep control of her, he also wants her to admire him.

 Although he also has power over Miranda using love, he also has power over a different form of love, namely romantic love. He orchestrates the meeting of Miranda and Ferdinand deliberately, presuming that they will fall in love. Although Prospero forbade Miranda from telling Ferdinand her name, he knew that they would inevitably fall in love. He does not want Miranda to appear as a prize that can be easily won, saying “I must uneasy make, lest too light winning/ Make the prize light” and he instigates his authority by creating rules for Miranda and also treating Ferdinand as he would a slave, ordering him to “Come! I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together”.  

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 Although Ferdinand is a prince, he must bow to Prospero’s authority, similarly to the characters of Ariel and Caliban. Prospero has control over his slave Ariel, whom he controls by the promise of freedom. This type of master-slave power is a dominant form of power within “The Tempest”. Ariel is a spirit who is, similarly to Miranda, devoted to Prospero. He says to Prospero “All hail, great master, great sir, hail!” The repetition makes it seem dramatic and joyful, emphasising Ariel’s devotion to Prospero, and the fact that he will do whatever Prospero asks of him. As with Miranda, Prospero also controls Ariel using guilt, saying “dost thou forget/ from what a torment I did free thee from... thy groans did make wolves howl” This causes Ariel feel as though he is at Prospero’s service, with Shakespeare using terrifying imagery to remind us of the anguish Ariel had faced before Prospero freed him. Although he may appear truly devoted, Ariel may only act in this way because of Prospero’s promise to “discharge thee” when his service is complete. It is arguable whether Ariel is merely flattering Prospero in order to be freed. When obeyed, Prospero treats Ariel with respect and love, calling him “My brave spirit!”  However, when Ariel shows a small amount of resistance against Prospero, saying, “Remember I have thee worthy service…thou did promise/ To bate me a full year”, Prospero immediately calls Ariel “malignant thing”, creating an image of a poisonous, evil inhuman being. This is similar to the treatment of Prospero’s slave, Caliban, whom Prospero calls “poisonous slave”.

 Whereas Prospero’s relationship with Ariel appears predominantly positive, with Ariel showing true devotion to his master, in contrast Caliban deeply resents Prospero and is only a servant by force. Caliban believes “This Island’s mine…thou tak’st from me.” Prospero controls Caliban with threats, saying things such as “tonight thou shalt have cramps”, forcing Caliban to be a slave. Prospero could be blamed for Caliban’s demise into savagery, calling him “Abhorred slave” and treating him with disrespect. Caliban is often rebellious towards Prospero, refusing to do what he is asked. This is similar to the beginning of the play, in which the Boatswain, who is usually subject to power from authority, is controlling those on the boat, subverting the master-slave presentation of power. He says, “You mar our labour. Keep your cabins” and when Gonzalo says, “remember whom thou hast aboard” the Boatswain replies “None that I love more than myself”. Whereas he usually submits to the power of Alonso, the king, he reverses this and takes control.  

Another example of this subversion of power is when Stephano and Trinculo, who are also servants to the king, convince Caliban that they are his masters. They use alcohol to gain power over him, Stephano saying, “Open your mouth. Here is that which will give language to you, cat” and are amused by Caliban, calling him “monster” and laughing when Caliban says, “I’ll kiss thy foot”. Caliban believes that they will able to free him from Prospero’s control over him, singing, “No more dams I’ll make for fish… Cacaliban/ Has a new master, get a new man”. Caliban is keen to get what he believes to be his island back.

  Ultimately Prospero is able to control all of the characters in the play, because of his magical powers and the ability to know what each of them is doing, and the fact he put them there in the first place. A prominent symbol of Prospero’s power is the raging tempest at the start of the play. It is the tempest that shipwrecks the boat, and brings the other characters onto the island. The stage directions indicate that there is “thunder and lightning”, adding to the intensity of the storm. Ariel’s description of the tempest is mystical and terrifying, and he creates strong imagery by saying “I flamed amazement…. The fire and cracks/ Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune/ Seemed to besiege.”  The tremendous storm echoes Prospero’s power, and also represents his anger towards those upon the boat who betrayed him.

 Prospero, however, is not in complete control of his power, as without his staff and books, as Caliban says, “He’s but a sot”. Although Prospero eventually uses his powers for good, he is not often portrayed as an entirely suitable leader. The amount of trust he invested in his brother Antonio led to his demise as the Duke of Milan. He also showed trust in Caliban, who then attempted to “violate” Miranda.

 Prospero acknowledges that he cannot continue using his magical powers near the end of the play, saying “But this rough magic/ I here abjure”. When he says “They being penitent/ The sole drift of my purpose doth extend/ Not a frown further”. Prospero knows that now he has gained the other character’s repentance, he has no more need to be angry, and can therefore give up his magical powers and “break my staff…drown my book”. This is emphasised by the description of the island. It often appears magical and mysterious, with Caliban saying “The isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs” and the spirits add a surrealistic element. Ariel’s song “Full fathom five thy father lies,/ of his bones are coral made” creates a mystical image, with a use of alliteration and powerful imagery. However, he is ultimately living in a world of illusions, and at the end of the play must step out of it and back into the real world, where he can no longer use magic.

 Although Prospero has seemed unforgiving with his powers throughout the play, at the end he forgives Alonso, saying “My dukedom since you have given me again/ I will requite you with as good a thing ”, showing Alonso that, contrary to his belief, Ferdinand is in fact alive. Prospero asks for our forgiveness. His speech makes it appear as though the audience has power over him, saying, “I must be here confined by you… Let your indulgence set me free.”  

 At first, Prospero is presented as having the most power within “The Tempest”. He is the cause of the shipwreck at the beginning and uses his magical powers to frighten Alonso and the rest of the party however it appears that he is only interested in revenge. He often only uses his powers to show off, and it is questionable as to how powerful he would be without magic, and the willingness of his servants, Ariel and Caliban, to comply with his demands. After all, it is Ariel who conjures the tempest at the start of the play, and as Prospero says about Caliban “We cannot miss him. He does our fire/ Fetch our wood, and serves in offices/ That profit us”. Prospero needs Ariel and Caliban in order to have power, and so throughout “The Tempest”, contrary to our beliefs at the beginning of the play, we begin to see that the main protagonist of power within “The Tempest” is not, in fact, Prospero.

 Shakespeare presents many kinds of power in “The Tempest”. He demonstrates the control that Prospero has over Miranda using love, and also different kinds of power between master and slave. Sometimes the master and slave power is subverted, such as at the beginning of the play, when the boatswain takes control. Shakespeare also presents a change in the balance of Prospero’s power. The main reason Prospero has so much power is due to his magic, however at the end of the play he sacrifices his powers and sets free his slaves, Ariel and Caliban.

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The Tempest as a Post-Colonial Text: Exploring Power, Identity, and Oppression

William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" has been widely regarded as a post-colonial text due to its themes and portrayal of power dynamics, colonialism, and the effects of colonization on both colonizers and the colonized. This essay aims to delve into the post-colonial elements present in the play, examining how it challenges traditional narratives of colonialism and explores themes of power, identity, and oppression.

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International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation

International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (IJLLT)

The twentieth century brought about a new form of understanding, producing and living art that has become a mean to react against the oppression that different groups suffered for centuries. Post-colonial criticism is an approach of analysis that questions racial identity and gender equity. This study investigates how Shakespeare's plays relate to the social codes and the more recent history of the reception of Shakespearian drama within decolonization movements. The Tempest by Shakespeare is defined as a postcolonial text because the colonised is represented in regarding cultural hybridity in which the Self and the Other enlace the colonial experience. Literature has naturally given a voice to these omitted groups and this play is thought to be an early post-colonial work by some scholars. Shakespeare had intended to criticise the European attack of the new lands to the West, and the theme of colonialism is outrightly presented in The Tempest. Post-colonial reading of the text examines the projection of the colonial experience back to Europe. Slavery, colonialism, and the power of changing other civilisations by the West are themes to make inferences.

SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH

Prabha gour

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is indubitably the best playwright of all time. He acquired an unique place in the world of literature. His plays earned international commendation and acceptance as the finest dramatist in the entire history of English literature. His play, The Tempest has been decoded differently by critics as a postcolonial text. In1611 when William Shakespeare wrote the play The Tempest, colonization was a recent concept in Britain. This paper is an attempt to inspect the postcolonial issues such as subjugation, dominance language, power and knowledge etc. and conjointly converse about the complex relationship that exist between the master and slave in The Tempest.

Talent Development & Excellence

Thamir R . S . Az-Zubaidy

William Shakespeare's The Tempest is both created in and influenced by an era when colonialism was coming into being. It begins with the arrival of a European coloniser, Prospero, to an island in the Mediterranean Sea where he imposes his colonial domination, norms and culture on its natives. In addition to exploring these issues, this paper examines questions of racism, slavery, suppression, and the role of language in consolidating the process of colonisation and maintaining the colonisercolonised politics. It also critiques the coloniser's involvement in the exchange of women as gifts for political gains as he does with his daughter Miranda. Moreover, while highlighting the discursive practices of othering the native, Caliban, the paper investigates his attempts to resist cultural and political European colonisation through Caliban's linguistic and political appropriation of Prospero's power.

Zahra Sadeghi

Colonization and imperialism are of those interesting critical conversation throughout the world and this study examines how English theater addressed, promoted, and at times challenged ideologies of colonization and notions of civility and civilization. The Tempest in regarded as a New World drama by many critics because of colonization and civilization debates presented on the London stage and depiction of the colonizers and the colonized to present and, at the same time, question those colonial debates. Shakespeare depicts the New World’s indigenous cultures in an ambiguous way to both present and question the ideologies of empire. This dramatization of the “other” helped sixteenth and seventeenth century audiences to recognize New World indigenous peoples as different rather than uncivilized and reevaluate what they have read or heard of these native peoples. Shakespeare presented the contemporary rhetoric through the medium of the theater and helped audience to visualize the process of conquest and colonization. He helped to civilize audiences about the reality of colonization, civility, and the New World. This theatrical medium makes audiences to challenge those established stereotypes of the New World natives and understand them as different, not inhuman or monster, and ignorant of European language and cultures, but no incapable of being civilized. Shakespeare, in dramatization of the New World, neither support nor oppose the process of colonization but he tries his best to show both sides of the issues and let the audiences to decide whether it is legitimate or not. This ambiguous representation of both colonizers and the colonized encourages the audience to examine colonial debates in as objective manner.

Md. A M I R Hossain

In this paper, my purpose is to focus on the underlying reading of The Tempest in the 21st century attempt with a view to revealing the colonizing attitudes of human psychology and embittered experiences of nations, ethnic groups and race. Shakespeare’s The Tempest during the late 20th century and early 21st century has been influenced by “post-colonialism” from the point of view of either Prospero or Caliban. Post-colonial criticism is dealt with Western colonialism of different nations, creed, and caste with the colonial relations of hegemony and submission, especially with regard to race and gender. Shakespeare has drawn upon the language of prayer and religion as a storehouse of emotion and symbol for which his audience and reader are readily responsive as a mode of intensified expression for the feelings and values. Shakespeare’s curses are the language of fury, hatred, helplessness, and despair wrought to its uttermost. The language of prayer is used in expressions of love, kindness, and gratitude, in outbursts of joy and wonder, and in countless eloquent pleadings for mercy, forgiveness, and compassion. The discourse of prayer, elegant and artful thought is an attempt to euphemize the 21st post-colonial domination of the island. Prospero’s ideas and thoughts extend the discourse of prayer into the life of audience. Caliban’s curses are regarded as an integral part to the dialectical structure and the discourse of prayer in the play for which they belong as cataplectic threats of Prospero. Ariel is being held to his side of a bargain at a time of desperate need; Ferdinand is being tested in self-control and in his respect for Miranda; Prospero’s enemies are subjected to corrective punishments designed to bring them through suffering to self-knowledge and a change of heart. Keywords: Ariel, Caliban, Ferdinand, Post-colonialism, Prospero, The Tempest

Deborah I K E O L U W A Jayeoba

This study seeks to explore and enunciate the characteristics of and pointers to the presence of colonialism which validates the events of colonialism in these three plays: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Aime Casaire’s A Tempest and Esiaba Irobi’s Sycorax. William Shakespeare’s The Tempest exposes a Western view and political indifference to colonialism; neither invalidating nor justifying. Aime Casaire’s A Tempest and Esiaba Irobi’s Sycorax presents a writing back and questioning as it restructures the narrative of colonialism in its adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Rituparna Paul

The objective is to present a critical study of discursive practices of ‘othering’. The post colonial critics have referred to Caliban as the ‘other’ and this makes ground for us to delve into the politics of unsaid, or things that have been omitted. Hence, the chief focus of a post-colonial investigation of The Tempest is through the character of Caliban, seen not as the ‘deformed slave’ of the dramatis personae but as a native of the island over whom Prospero has imposed a form of colonial domination.

Ramayana Lira

Taking on assumptions about oppression, identity and representation as they are developed in contemporary postcolonial theory, this study proposes the analysis of the 1993 theatrical production of William Shakespeare's The Tempest by The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). It aims to discuss the role of Caliban's monstrosity in the production and how it pertains to issues such as power relations and spectacle. The main benefit of doing an analysis of a performance of a Shakespearean text seems to be the possibility of seeing the play's meaning as contingent, as a result of a series of elements (actor's body, visual clues, the theatrical institution, spectatorship) that release it from the burden of being considered as the work of a single, universal, non- contradictory mind that contemporary criticism has pointed out as the 'Shakespeare Myth'. I conclude that the 1993 RSC production presents a Tempest that, in many ways, reinforces traditional positions about th...

International Review of Humanities Studies

amir mohammad

The paper focuses on how the colonizers who in this play are Prospero and Miranda in particular, endeavor to inflict their own socio-cultural precept including their language to make the colonized fully unprotected in The Tempest as a colonial play, but eventually fail to fulfill this attempt. In addition, the high importance of learning the language of the colonizer by the colonized gets illuminated which finally contributes to Caliban so as to undermine the roots of the colonizer in the colony. This article fully evaluates affected literary works by The Tempest, the importance of transferring the colonizer's language to the colony, and the main colonizer and his manners and attitudes towards the colonized; it also brings forth postcolonial concepts including Mimicry, Orientalism, the double consciousness of the colonized and his unhomeliness. Furthermore, it features the dirge situation of mimic men who come across a disappointing dead end from both colonizers and the colonized. After all, this article reflects on the ever-presence of ambivalence and mimicry in colonial discourse and also the vital importance of violence as an inseparable part of the decolonization.

Injamamul Hoque

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A Modern Perspective: The Tempest

By Barbara A. Mowat

Somewhat past the midpoint of The Tempest, King Alonso and his courtiers reach a temporary still point in their journey on Prospero’s island. Shipwrecked, they have searched for the lost Prince Ferdinand; now, exhausted, they give up the search. Into this moment of fatigue—and, for Alonso, despair—at the center of what Gonzalo calls their “maze,” enters the maze’s monster: a Harpy who threatens them with lingering torment worse than any death. For Alonso, the Harpy’s recounting of his long-ago crimes against Prospero is “monstrous”; maddened, he rushes off to leap (he thinks) into the sea, to join (he thinks) his drowned son Ferdinand.

King Alonso’s confrontation with the Harpy ( 3.3.23 –133) brings together powerfully The Tempest ’s intricate set of travel stories and its technique of presenting key dramatic moments as theatrical fantasy. The presentation of dancing islanders, a disappearing banquet, and a descending monster is the first big spectacle since the play’s opening tempest. The unexpected appearance of these island “spirits,” combined with the power of the Harpy’s speech, gives the Harpy confrontation a solidity within the story world that seems designed to rivet audience attention. At the same time, audience response to the scene is inevitably colored by curiosity about the “quaint device” that makes the banquet vanish and by awareness of Prospero looking down on his trapped enemies from “the top,” commenting on them in asides, and obtrusively turning the Harpy/king encounter into make-believe, first by telling us that the Harpy was only Ariel reciting a speech and, second, by reminding us, just before Alonso’s desperate exit to join Ferdinand in the ocean’s ooze, that Ferdinand is, at this moment, courting Miranda.

The double signals here—to the powerful moment within the story and to the deliberate theatricality with which the moment is staged—reflect larger doublenesses in this drama. They reflect, first of all, major differences in the temporal and spatial dimensions of the drama’s “story” and its “play.” The Tempest ’s “story” stretches over more than twenty-four years and several sea journeys; it embeds elements of the mythological voyages of Aeneas and of Jason and the Argonauts, of the biblical voyages of St. Paul, and of actual contemporary voyages to the new world of Virginia. The “play” that The Tempest actually presents is, in contrast, constricted within a plot-time of a single afternoon and confined to the space imagined for an island. 1 Through this particular doubling, Shakespeare creates in The Tempest a form that allows him to bring familiar voyage material to the stage in a (literally) spectacular new way.

The “story” that The Tempest tells is a story of voyages—Sycorax’s journey from Algiers, Prospero and Miranda’s journey from Milan to the island in the rotten carcass of a butt, Alonso’s voyage from Naples to Tunis across the Mediterranean Sea and thence to the island—and, on the island, a set of journeys (Ferdinand’s journey across yellow sands; Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo’s through briers and filthy-mantled pools, and Alonso and his men’s through strange mazes) that lead, finally, back to the sea and the ship and to yet another sea journey. This complex narrative, with its immense span of chronological time, its routes stretching over most of the Mediterranean, its violent separations and losses and its culmination in royal betrothals and restorations, is the kind of story told in the massive novels, popular in Shakespeare’s time, called Greek Romances. The Tempest ’s story could have filled one or more such romance volumes or could have been presented in a narrative-like drama such as Shakespeare himself had created in Pericles and The Winter’s Tale . Instead, within the brief period of The Tempest ’s supposed action, the narrative of the twenty-four or more years preceding the shipwreck of King Alonso and his courtiers on the island—worked out by Shakespeare in elaborate detail—is told to us elaborately. The second and third scenes of The Tempest —that is, 1.2 . and 2.1 —contain close to half the lines in the play, and close to half of those lines are past-tense narration. Through Prospero, through Ariel, through Caliban, through Gonzalo, through Sebastian, through Antonio, characters in our presence (and our present) tell us their pasts.

If we take the sets of narratives embedded in 1.2 and 2.1 and roll them back to where they belong chronologically, the first story (and the most fantastic) is that of the witch Sycorax, her exile on the island, her “littering” of Caliban there, and her imprisoning of Ariel ( 1.2.308 –47)—twelve years before Prospero is thrust forth from Milan. That thrusting-forth is the subject of the next story (next chronologically, that is): the narrative of Antonio’s betrayal of Prospero and of Prospero and Miranda’s sea journey and arrival on the island ( 1.2.66 –200). Then comes the story of what happened on the island during the next twelve years, a story in which narratives that tell of Caliban ( 1.2.396 –451), of Ariel ( 1.2.287 –306, 340 –47), and of Miranda and Prospero ( 1.2.205 –8) overlap and intersect. Finally comes the story from the most recent past—the story of the Princess Claribel and her “loathness” to the marriage arranged by her father ( 2.1.131 –40), of Claribel’s wedding in Tunis ( 2.1.71 –111), of the return journey of Alonso and his courtiers ( 2.1.112 –17), and of the shipwreck as described by Ariel ( 1.2.232 –80).

One of the most powerful features of the form Shakespeare crafted in The Tempest is that this detailed, complex narrative, told us in the first part of the play, keeps reappearing within the play’s action. The story of the coup d’état that expelled Prospero “twelve year since,” for example, is made the model for the Antonio/Sebastian assassination plot (“Thy case, dear friend,” says Sebastian to Antonio, “shall be my precedent: as thou got’st Milan, I’ll come by Naples” [ 2.1.332 –34]); the story appears at the center of the Harpy’s message ( 3.3.86 –93); and it is told yet once again by Prospero when, in the play’s final scene, he attempts to forgive Antonio ( 5.1.80 –89). Caliban’s story—“this island is mine”; “I serve a tyrant”—is told by him again and again. The story of Sycorax, who died years before the dramatic “now,” is alluded to so often—her powers described one last time by Prospero even as the play is ending ( 5.1.323 –26)—that she seems to haunt the play, as does the absent, distant, unhappy Claribel.

As the play reaches its conclusion, each of the stories recounted in the early narrative scenes is conjured up a final time, though the pressure now is toward the future—toward the nuptials of the royal couple, toward a royal lineage with Prospero’s heirs as kings of Naples. As that virtual future is created, the structuring process of the opening scenes is reversed: where narrative was there incorporated into the play, now the play opens back out into the next pages of the narrative from which it had emerged. As we watch and listen, the play we have been experiencing moves into the past, becomes a moment in the tale Prospero promises to tell to the voyagers—“such discourse as . . . shall make [the night] / Go quick away: the story of my life / And the particular accidents gone by / Since I came to this isle” ( 5.1.361 –64). As Alonso notes, this is a “story . . . which must / Take the ear strangely” ( 5.1.371 –72).

By folding the story into the play and then unfolding the play into its own virtual narrative future, Shakespeare creates a form in which past and future press on the present dramatic moment with peculiar intensity. We sense this throughout the play, but see it with special clarity in the confrontation between Alonso and the Harpy. The Harpy brings the past to Alonso as a burden Alonso must pick up—an intolerable burden for Alonso, who goes mad under the simultaneous recognition of his guilt and its consequences, given to him as Time Past, Time Present, and Time Future. In Time Past: “you . . . / From Milan did supplant good Prospero, / Exposed unto the sea . . . / Him and his innocent child” ( 3.3.87 –90); in Time Present: “for which foul deed, / The powers . . . have / Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures / Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso, / They have bereft” ( 90 –94); and finally, in Time Future: “Ling’ring perdition . . . shall step by step attend / You and your ways, whose wraths to guard you from— / Which here, in this most desolate isle, else fells / Upon your heads—is nothing but heart’s sorrow / And a clear life ensuing” ( 95 –101). This pressure of past and future on the present moment—a pressure that is created in large part by the way Shakespeare folds chronological time into plot-time, and that we feel throughout the play in Prospero’s tension, in Ariel’s restiveness, in Caliban’s fury—makes believable in The Tempest that which is normally suspect: namely, instant repentance, instant inner transformation. Because the dramatic present is so permeated with the play’s virtual past, so pressured by the future—the six o’clock toward which the play rushes, after which Time as Opportunity will be gone—that Alonso’s anguished repentance, his descent into silence, madness, and unceasing tears, his immediate surrender of Milan to Prospero and the reward of being given back his lost son—can all take place in moments, and can, even so, seem credible and wonderful.

The interplay between The Tempest ’s elaborate voyage story and its tightly constricted “play” is not the only doubleness toward which the drama’s Harpy/king encounter points us. It points as well to two kinds of travel tales embedded in the drama: ancient, fictional voyage narratives and contemporary travelers’ tales buzzing around London at the time the play was being written. The Harpy/king encounter is shaped as a sequence of verbal and visual events that in effect reenact and thus recall ancient confrontations between harpies and sea voyagers. In each of these harpy incidents—from the third century B.C. Argonautica through the first century B.C. Aeneid to The Tempest itself—harpies are ministers of the gods sent to punish those who have angered the gods; they punish by devouring or despoiling food; and they are associated with dire prophecies. The Tempest ’s enactment of the harpy encounter is thus one in a line of harpy stories stretching into the past from this island and this set of voyagers to Aeneas, and through Aeneas back to Jason and the crucial encounter between the terrible harpies (the “hounds of mighty Zeus”) and the Argonauts. 2 In replicating the sequence of events of voyagers meeting harpies, combining details from Jason’s story and from the Aeneid, Shakespeare directs attention to the specific context in which such harpy confrontations appear and within which The Tempest clearly belongs—that of literary fictional voyages.

At the same time, he surrounds the encounter with dialogue that would remind his audience of present-day voyages of their own fellow Londoners. Geographical expansion, around-the-world journeys, explorations of the new world of the Americas had heightened the stay-at-homes’ fascination with the strange creatures reported by travelers. Real-world creatures like crocodiles and hippopotami, fantastic creatures like unicorns and griffins, reported monstrosities like the men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders—all were, at the time, equally real (or unreal) and equally fascinating. The dialogue preceding the Harpy’s descent in The Tempest centers on such fabulous creatures. When the supposed “islanders”—creatures of “monstrous shape”—appear, bringing in the banquet, Sebastian says: “Now I will believe / That there are unicorns, that in Arabia / There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne, one phoenix / At this hour reigning there.” “Travelers ne’er did lie,” says Antonio, “Though fools at home condemn ’em.” Gonzalo adds, “If in Naples / I should report this now, would they believe me? / If I should say I saw such islanders . . . ” ( 3.3.26 –36). It is into this dialogue-context that the Harpy descends—that is, into a discussion of fantastic travelers’ tales and fabulous creatures.

When the Harpy—one of these creatures—actually appears, claps its wings upon the table, and somehow makes the food disappear ( 3.3.69 SD), she is very real to Alonso and his men—as real as the harpies were to Jason and to Aeneas; as real as the hippopotami and anthropophagi were to fifteenth-century explorers; as real as is Caliban, the monster mooncalf, to his discoverers Stephano and Trinculo. The attempts to kill the Harpy are classical responses—that is, they are the responses of Jason and Aeneas when confronted by the terrible bird-women. The response of Stephano and Trinculo to their man-monster is a more typically sixteenth-century response to the fabulous. When, for example, Stephano finds Trinculo and Caliban huddled under a cloak and thinks he has discovered a “most delicate monster” with four legs and two voices, he responds with the greed that we associate with Martin Frobisher and other sixteenth-century New World explorers who brought natives from North America to England to put on display: “If I can recover him,” says Stephano, “and keep him tame and get to Naples with him, he’s a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat’s leather. . . . He shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly” ( 2.2.69 –81). Trinculo had responded with equal greed to his first sight of the frightened Caliban:

What have we here, a man or a fish? . . . A strange fish. Were I in England . . . and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.

( 2.2.25 –34)

While the finding and subjugating of “wild men” was a feature that ancient and new-world voyage stories held in common (for example, Jupiter promises that Aeneas, as the climax of his sea journeys, will “wage a great war in Italy, and . . . crush wild peoples and set up laws for men and build walls” 3 ), Prospero’s subjugation of Caliban has a particularly New World flavor. The play itself, no matter how steeped it is in ancient voyage literature and no matter how much emphasis it places on its Mediterranean setting, is also a representation of New World exploration. While it retells the stories of Aeneas and of Jason, it also stages a particular Virginia voyage that, in 1610–11, was the topic of sermons, published government accounts, and first-person epistles, many of which Shakespeare drew on in crafting The Tempest . The story, in brief, goes as follows: A fleet of ships set out in 1609 from England carrying a new governor—Sir Thomas Gates—to the struggling Virginia colony in Jamestown. The fleet was caught in a tempest off the coast of Bermuda. All of the ships survived the storm and sailed on to Virginia—except the flagship, the Sea-Venture, carrying the governor, the admiral of the fleet, and other important officials. A year later, the exhausted and dispirited colonists in Jamestown were astounded when two boats sailed up the James River carrying the supposedly drowned governor and his companions. The crew and passengers on the flagship had survived the storm, had lived for a year in the Bermudas, had built new ships, and had made it safely to Virginia. News of the happy ending to this “tragicomedy,” as one who reported the story called it, soon reached London, and many details of the story are preserved in The Tempest .

Among the details may be the disturbing picture of the relationship of the “settlers” and the “Indians” in Jamestown, represented perhaps in Caliban and his relationship with Prospero. In one of the documents used by Shakespeare in writing The Tempest, William Strachey describes an incident in which “certain Indians,” finding a man alone, “seized the poor fellow and led him up in to the woods and sacrificed him.” Strachey writes that the lieutenant governor was very disturbed by this incident, since hitherto he “would not by any means be wrought to a violent proceeding against them [i.e., the Indians] for all the practices of villainy with which they daily endangered our men.” This incident, though, made him “well perceive” that “fair and noble treatment” had little effect “upon a barbarous disposition,” and “therefore . . . purposed to be revenged.” The revenge took the form of an attack upon an Indian village. 4

As we read Strachey’s account today, we find much in the behavior of the settlers toward the natives that is appalling, so that the account is not for us simply that of “good white men” against “bad Indians,” as it was for Strachey. In the same way, whether or not this particular lieutenant governor and these treacherous “Indians” are represented in The Tempest, Shakespeare’s decision to include a “wild man” among his island’s cast of characters, and (as Stephen Greenblatt notes) to place him in opposition to a European prince whose power lies in his language and his books, 5 raises a host of questions for us about the play. The Tempest was written just as England was beginning what would become massive empire-building through the subjugating of others and the possessing of their lands. European nations—Spain, in particular—had already taken over major land areas, and Shakespeare and his contemporaries had available to them many accounts of native peoples and of European colonizers’ treatment of such peoples. Many such accounts are like Strachey’s: they describe a barbarous people who refuse to be “civilized,” who have no language, who have a “nature” on which “nurture will never stick” (as Prospero says of Caliban). Other accounts describe instead cultural differences in which that which is different is not necessarily inferior or “barbarous.” When Gonzalo says (at 2.1.157 –60), “Had I plantation [i.e., colonization] of this isle . . . And were the King on ’t, what would I do?” he answers his own question by describing the Utopia he would set up ( lines 162 –84), taking his description from Montaigne’s essay “Of the Cannibals.” In this essay, Montaigne (“whose supple mind,” writes Ronald Wright, “exemplifies Western civilization at its best” 6 ) argues in effect that American “savages” are in many ways more moral, more humane people than so-called civilized Europeans.

As with so much of The Tempest, Caliban may be seen as representing two quite different images. Shakespeare gives him negative traits attached to New World natives (traits that seem to many today to smack of racist responses to the strange and to the Other) while giving him at the same time a richly poetic language and a sensitive awareness of nature and the supernatural. He places Caliban in relation to Prospero (as Caliban’s master and the island’s “colonizer”), to Miranda (as the girl who taught Caliban language and whom he tried to rape), and indirectly to Ferdinand (who, like Caliban, is made to carry logs and who will father Miranda’s children as Caliban had wished to do). Shakespeare thus creates in the center of this otherworldly play a confrontation that speaks eloquently to late-twentieth-century readers and audiences living with the aftereffects of the massive colonizing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and observing the continuing life of “empire” in the interactions between the powerful and the formerly colonized states. 7 As many readers and audiences today look back at the centuries of colonization of the Americas, Africa, and India from, as it were, Caliban’s perspective, The Tempest, once considered Shakespeare’s most serene, most lyrical play, is now put forward as his representation, for good or ill, of the colonizing and the colonized. 8

This relatively new interest in the colonization depicted in The Tempest has had a profound impact on attitudes toward Prospero. For centuries seen as spokesman for Shakespeare himself, as the benign, profound magician-artist who presides like a god over an otherworldly kingdom, Prospero is now perceived as one of Shakespeare’s most complex creations. He brings to the island books, Old World language, and the power to hurt and to control; he thus figures an early form of the colonizer. But he carries with him other, complicating associations. He is, for example, a figure familiar in voyage romances popular in Shakespeare’s day. The hermit magician (or exiled doctor, or some equivalent) in Greek Romance tales comes to the aid of heroes and heroines, protects them, heals them, often teaches them who they really are. In such stories, the focus is always on the lost, shipwrecked, searching man or woman—that is, on the Alonso figure or the Ferdinand or the Miranda figure. In The Tempest, Prospero, the hermit magician, is center stage, and the lost, shipwrecked, and searching are seen by us through him and in relation to him. Prospero thus carries a kind of power and an aura of ultimately benevolent intention that complicates the colonizer image.

Prospero is also the creator of the maze in which the other characters find themselves—“as strange a maze as e’er men trod,” says Alonso ( 5.1.293 )—and thus carries yet other complicating associations. The scene of the Harpy/king encounter opens with Gonzalo’s “Here’s a maze trod indeed through forthrights and meanders,” a statement that picks up suggestively Ovid’s description of that most infamous of mazes, created by Daedalus to enclose the Minotaur. The Daedalus story has unexpected but rich links with The Tempest . Daedalus, the quintessential artist/engineer/magician, built the maze to sty the monstrous creature that he had helped to bring into being. (It was sired by a bull on King Minos’ queen, but it was Daedalus who had lured the bull to the queen, encasing her, at her urgings, in the wooden shape of a cow.) Having built the maze, Daedalus (in Golding’s 1567 translation of Ovid’s Metamorphosis ) “scarce himselfe could find the meanes to wind himself well out / So busie and so intricate” was the labyrinth he had created (Book 8, lines 210–20).

The story of the maze and its Minotaur is a familiar one, involving the sacrifice of Greek youths to the bloodthirsty Minotaur, an annual horror that stopped only with Theseus’ slaughter of the Minotaur and his escape from the maze through the aid of King Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, whom Theseus marries and then abandons. Less familiar is the connection between the story of the maze and that of Daedalus and his son Icarus’ flight from the island of Crete:

Now in this while [when Theseus was overcoming

the Minotaur] gan Daedalus a weariness to take

Of living like a banisht man and prisoner such a time

In Crete, and longed in his heart to see his native

But Seas enclosed him as if he had in prison be.

Then thought he: though both Sea and land King

Minos stop fro me,

I am assured he cannot stop the Aire and open

It is at this point that Daedalus turns to “uncoth Arts” (i.e., magic), bending “the force of all his wits / To alter natures course by craft”—and he constructs the famous wings that take him home, at the cost of the life of his son, who falls into the sea and drowns.

When Prospero stands “on the top,” looking down and commenting on the trapped figures below him, he to some extent figures the magician/artist Daedalus. Throughout the play he, like Daedalus, is almost trapped in his own intricate maze, an exile who “gan . . . a weariness to take / Of living like a banisht man and prisoner such a time,” who “longed in his heart to see his native Clime,” and who thus bent “the force of all his wits” and his magic powers to find a way to get himself and his child home. The associations of Prospero with Daedalus, his maze, and his magic flight are less accessible to us today than they would have been to a Renaissance audience. But the sense of Prospero’s weariness, of his hatred of exile, of the danger facing him as he heads back to Milan having abjured his magic—these complicating emotional factors, even without a specific awareness of the Daedalus parallels, are available to us. We notice them especially in Prospero’s epilogue, where he begs our help in wafting him off the island and safely back home.

Like The Tempest itself, then, Prospero is complicated, double. He, like the play, is woven from a variety of story materials, and like the play he represents a particular moment, the moment at which began a period of colonizing and empire-building that would completely alter the world, leaving a legacy with which we still live. But he, like the play, also embodies ancient stories of travel and exile and the emotions that accompany them. And The Tempest ’s nineteenth- and twentieth-century retellings and sequels (Browning’s “Caliban on Setebos,” Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête, Auden’s “The Sea and the Mirror,” and such film versions as Forbidden Planet and Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books, to name but a few) suggest that those stories and emotions have continued to intrigue. The magician fascinates, the journey and the maze still tempt, despite the near certainty that magic—like all power—tends to corrupt and that islands and labyrinths hold as many monsters as they do “revels.”

• I am using the word “story” here both in its general sense of a narration of events and in the more particular sense that translates the Russian formalists’ term “fabula”—that is, the events sequenced in chronological order. The formalists contrast the “fabula” with the “szujet”—the fiction as structured by the author (a term I translate as “play”). See Keir Elam’s The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (London and New York: Methuen, 1980), pp. 119–26.
• See Barbara A. Mowat, “‘And that’s true, too’: Structures and Meaning in The Tempest ,” Renaissance Papers 1976 , pp. 37–50. The pertinent sections of the Argonaut stories are Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2:178–535, and Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 4:422–636; Virgil’s account of the Harpies as encountered by Aeneas and his men is found in the Aeneid 3:210–69.
• Aeneid , Book I, lines 261–64 (Guildford trans.).
• “A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight,” in A Voyage to Virginia in 1609 , ed. Louis B. Wright (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1964), pp. 1–101, esp. pp. 88–89.
• “Learning to Curse: Aspects of Linguistic Colonialism in the Sixteenth Century,” in Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture (New York and London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 23–26.
• Stolen Continents: The “New World” Through Indian Eyes (Toronto: Penguin Books, 1993).
• See Edward W. Said, “Empire, Geography, and Culture” and “Images of the Past, Pure and Impure,” in Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), pp. 3–14, 15–19.
• For example, in “Nymphs and reapers heavily vanish: the discursive con-texts of The Tempest ,” Alternative Shakespeares , ed. John Drakakis (pp. 192–205), Francis Barker and Peter Hulme state that “the discourse of colonialism” is the “dominant discursive con-text” for the play.

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• Jan 28, 2021

CSEC English B: The Tempest Revision Notes- Power and Authority

Updated: Jun 1, 2021

If you're on this page, chances are you have also been subjected to the endless ballad of "theme-based" readings of The Tempest (and likely other literature). While literature essays on drama are a torture within themselves, you should be able to find some use from this breakdown of the themes in the play.

The theme "Power and Authority" in the play will be broken down based on examples of the portrayal of the theme with regards to characters, relationships, and, most importantly, dramatic techniques. Yay.

Power can be described as the possession of influence and sway over someone or something, the ability to control by virtue of possession of this influence. Authority, in the same vein, is simply power one has due to their rank or role in an objective sense, such as in societal hierarchy, or in a another, more subjective sense, like their role in a relationship.

Power and Authority

Reading The Tempest will undoubtedly force you to observe the constant struggle for power that keeps the play in a state of dramatic tension from its initial climactic protasis to its conclusion. The influence of powerful individuals and those below them seeking to grasp this authority for themselves propels the plot forward and creates many of the conflicts observed in the play.

The Tempest's dynamic exists between the group of "powerful" authoritative figures, who rank above the other characters by nature of their relationships or simply by noble hierarchy; and, those without power, simply seeking out every opportunity to usurp those with the authority they desire.

The most objectively powerful in the play, Prospero controls the events on the island with painstaking strategy and caution. His power comes most notably in the form of his "Art," the magical ability which grants him control over the elements of nature, and, therefore, manipulation of every being on the isle. This allows him to discipline his servants, Caliban and Ariel, as well as coerce the courtiers that 'shipwrecked' on the island into the state of mind he needs them to be to exact his revenge.

Apart from his magical ability, Prospero originally held power over his dukedom as Duke of Milan:

"Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since, thy father was Duke of Milan and a prince of power."

However, as I'm sure you know, diligent reader, Prospero had been supplanted from this position by a plot led by his treacherous brother Antonio.

Now on the isle, Prospero has power over two servants, though his control of either stems from different circumstances. Ariel was freed by Prospero from a 12-year prison created by Sycorax as punishment for the spirit's non-compliance, and the result is a servitude (presumably in repayment of that debt) to Prospero. Caliban, on the other hand, is forced into becoming Prospero's slave out of the magus' anger at Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda:

"I... lodged thee in my own cell till thou didst seek to violate the honour of my child."

Prospero's "usurping" of Caliban from his self-dominion on the island makes him the ruler of it, gaining power in a way comparably dishonourable to his brother's own coup d'état.

Prospero's magical ability cements him as the top authoritative figure on the island, able to combat the impertinence or undesirable behaviour of his servants. When Caliban curses at him in Act 1 Scene 2, he assures his servant of a terrible punishment:

"For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,

Side-stitches, that shall pen thy breath up; urchins

Shall forth at vast of night that they may work

All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinched

As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging

Than bees that made 'em."

He is further able to dismantle Ariel's puerile prattling for liberty by threatening imprisonment:

"If thou more murmur'st,

I will rend an oak and peg thee in his knotty entrails

Till thou hast howled away twelve winters."

Prospero's authority does not only come through his magical proficiency, but also through the nature of the relationship which he has with Miranda. As her father, he holds not only a deep concern for her, but also the dominion and control a parent has. The use of his paternal authority is observed throughout the play, most notably in his interactions with Ferdinand, with whom the innocent Miranda has fallen in romantic transfixion. He constantly rebukes Miranda's blind advocation for the 'impostor' Ferdinand, commenting even on his daughter's backwards counsel:

"O dear father, Make not too rash a trial of him, for He's gentle and not fearful."

"What, I say, My foot my tutor?"

The King of Naples, Alonso is the highest ranking noble in the play. His position in the Neapolitan hierarchy makes him the authority figure targeted by Antonio and Sebastian for their murder scheme and targeted by Prospero for the return of his dukedom. Alonso's authority is more evidently recognized by others, and he comes off as less of a leading character in the play- though that is indubitably influenced by the loss of his son, which results in his grief-stricken stupor for the greater duration of the play.

However, while Alonso's laconic nature triggered by perceived loss is evident in most of play, his authority is undeniable in specific moments, such as when he returns Prospero's dukedom to him out of remorse in Act 5 Scene 1:

"The dukedom I do resign and do entreat thou pardon me my wrongs."

The duchy at that point had lain with the perfidious Antonio, but Alonso relinquishes it in that moment without any need for consultation with him, nor with any complaint.

Without Power (And Seeking It)

The traitorous Antonio is the first character in pursuit of power audience is told of during Act 1 Scene 2. In this scene, Prospero is relaying the events that led up to his ousting from his dukedom, Milan- and Antonio is presented as the main villain of the story. Prospero had lavished his trust on his brother, tasking him with most of the administrative duty of the duchy while he pursued "the bettering of his mind." Then being below Prospero in rank, Antonio's desire for power drove him to collude with the King of Naples to "extirpate" Prospero from the dukedom and take the position of duke for himself.

His dryness "for sway," as Prospero puts it, is one of his main characteristics presented in the play.

However, it seems that this power is not as complete as Antonio truly desires it to be, as he still pays homage to the king due to the subjection of his coronet to the crown. In the play, being apparently always bent on seeking his own benefit and ascension regardless of the morality or ethicality of the means, Antonio sees the opportunity to kill the king in his slumber and ascend Sebastian to the monarchy instead. Through this, he would gain the new king's favour and freedom from the homage he agreed to pay. His depraved ambition, like a contagious disease, he attempts and successfully spreads to Sebastian, who is like-minded but doesn't appear as inherently corrupted as his compatriot. Agreeing on the murder of Sebastian's own brother displays more of his desire for power, even if it is only sway with the king and freedom from homage.

Sebastian's desire for power is ignited by Antonio's coaxing in Act 2 Scene 1, where the two are serendipitously left awake while the rest of their party is charmed into slumber. The usurping duke convinces him "what a sleep were this for your advancement," persuading him to take the opportunity given by the king, his brother's, sleeping. He is prepared to take his brother's life for the promise of the position of king (though, it is ironic their struggle for this power, since monarchy would be meaningless if they truly are stranded on an island far from Naples).

Caliban's desire for power comes from a place of feeling wronged. The newcomer Prospero, to whom he showed such kindness and hospitality by familiarizing his visitor with the island (" and then I loved thee, and showed thee all th' qualities o'th' isle" ), ends up taking over the island and even enslaves him, taking both his birthright and his freedom in one fell swoop.

"This island's mine, by my mother Sycorax, which thou tak'st from me."

Caliban wants to be freed from Propsero's rule, and believes that the island is rightfully his. However, the approach taken by Caliban in reclaiming the isle and freedom is highly paradoxical. Taking Stephano, a drunken butler, as his king and kneeling to him, he essentially only transfers his servitude from Prospero, his current lord, to Stephano. Although the butler promises to make Caliban his "lieutenant, or {his] standard," Caliban offers the same services of wood-fetching and fishing to Stephano as he currently does to Prospero. It is from this backwards/self-contradictory approach that it can be inferred that Caliban desires Prospero's donwfall due to a vengeful spirit and his current lack of power. It should be noted, though, that Caliban holds power over Stephano and Trinculo in his ability to persuade them into this plot. This plan is essentially his bidding, and although it would end up benefitting Stephano most (if it were to come to fruition), Caliban would technically achieve his goal of destroying the 'tyrant' whom he so hates.

Relationships between those with power and those without it

Prospero and Ariel

The relationship between the master, Prospero, and his servant, Ariel, is mutually respectful, and often affectionate in the master's frequent commendation of his 'tricksy' and 'dainty' spirit's work mirrored by Ariel's enthusiasm. Ariel's alacrity and commendable precision in carrying out Prospero's commands show a willingness in service that forms a foil to the magus' more aggressive relationship with Caliban.

Although their relations are frequently without difficulty or reluctance, Prospero still threatens Ariel with imprisonment when the spirit expresses impatience with his 'liberty' as promised by Prospero. Ariel's response is very deferential in tone and seems to hint at truly submissive regret:

"Pardon, master,

I will be correspondent to command

And do my spriting gently."

Though his promise at the end of their interaction indicates freedom within two days, Ariel is actually freed within three hours.

As previously stated, Prospero regularly commends Ariel's work in completing his bidding. He praises the spirit's faithful creation of the tempest and his subsequent placing of the courtiers throughout the isle, and again extols Ariel's performance as a harpy condemning the 'three men of sin' in Act 3 Scene 3.

Prospero and Caliban

Caliban and Prospero's relationship is one of mutual resentment, where either party feels wronged by the other, inspiring a vitriol in all of their interactions. Caliban, as discussed previously, feels wronged Prospero for having squandered his kindness in showing him the isle by enslaving him and confining him to a rock, unable to enjoy the isle that is his birthright. Prospero sees as alternative view of this, however; the savage, 'freckled whelp' Caliban is undeserving of kindness, an inherently corrupted being "whom stripes may move, not kindness" because of his attempted rape of Miranda. Because of this impasse, where both men see the other as a villain taking advantage of their own kindness, their hatred of each other seems to remain at the forefront of their interactions.

Caliban's first line in the play is actually a curse directed at Prospero and Miranda ( "as wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed, with raven's feather and unwholesome fen drop on you both" ). He views the magus as a tyrant, despising how easily he sets his spirits upon him "for every trifle." This motivates him to seek revenge on Prospero, colluding with Stephano and Trinculo to kill him and claim the isle.

Dramatic Techniques Portraying Power and the Pursuit of Power

"I must obey. His art is of such power that it would control my dam's god Setebos."

Caliban's acknowledgement of the god-like potency of Prospero's art justifies the precedent of his unconditional obedience. This power Prospero has forces him to suppress his rebellious nature, as the magus is definitely capable of plaguing him with all the "old cramps" and aches he threatens with, and more. Prospero is aware of the effect his power has on his slave, hence why he remarks that "stripes may move [Caliban], not kindness."

"My high charms work, and these, mine enemies, are all knit up their distractions. They are now in my power..."

At this point in the play, Prospero has held a firm grip on every event in the play; driving each of the trio who usurped him to near madness, while manipulating their beliefs and guaranteeing the outcome he desires. "They are now in [his] power," all in a stupor induced by Prospero's magic and the guilt he attempted to evoke in each of them with the magically events sprinkled throughout the play.

Dramatic Irony

When Antonio and Sebastian are about to kill the king, they are interrupted by the king's awakening (by Gonzalo, who was awakened by Ariel at Prospero's behest). This results in a somewhat comedic sequence (which also carries an amount of tension) where the two villains fabricate a story about hearing "a hollow burst of bellowing" to conceal their true intentions. This frantic recount of "a din to fright a monster's ear" is dramatically ironic, in that the audience and the co-conspirators are aware of the lie, yet the rest of the Neapolitans are (at least ostensibly) oblivious. The significance of this in portraying the quest for power is that it reveals the morally depraved depths to which people (specifically Antonio and Sebastian) will go in order to come by power. Their attempt to conceal the truth in this ironic scene shows a shared mendacious nature bent on ascertaining influence in any way possible; flaunting a lack of conscience when the others sleep then trying to appear righteous before them in waking.

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The Tempest Themes

Shakespeare tends to focus on very specific issues in each of his masterpieces. In The Tempest , the themes of power and magic are the dominant ones. However, a little bit of attention is also drawn to the topic of colonization .

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Looking for The Tempest themes? Find them all described here! This article prepared by Custom-Writing.org experts contains descriptions and analysis of the key themes in The Tempest . If you wish to dive deeper into the world of this play and understand the underlying issues, this section is for you!

• ⛓️ Colonialism

🔗 References

💪 power in the tempest.

It seems like almost every scene goes back to the questions about power in The Tempest . Even in the opening scene, the audience has the pleasure of observing the boatswain commanding the royal party, who are the passengers. Moreover, an exciting aspect of this play is that power is taken by force in most cases. As it would be anticipated, it leads to even more instability in the relationships and the vicious cycle of desiring even more. One of the best examples is how Antonio and Alonso betray Prospero. It is an immensely political problem, which yet shows that no illegal manipulation with authority can be left in the past. Later on, it leads to Antonio wishing for more power and attempting to murder the king. At the same time, the audience sees that this time his attempt fails. Therefore, it proves that violence is not a universally successful tool when it comes to gaining power.

Another relationship based on gaining power in The Tempest is Prospero and Caliban. After Prospero takes over the island with magic, Caliban swears for revenge and wants his rights and freedom back. However, the culmination of this theme in The Tempest appears to be the moment when the main character decides not to keep going with the vicious cycle. The fact that Prospero refused to seek revenge on Antonio influenced other a lot. They all come to peace and understanding at the end. Shakespeare’s main message regarding this theme is that compromise and forgiveness are a much better tool for settling things down than violence.

The Tempest Quotes about Power

Had I been any god of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere It should the good ship so have swallow’d and The fraughting souls within her. The Tempest act 1, scene 2

I must obey: his art is of such power, It would control my dam’s god, Setebos, and make a vassal of him. The Tempest act 1, scene 2

His mother was a witch, and one so strong That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs, And deal in her command without her power. The Tempest act 5, scene 2

💫 Magic in The Tempest

In The Tempest , magic is one of the main themes. Supernatural elements are not uncommon in Shakespeare’s works , but this piece is full of magic manipulations. Prospero is the character who applies magic almost all the time. The first scene begins with him using it, and the play ends with him using it for the last time. However, it should be noted that a lot of times, he puts on illusions that do not harm his enemies except for psychologically related troubles. At the same time, Prospero possesses almost total control over the events and people on the island. Thanks to the spirit, he knows what is happening everywhere and can think through his next moves.

There is a certain resemblance between the way Prospero alters reality with magic in The Tempest and how the author does the same with words. Many times, Prospero is found peaking from the hiding at some of the scenes, just like the director manages the action. This is quite symbolic , and there have been a lot of assumptions made about these kinds of comparisons. One of the suggestions is that Prospero appears on the scene of the play as Shakespeare himself . It makes sense if we look into the last part of this literary piece. In the epilogue, Prospero asks the audience to set him free by applauding. It wouldn’t be so significant if this play wasn’t one of the last ones that Shakespeare wrote. Such an epilogue might be the way of saying goodbye to the theater. Therefore, as one of the main themes of The Tempest , magic has interpretations.

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The Tempest Quotes about Magic

My master through his art foresees the danger That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth– For else his project dies–to keep them living. The Tempest act 2, scene 1

But this rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book. The Tempest act 5, scene 1

Now my charms are all o’erthrown, And what strength I have’s mine own, Which is most faint: now, ’tis true, I must be here confined by you The Tempest Epilogue

⛓️ Colonialism in The Tempest

Colonization in The Tempest appears to be quite a fascinating subject. At least it was exciting for the readers during the time when the play was written. The attempts of colonizing distant lands attracted a lot of attention. In The Tempest , colonialism as a theme is opened up through the complex relationships between Prospero and Caliban. Prospero sees an uneducated islander as less of a human than himself and expects him to be grateful for teaching. However, it has never occurred to him that Caliban might be the rightful ruler of the island because such a savage cannot possibly perform such a complicated role. In return, Caliban understands that Prospero doesn’t respect him at all and traits him as a slave. Finally, it leads the islander to realize that he gave up the ruler’s position for nothing. Naturally, such an unfair situation evokes anger and violence in Caliban, making Prospero even more convinced in the savage nature of his protégé. It perfectly illustrates the relationship between the native people and the colonizers when every little misunderstanding leads to violent conflicts.

Moreover, Shakespeare explores the fears related to the theme of colonialism and slavery in The Tempest . For example, it is evident that people can hardly tolerate the marriage of a king’s daughter and an African. Another situation pointing out colonization and slavery issues is when both Trinculo and Stephano see an opportunity to capture Caliban and make money on him back home. On the other hand, colonization offers the chance to build perfect contemporary societies, just like Gonzalo dreams about.

The Tempest Colonialism Quotes

Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee, Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate The honour of my child. The Tempest act 1, scene 2

You taught me language; and my profit on’t Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! The Tempest act 1, scene 2

This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first, Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me Water with berries in’t, and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee And show’d thee all the qualities o’ the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile: Cursed be I that did so! The Tempest act 1, scene 2

Thank you for reading this article! If you need more information about literary themes, check the article about themes in literature . You might also want to take a look at The Tempest essay topics collection . And if you need to make the text of your essay more colorful, try our paraphrasing tool . Any questions left? Check The Tempest QA section !

• ‘The Tempest’ Themes, Symbols, and Literary Devices
• A Guide to Power Relationships in “The Tempest” – ThoughtCo
• The Meaning of Magic in Shakespeare’s The Tempest – Medium
• Shakespeare’s Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism – jstor
• Post-colonial reading of The Tempest – The British Library
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The Power of Love in William Shakespeare’s Play The Tempest

• Categories: The Tempest William Shakespeare

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Man, and nature: power and control in The Tempest

In  The  Tempest , there is the theme of man and the natural world. The re is an overlaying   idea within the play   that is, can a man be at one with nature or does he make whatever touches unnatural. This is most predominantly seen through the character of Prospero and his control and interactions with other characters. In this way, the island cannot be depicted as perfect or untouched when there is the presence of magic everywhere. Magic does not fit into the course of nature and arguably can change the course of natural events . i   With this being said, man through the use of magic can cause discourse in the natural world.

Boatswain is seen to question Prospero and ask him about his power over the elements. This can be seen in “if you control these elements to silence and work the peace of present, we will not hand a rope more .” ii  This shows a close relationship between man and the natural world; to be able as a human being to change the weather according to one’s own desires conveys how Prospero is changing the natural course of nature. Furthermore, it conveys the heightened sense of power that Prospero has, and the way in which people look to him to take control of difficult situations. There is the constant need for man to be in control and it further shows how insatiable the drive to assume power by any means necessary is paramount not just for Prospero, but arguably man alike. From the quote, it can also be deduced that there is a natural primal instinct that we as humans have. The need and want to survive is one that lays innately within us. In this way, being fearful of the elements the king of Naples and Prospero appear to constantly seek ways in order to tame nature and command it to do what they want it to do. iii   But of course, this is not the way that nature operates, and would not be called nature if it was easily able to be controlled by man.  

Prospero is a central character that influences the notion that nature and anger are one entity. It is his anger and desire to control which causes many other characters to obey his every command. It is important to understand that the characters willingness to participate in Prospero’s many schemes may not solely be one of choice but also by the force of Prospero and other participants. iv  It is the spells that Prospero casts over Miranda that can be seen as man changing the course of nature. If he can control her actions, then that means that he is altering her autonomy of actions, and arguably the predetermined actions that she would have otherwise carried out. In this way, Miranda becomes silenced and objectified and is used just as a pawn to ensure that her father gets everything that he planned for. v Nature is also used to represent the character of each individual. In this way, Miranda is characterised as pure and tameable, whilst Caliban is depicted as wild and raw. They appear to convey the two opposing sides of nature, and still, they are both able to be easily controlled and manipulated by Prospero. Both characters especially Miranda, are a product of the living environment that Prospero has composed for them. She has been natured to obey the commands of her father and this is also mirrored in the way that she converses with him. She replies often subserviently and obediently and also assumes the way that her father speaks, in reference to Caliban. A lot of her interactions are harsh or arguably hate driven, and one can say that she has consequently been natured by Caliban to react and behave in this way. This can be seen when she says “ abhorred slave […] a thing most brutish”. vi Despite being in the same position of suppression as Caliban, she still feels it necessary to make a distinction between the two of them. She does this by elevating her status and diminishing his. In this way, she is assuming the role of her father to have the natural urge of assuming power.  

To conclude, we can see in the play that is within human nature to want to govern the environment and the people within it. This sense of power is done at all measures, as long as the final result is going to be one that is beneficial to the individual. Prospero takes power into his own hands and uses magic to manipulate and coerce changes not only in the elements but in the subjects around him including his own daughter. By manipulating the weather, Prospero is able to assume respect, hope as well as an element of fear from the people around him. Furthermore, the weather can be seen to be a reflection of his character and his quick temper. He is constantly seeking control over the weather, and arguably his emotions also.  

Bibliography  

Corfield, Cosmo, “Why Does Prospero Abjure His “Rough Magic”?”,  Shakespeare Quarterly , 36 (1985)  

D’Amico, Jack,  Knowledge And Power In The Renaissance  (University Press of America, 1977)  

Dassonville, Lena,  The Hegemonic System Of Production. How Shakespeare And History Commodify And Confine The Feminine  (GRIN Verlag, 2016)  

Mowat, Barbara A, and Paul  Werstine ,  The Tempest  (Simon and Schuster, 2015)  

Phillips, James E, “The Tempest And The Renaissance Idea Of Man”,  Shakespeare Quarterly , 15 (1964)  

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Argumentative Essay On Power In The Tempest

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Island , Power , Shakespeare , Education , People , Literature , Ruler , Drive

Words: 1375

Published: 2020/12/20

Within The Tempest, the relationships between master and servant are the primary expression of power. Prospero, for example, is the master of both Ariel and Caliban. However, Prospero treats the two servants differently, which in part motivates Caliban to adopt Stefano as a new master. Ariel agrees to be “correspondent to command and do [his] spiriting gently” (I.ii.435-437). However, Caliban has not materially changed his situation, as he is merely swapping one master out for another when he tells Stefano that he can govern the island if he kills Prospero. He drunkenly sings, “Cacaliban has a new master: get a new man. Freedom, hey-day!” (II.ii.1267) to celebrate the potential change. Indeed, Caliban is one of the more problematic characters in the story. He is the indigenous character from the island in the play, and it is easy to compare him to the native peoples whom the British (and other European powers) disturbed and displaced as they started establishing colonies throughout the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Caliban is strident in insisting that Prospero has taken the island away from him. In a way, this makes Caliban’s situation analogous to that of Prospero, whose sway over Milan was taken from him by Antonio. This makes Caliban’s plot with Trinculo and Stephano to slay Prospero not all that dissimilar from Antonio and Sebastian’s conspiracy to drive out Prospero and later to undermine Alonso. Caliban is just as defiant to Prospero as Prospero was apparently nonresponsive to Antonio’s stratagem. Caliban stands up to Prospero; one wonders what the interactions between Prospero and Antonio were like before Prospero left Milan. Ultimately, though, he becomes a mockery of himself. At the start of the play, he reminds Prospero of the ways in which he familiarized Prospero with the island upon his arrival. It only takes Caliban a few scenes to hit rock bottom, though, as he gets really drunk with Stephano, even offering to lick Stephano’s shoe. When Caliban makes his final stand, he ends up having to clean Prospero’s cell. This decline masks Caliban’s more sensitive side, which appears when he talks about the beauty of his island. In situations involving the exercise of power, native and indigenous beauty often goes by the wayside, and that is exactly what happens here. As the play unfolds, multiple characters reveal what they would do if they were only in charge of the island. Gonzalo imagines a society in which people mutually respect one another. Caliban’s dream is to “people the isle with Caliban’s” (I.ii.501) while Stefano wants to pull a Richard III and simply kill anyone in his way. This scheming dates all the way back to the first inhabitation of the island. When Sycorax arrived from Algiers to colonize the island, she and Caliban (her son) performed some evil deeds. Prospero, who was exiled by his brother Antonio, who “made such a sinner of his memory” (I.ii.189) usurped Prospero’s rightful role as the Duke of Milan, made it to the island and promptly made everyone his slaves, spurring a colonial struggle that mirrors the issues that Great Britain faced as it developed a colonial empire of its own. While Prospero resigned himself to his fate, telling himself that his “library was dukedom large enough” (I.ii.109) to satisfy himself, he also enjoyed enslaving the people on the island. The pursuit of knowledge, of course, is what causes many of Prospero’s woes. When he was still the duke, the time he spent in the library gave Antonio the opportunity he needed to start a rebellion against him. While this does not make Antonio a sympathetic character, it does show that Prospero demonstrated a definite weakness in the practice of exercising power, Prospero is indeed one of the most complex protagonists in all of Shakespeare’s comedies. It is true that Antonio took his rightful place in Milan, but now that Prospero has found a way to exercise total power over the others in the play, he has lost a great deal of the sympathy that he otherwise might have earned (Morrison 81). When he first appears in the play, he comes across as nothing but pompous, and as the play proceeds, he comes across as someone that the people of Milan were likely to have been glad to see run out of town on a rail (Lee 204). The fact that he keeps telling Miranda to pay attention to him makes him even less interesting. The fact that he has learned the skills of magic makes him a powerful character, but it also makes the reader wonder why he did not turn those powers against Antonio. Perhaps the ability to have an entire island to himself, without any potential usurpers in his world, are what drew him away from Milan. Now that he has magic, though, he does not relax in his power, as a confident omnipotent man might. Instead, he is a vengeful and petty ruler. When Caliban curses, Prospero has ordered his spirits to pinch him. When Ariel reminds Prospero that Prospero promised to let him out of his work early if he performed them with a good attitude, Prospero throws a fit and threatens to send him back to confinement and torture. When he encounters Ferdinand, instead of being pleasant, he takes Ferdinand to his daughter and then makes him a slave, confining him (Messer and Patton 23). For better or worse, though, Prospero is the center of the play’s narrative. It is his spells, stratagems and machinations that drive the story toward its eventual happy ending. Seeing Prospero at work is much like watching a person standing high above a stage, dandling marionettes above the stage below. The marionettes, of course, are the other characters, and the puppeteer is sending them through their motions, already knowing the coming events and having their future in his mind. Prospero has his own concepts of justice and goodness that are more idealistic than one might expect from his pompous, almost cynical presentation early in the play. Prospero is the closest one gets to seeing a creator at work in Shakespeare’s plays. While Hamlet sets matters in motion with the play-within-the-play in order to confirm the guilt of Claudius, he does not write that play, and he does not drive the action. If anything, the poisoned sword that Laertes holds proves that point. Prospero remains above the entire action, driving it toward the end that he wants. That is the ultimate power at play in the story. In fact, Prospero compares himself to a playwright in the last speech, even asking for applause from the audience. The closing of the narrative does make Prospero more sympathetic, because the audience can see what his ends are. He has forgiven Antonio, he truly loves his daughter, and he wants the best for everyone, despite the iffy means that he uses to bring things about. Gonzalo, over the course of the play, shows some of the characteristics that an ideal king would possess, such as fealty, honesty and compassion. In his speech during Act V, his words about the miracle of reconciliation show the joy of the idealist whose beliefs have been justified. He is the first to notice how beautiful the island is when the group lands on the island. His ability to talk about such matters with rhetorical beauty and power shows that he feels deeply about significant matters. He stands in stark contrast to the ways of Caliban and Prospero throughout the play, and one wonders why he has not had the chance to exercise power; perhaps it is a curse of excess reticence. Indeed, by showing the viewer three different prototypes for a king (Prospero, the omnipotent, cruel ruler; Caliban, the hereditary native; and Gonzalo, the idealist), Shakespeare places before the audience the question as to which type of ruler is best. While Ferdinand and Miranda end up in charge, a valid question is whether they will be able to manage things as well as any of the other three would have.

Works Cited

Lee, Charlotte. "'Durch Wunderkraft Erschienen': Affinities between Goethe's Faust and Shakespeare's The Tempest." Modern Language Review 107.1 (2012): 198-210. Messer, Tasha, and Cynthia Patton. "Feminist Analysis: A History of Patriarchy and Covert Rebellion in The Tempest." The Best of ESU (2013): 23. Morrison, James. Shipwrecked: Disaster and Transformation in Homer, Shakespeare, Defoe, and the Modern World. University of Michigan Press, 2014. Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/tempest/full.html

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New state of mind: rethinking how researchers understand brain activity.

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Understanding the link between brain activity and behavior is among the core interests of neuroscience. Having a better grasp of this relationship will both help scientists understand how the brain works on a basic level and uncover what specifically goes awry in cases of neurological and psychological disease.

One way that researchers study this connection is through what are known as “brain states,” patterns of neural activity or connectivity that emerge during specific cognitive tasks and are common enough in all individuals that they become predictable. Another, newer, approach is the study of brain waves, rhythmic, repetitive patterns of brain cell activity caused by synchronization across cells.

In a new paper, two Yale researchers propose that these two ways of thinking about brain activity may not represent separate events but two aspects of the same occurrence. Essentially, they suggest that though brain states are traditionally thought of as a snapshot of brain activity while waves are more like a movie, they’re capturing parts of the same story.

Reconsidering these two approaches in this context, the researchers say, could help both fields benefit from the methods and knowledge of the other and advance our understanding of the brain.

Inspired by ecological, conservation, and Indigenous philosophies, Maya Foster, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, began pursuing this idea once she joined the lab of Dustin Scheinost , an associate professor in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at Yale School of Medicine.

They are co-authors of the new paper , published April 5 in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

“ We’re arguing that rather than a brain state being one single thing, it’s a collection of things, a collection of discrete patterns that emerge in time in a predictable way,” she said.

In an interview with Yale News, Foster and Scheinost describe their proposal, and discuss how they might help researchers better understand the mysteries of the brain. This interview has been edited and condensed.

When did you start to consider these might be two aspects of the same occurrence?

Maya Foster: This has been on my mind even before I came to this lab. I was reading a book — “Erosion: Essays of Undoing” by Terry Tempest Williams — and she talks about how human-made machinery like helicopters cause vibrations that interrupt the natural pulse of things and cause things like rock formations to fall apart. Relatedly, there are a lot of Indigenous populations that believe everything has a pulse. And that got me thinking of the brain and whether we have some type of resonance or vibration that can be disrupted.

Then I joined this lab and Dustin let me experiment with a lot of different things. During one of those experiments, I input some data into a particular analysis and the outputs looked wave-like, and patterns emerged and then repeated. That took me down a whole rabbit hole of research literature and there was a lot of evidence for this idea of wave-like patterns in brain states.

What are the benefits of considering brain states as wave-like?

Foster: I think it creates a synergy where both sides — the brain state folks and the brain wave folks — benefit by learning from each other. And maybe the gaps in knowledge we have now when it comes to how brain activity relates to behavior might be filled by both groups working together.

Dustin Scheinost: Brain waves are newer in this field and they’re complex. And any time you can take something new and relate it to something old — brain states in this case — it gives you a natural jumping off point. You can bring along everything you’ve learned so far. It’s kind of like not throwing the baby out with the bath water. We don’t need to drop brain states. They’ve informed us, but we can go in a different direction with them too.

How are you proposing researchers consider brain states and brain waves now?

Foster: Borrowing from physics, when you analyze light, it can be a discrete point — a photon — or it can be wave-like. And that’s one way we’re thinking about this. Similarly, depending on how you analyze brain states you can get static patterns, much like a photon, or you if you look at activity more dynamically, certain patterns start to occur more than once over time, kind of like a wave.

So we’re arguing that rather than a brain state being one single thing, it’s a collection of things, a collection of discrete patterns that emerge in time in a predictable way.

For example, if we measured four distinct patterns in brain activity as someone completed a cognitive task, a brain state could be that pattern one emerges, then pattern three, then two, then four, and that series might repeat over time. And when that repetition stops, that would be the end of that particular brain state.

You also draw comparisons to the musical technique known as “fugue.” How does that fit with how you’re visualizing these phenomena?

Foster: I’m a music person, so that’s where this came from. In a fugue, you have a basic melody and then that melody emerges later in the music in different forms and formats. For instance, the melody will play, then some other music comes in, then the melody returns with the same rhythm and time sequence but maybe it’s in a different key.

Fugues are cyclical and wave-like, they have distinct groups of notes, and there’s a systematic repetition and sometimes layering of the main melody. We’re arguing that brain states are also wave-like, have distinct patterns of brain activity, and display systematic repetition and layering of sequential patterns.

How are you hoping other researchers respond to your argument?

Foster: I would love feedback, honestly. There is evidence for what we’re proposing but when it comes to implementing these ideas going forward, it would be helpful to have a conversation about how that might work. There are a lot of different strategies and I’m interested in a broader conversation about how we as researchers might go about studying this.

What’s it like as someone who has been in this field for a while to have a student come in with a new idea like this?

Scheinost: You can get set in your ways as a researcher and you need new ideas, new creativity. Sometimes they may sound outlandish when you first hear them. But then you ruminate, and they start to take form. And it’s fun. That’s really where the fun of this job is, to hear new ideas and see how people discuss and debate them.

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Maggie Rogers’s Journey from Viral Fame to Religious Studies

By Amanda Petrusich

In the fall of 2021, the singer and songwriter Maggie Rogers entered the graduate program at Harvard Divinity School. For anyone unacquainted with the particulars of the degree Rogers was pursuing—a master’s in religion and public life—it might have sounded as though she were abandoning burgeoning pop stardom to reinvent herself as a priest. “It’s a peace-and-justice program, it’s not a seminary,” Rogers told me over dinner in Cambridge, in early February. “I’m not from any particular religious tradition. I was not trained in any particular religious tradition.” Rogers, who is twenty-nine, was trying to make her life feel more useful and less surreal. “I woke up one day and I was famous,” she said. “I was really burnt out. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue. I thought I wanted to quit music. A lot of what I came here to do was to think about how to create a more sustainable structure around a creative practice.” This spring, Rogers will release her third album, “Don’t Forget Me,” a breezy collection of pop-rock songs that she wrote in consecutive order, during five kinetic, bountiful days last winter. It is, in many ways, the loosest and most elemental music she’s made.

In 2016, Rogers was “discovered”—though the word almost feels too intentional—by the polymath hitmaker Pharrell Williams, while she was attending New York University. Williams visited one of Rogers’s classes at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, a program within the Tisch School of the Arts; he was an artist-in-residence there, and she was a senior. The institute is the sort of place where, say, Questlove might teach a seven-week course on the Beastie Boys, and the Beastie Boys might show up on the final day. During Williams’s visit, Rogers played him an early version of “Alaska,” a song she’d written after going to Berlin and having “a really spiritual experience” with dance music. “Club culture, for an N.Y.U. freshman or sophomore, always meant tight dresses, a certain amount of money, the meatpacking district,” Rogers said. “I didn’t have clothes for that.” The scene in Berlin was different—less preening, more raw. “They said I had to wear sneakers or I wouldn’t get in,” Rogers recalled. Meanwhile, she was learning more about how to produce and manipulate rhythm, using both analog and electronic elements (drums, bass, synthesizers, outboard gear, programming software). “I had always thought that singing was the oldest and most primal way to connect,” she said. “When I discovered the connection people can have through rhythm, something really changed.”

“Alaska” is a brittle meditation on interpersonal dissonance. “You and I, there’s air in between,” Rogers sings on the chorus. That tension is deftly mirrored in the song’s sound. There’s something earthy about Rogers’s presence (she was brought up in rural Maryland, and played the harp and the banjo as a teen-ager), yet the song’s production is spectral, icy, electronic. Rogers told me that she wrote “Alaska” in five minutes, which is how she often works: urgently and with deep focus, as though she were channelling a faint signal.

Williams’s meeting with the class was filmed. Rogers was wearing jeans, a thrifted L. L. Bean shirt, and a necklace made from two elk vertebrae strung on cooking twine. She told Williams that she had previously made only folk music. Her professor, the producer and engineer Bob Power, interrupted: “But kind of postmodern stuff, too. It was not just boom-chicka-boom-chicka.” She clarified her intentions for the track. “All I want to do is kind of combine that folk imagery and harmony and natural samples that I’ve been picking up while hiking over the last couple years with the sort of backbone and energy of dance music,” she said. “We’ll see if I’m successful.” As the song started to play, Rogers seemed a little unsure of where to direct her gaze. The video is endearing: a young artist presenting her work and nervously awaiting judgment. It soon becomes clear that Williams is feeling it. When the track ends, he tells her that he has “zero, zero, zero notes,” and then compares her individuality to that of the Wu-Tang Clan. “I can hear the journey,” Williams tells her. “I’ve never heard anything that sounds like that. . . . That’s a drug for me.”

The full thirty-minute clip of the class, including Williams’s responses to other students, was uploaded to his label’s YouTube channel in March of that year; in June, a fan posted Rogers’s portion to Reddit. It didn’t take long for the clip to go viral. One of Rogers’s childhood friends, Nora Neil, remembered Rogers calling to say that she was trending on Reddit. “I was at my grandmother’s house,” Neil recalled. “And I said, ‘I unfortunately do not know what that means.’ That first day, those first few hours, it was, like, ‘Whoa, what is this?’ . . . Her life really did change overnight.”

Rogers was one of the first pop stars to achieve fame by unintentionally captivating the Internet, and, strangely, she was also one of the last. These days, virality is not so much a lightning strike as a marketing scheme, reverse engineered by executives and masquerading as serendipity. A. & R. representatives often scout new talent by dissecting social-media numbers, as though music could be a “Moneyball”-style game of statistics. But in 2016 the online-to-IRL catapult was still unpredictable. It was exhilarating to watch the arc of its fling.

It helped that the distinctive sound of “Alaska”—a fusion of organic and synthesized—was beginning to take hold in independent music. For a brief moment, it seemed as though drum machine meets trail mix might be the next big vibe. A bidding war broke out among interested record labels. Rogers eventually signed with Capitol, where she was given her own imprint, Debay Sounds. In early 2017, she released an adventurous, genre-bending EP, “Now That the Light Is Fading,” which included an updated version of “Alaska.” She was invited to appear on the “Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live,” conspicuous bookings for an artist who had officially released only a handful of songs. Those early performances were magnetic. The first time I saw her live—in April, 2017, at Music Hall of Williamsburg, a six-hundred-and-fifty-person venue in Brooklyn—the room had the charged feel of a tent revival. Onstage, Rogers can be a little wild. Her movement is spontaneous, erratic; she can appear almost possessed. In the video for “Alaska,” she strides through a forest at dusk, wearing jeans and a baggy zippered sweatshirt, her hair down, no visible makeup, periodically twisting and jerking her body in a way that reminds me of both the best modern dancers and my toddler when she hears the Supremes.

Rogers told me that when she was in middle school she won an essay contest with a piece about watching other people have fun. “I fit in enough —I’ve always had amazing friends,” she said. “I don’t mean to self-aggrandize, like I’m some great weirdo. I think I’m a pretty normal dude.” She paused, and laughed. “But also, I’m pretty abnormal.” She described her favorite artists as “fearless freaks,” and said that she believes a little bit of estrangement can be a useful creative tool: “To make something real, sometimes it helps to know what it’s like to not be like everybody else.”

Rogers’s first full-length album, “Heard It in a Past Life,” came out in January, 2019, and débuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The following year, she was up for Best New Artist at the Grammys. Speaking about it now, Rogers tends to emphasize that her time line was measured, nearly quaint by some standards—almost three years passed between her viral moment and the release of her first LP—but it’s clear that the pace and the scale of her success were nonetheless unnerving. On “Light On,” a single from “Heard It in a Past Life,” Rogers sings of feeling alienated, panicked:

Tried to slow it all down Crying in the bathroom, had to figure it out With everyone around me saying “You must be so happy now”

“I was so young, but I was also old compared with the age of people going through it now. I got to fully develop, go to college, fuck off, and think I was gonna be a journalist,” she told me. “I was in dumb bands playing in clubs and there’s no footage of it.” The experience of being thrust into celebrity meant, ironically, that she didn’t have time to make music. “I’d never been less of an artist than when I became a professional artist,” she said. “There was a really specific moment, in 2017 or 2018, where I was at camera blocking for what must have been my fourth or fifth or sixth late-night performance singing ‘Alaska.’ I had a massive panic attack. I was just, like, ‘What the fuck is my life?’ I felt like a show pony.”

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Rogers’s second album, “Surrender,” from 2022—a hungry, carnal pop record about yearning for transcendence—shares a title with her master’s thesis; her appearance at Coachella in April of that year fulfilled the degree’s public-presentation component. Rogers is now in the midst of a postgraduate fellowship, which will end in May. She’s using the time to adapt her thesis into a book, a process she has found similar, in one way, to songwriting. “You have to be specific about experience,” she said. The manuscript focusses on the idea of creativity as a form of religion, and stardom as a kind of default modern pulpit. “Early in my career, people were using religious language to describe my shows,” she said. “ Rolling Stone published a piece in 2019 with the headline ‘Maggie Rogers: Festival Healer.’ The BBC published one that said ‘Billie Eilish is my cult leader. . . . Maggie is my God.’ ”

Headlines are overblown by design, but her audience’s devotion—something akin to worship—was real. The tumult of the Trump Administration and the pandemic meant that Rogers’s fans, like everyone, were increasingly desperate for moral guidance. But Rogers was, too. “I was looking for answers, just the same as everybody else,” she said. “It was really jarring—people asking me for advice on suicide, or to perform marriages. I started to realize that there was this functional misalignment with the work that I had trained to do and the work that I was being asked to perform. I was put in this unconventional ministerial position without having undergone any of the training. Anyway, that’s how I made it to divinity school. What I ended up doing was developing a system for myself to hold these things. And then I went out and tested it.”

On a recent press tour in Britain, Rogers was reminded of how much more at ease she feels now. “I was being asked to do quippy promo stuff,” she said. “But that’s not who I am or what I do. The twenty-two-year-old version of me just wanted to be great at this thing. But I can’t improv with you—I can’t be the cool, funny girl.” She went on, “I wanted to have this life, and I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to support it. But then I learned that there had to be boundaries, because I’d walk away feeling like I’d betrayed myself.”

After our dinner, Rogers suggested that we visit the Emerson Chapel, a stately, wood-panelled room where she took a writing class with the author and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams. She zipped up a long parka, and we walked across Cambridge, propelled by a glacial wind. The campus was quiet. Rogers swiped us into the building. In 1838, the transcendentalist poet-philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his Divinity School Address to a group of six graduates and their theology professors in the room. Emerson had resigned from his position as a Unitarian minister after growing frustrated by the way that Church doctrine cloistered the sacred and the profane. In his address, he suggested that God is present in everything. “He was basically, like, ‘What if the light outside was God?’ ” Rogers said. The room smelled of lemon oil. “I only feel ready for this now ,” she said, of her career. “I feel O.K. in the center of it. Finally.” We hung around, admiring the stained glass and the pipe organ, until a security guard appeared in the doorway and said that it was time to leave.

Rogers made “Don’t Forget Me” at Electric Lady, a recording studio on West Eighth Street, in Greenwich Village. One afternoon, she offered to give me a tour. The studio was built in 1970 for Jimi Hendrix, who died less than a month after it opened but remains its guiding spirit; in a portrait that hangs in a stairwell, he’s wearing some kind of exquisite jacket, four or five necklaces, a thin mustache. His eyes are cast downward. The air smells permanently of palo santo. On a coffee table were bowls of fresh fruit and jelly beans, and a copy of that morning’s Times . Rogers used to live on West Fourth Street. “I studied studios,” she said. “I would walk by every day and look at my reflection in the mirrored glass and be, like, ‘I wonder if I’ll ever get to record here.’ It was a place that I saw myself literally, physically reflected in, during a moment in my life where I was still really, really, really dreaming.”

Even though “Don’t Forget Me” wouldn’t be released for another month, Rogers was already working on songs for her next album. She speaks about songwriting as a full-body process. “When I’m writing, the first thing I do is take my shoes off. My hands get hot. It’s so fucking physical,” she said. The work also seems to require a kind of spiritual stillness. “It’s like a puzzle,” she said. “If you can keep your focus on it for long enough, it appears. It’s right there —but the second your brain moves it’s gone.” She often enters a kind of hyper-focussed state. “When I’m onstage, or when I’m making something, I’m not thinking about who I am or what I’m trying to do. Time gets really sinewy. It’s spidery and slow. There’s wonder. And it’s just special, and I’m in it , and my hands are up, and I’m figuring it out. And then I come out of it, and it doesn’t even ever feel like it was mine to begin with.”

Since “Heard It in a Past Life,” Rogers has mostly eschewed dance music for a fuller, more rock-and-roll-inflected sound. “Don’t Forget Me” reminds me of the mid-seventies output of Linda Ronstadt and Carole King—burly, coltish, tender, fun. Rogers is no longer reliant on confessional first-person writing. “I was picturing a girl in her twenties on a road trip,” she said. “In my brain, this record takes place within the span of twenty-four or forty-eight hours. It felt like writing a movie, scene by scene.” One track, “Never Going Home,” is a rollicking, propulsive recounting of a night out, part Shania Twain, part Sheryl Crow: “We get to talking, but those lips aren’t your lips / We lean together, those hips aren’t your hips,” Rogers sings. She told me, “I’ve never lived that story, but I can picture a version of my life where I was going through a breakup and a friend was, like, ‘Shut the fuck up, we’re going out,’ and took me dancing and made me make out with some guy.” Inhabiting different characters enabled Rogers to be goofier, friskier, more mischievous. “So Sick of Dreaming” contains a chatty spoken interlude about getting stood up at a steak house which ends with “I mean, what a loser!” I told Rogers that there was a giddiness to her delivery on this album that I hadn’t heard before. “My friends all said, ‘This is the side of you that we see,’ ” she said.

Rogers wrote most of the record with the producer Ian Fitchuk. They met in Los Angeles in 2019, when Fitchuk was there for the Grammy Awards. (He was a co-writer and co-producer on Kacey Musgraves’s “Golden Hour,” which won both Album of the Year and Best Country Album.) Rogers was having dinner with the writer Lizzy Goodman, who, years earlier, had hired Rogers as an intern and tasked her with transcribing many of the hundreds of hours of interviews that later made up “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” Goodman’s oral history of the post-9/11 downtown rock scene. After dinner, Rogers and Goodman were going to see the Strokes. “I scared her when I said hi and introduced myself,” Fitchuk recalled. In November, 2022, Rogers sent him a D.M. “We hopped on the phone, and he said, ‘You haven’t captured your live performance on a record yet.’ And I was, like, ‘Yeah, that’s completely true,’ ” she told me. “My record brain and my performance brain are binary. They’ve always felt like separate crafts to me, in a way. The spontaneity is the through line.”

She and Fitchuk booked studio time that December. “I didn’t have any songs written, there was no mood board, no color board, no feeling of ‘I need to document this thing in my life.’ Everything, everything , was a first take,” Rogers said. “I was playing instruments. Ian was playing instruments. I knew when something felt like me and when it didn’t. It was really instinctual.” She added, “We worked from ten to five. I went to dinner with my friends after.”

“Often, a song was fully formed in less than an hour, and then it was on to the next,” Fitchuk said. “I find that it’s easier to work with artists who have strong opinions,” he added. “It makes it easier to know when you’re on the right path.”

Despite the album’s effervescence, many of its tracks describe the protracted dissolution of a romantic relationship. “So much of this record is a breakup album,” Rogers said. “In the time since I made it, I actually have gone through a breakup.” That relationship, which Rogers said lasted five years, ended peacefully. “I’ve really grappled with that for the last couple months,” she said. “What does it mean? It wasn’t a premonition.” For now, Rogers described her heartache as falling in love backward. “You’re as on fire and awake to the world,” she said. “Music sounds better. Food sucks.” She added, “I’ve never been single, really. I’m in a grief season with it. But I also feel a sense of freedom.”

I told Rogers that I’d noticed a theme in her lyrics: the possibility of loving someone without possessiveness or panic. “Oh,” she said. “That’s cool. That’s how I feel about love.” She paused. “I think, in choosing someone, I want to be chosen back. You know? So much of this record is about mutual culpability.” She continued, “The art that means the most to me has some friction. To me, living a beautiful life is so much about devotion, and devotion to art is about telling the truth. That’s not always an easy story to tell, especially when it points back to ‘I’m fucked up, too.’ ”

In late February, Rogers performed at Carnegie Hall, as part of a benefit concert for Tibet House, a nonprofit created at the behest of the Dalai Lama, to protect Tibetan culture under Chinese occupation. The composer Philip Glass, a co-founder of the U.S. iteration of the organization, had sent Rogers a handwritten letter inviting her to participate. “I think you would enjoy it,” he had said.

Rogers told me that she was thinking about dressing “like Beethoven” for the event, and pulled up a selfie in which she was wearing black suit trousers paired with a white ruffled shirt, not unlike the infamous frilly blouse featured in the “Seinfeld” episode “The Puffy Shirt.” “I love clothes,” she told me later. “I love the world-building. That’s the childlike part of me. It’s also an environmental factor that helps me switch between my different brains. Putting the uniform on.” When she performed on the “Today” show shortly after “Heard It in a Past Life” came out, she wore a vintage T-shirt with a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt on it, tucked into high-waisted silk pants. “I was so terrified of being sexualized in any way that I kind of crushed my own sexuality in an effort to protect myself,” she said. Now her look alternates between vaguely professorial and something more glamorous. She has adopted a different hair style for each record, including long, surfer-girl waves for “Heard It in a Past Life” and a dramatic pixie cut for “Surrender.” These days, she wears her hair golden and shoulder-length. “It’s not, like, a pop-star thing,” she said, of the changes. “Anyone who’s known me for ten-plus years is, like, ‘Oh, we’re doing this again?’ I had a pixie cut in the sixth grade, in the eleventh grade, and my sophomore year of college.” I brought up a line from “Alaska.” (“Cut my hair so I could rock back and forth / Without thinking of you.”) “Thank you!” she said, laughing. “I have receipts! To me, it’s about the externalization of an internal transition. It’s sort of the same way I’m not good at hiding the way I feel. I’ll tell you. Or you can just check out my haircut.”

At rehearsals the day before the Carnegie Hall show, Rogers met Joan Baez, who was also scheduled to perform. Rogers told me that she had long admired Baez and her “writer-bohemian” contemporaries, such as Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell. “That’s the lineage that I want to write into,” Rogers said. While the rock band Gogol Bordello ran through its set, Rogers, Baez, and the avant-garde musician Laurie Anderson danced wildly on the side of the stage. Baez was doing a kind of euphoric jig; Anderson launched into a “Saturday Night Fever”-style arm roll. Rogers moved freely, lightly up and down, a blissful bounce that looked more like levitation.

Later that afternoon, Rogers and Baez decided to sing Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” together onstage. Dylan wrote the song in 1962. It’s the most treacherous kind of breakup tune, a little bitter, a little devastated: “I’m a-thinking and a-wonderin’ walking down the road / I once loved a woman, a child, I’m told / I give her my heart but she wanted my soul / But don’t think twice, it’s all right.” Rogers called her parents and encouraged them to come up from Maryland for the concert.

The next evening began with a chanted prayer by Tibetan monks, followed by Anderson performing a version of her song “Walk the Dog,” infused with spoken koans: “We don’t know where we come from,” she intoned. “We don’t know what we are.” What followed was appealingly loose. There were some sound problems—at one point, Michael Riesman, of the Philip Glass Ensemble, performing a section of “Music in Twelve Parts,” abruptly stood up from his keyboard and strode toward the sound board, looking pissed—but the energy was pure. “I am here to read an Allen Ginsberg poem while wearing Fenty Beauty concealer,” the comedian Bowen Yang announced, before reciting “Who Be Kind To,” a lusty and ecstatic piece from 1965. (“Desire given with meat hand and cock, desire taken with / mouth and ass, desire returned.”)

Rogers had nixed the Beethoven ensemble and was wearing a less aggressively collared shirt. She ran through an acoustic version of “Alaska,” backed by the Scorchio Quartet. It was followed by “Don’t Forget Me,” accompanied by the Patti Smith Band. Rogers’s voice gets a little raw on the chorus:

So close the door and change the channel Give me something I can handle A good lover, or someone who’s nice to me Take my money, wreck my Sundays Love me til your next somebody Oh, but promise me that when it’s time to leave Don’t forget me

Soon after that, it was time for the duet. Dylan likely didn’t write “Don’t Think Twice” about Baez, though they were involved in the early sixties, breaking up for good in 1965, as Dylan’s career was taking off. “I think about her and Bob Dylan—it just makes me want to fucking wreck that dude,” Rogers told me. “That song—the more I play it, the more I’m, like, ‘This shit’s fucking sad.’ ‘Don’t Forget Me,’ too. Both are sad as shit. The idea that the baseline is just someone to be nice to me—fuck, man.” Baez’s voice is lower, heavier, and grittier these days; when Rogers joined in for harmonies, it felt like a butterfly landing on a tree branch. They swapped the song’s pronouns (“I once loved a boy, a child, I’m told,” they bellowed), which gave it a pleasantly vengeful feel. The crowd went nuts. Later on, offstage, Baez told Rogers, “You sang all the notes I would have sung.”

Beginning when she was nine, Rogers spent her summers at Wohelo, an all-girls camp founded in 1907, on Sebago Lake, in Maine. There is no electricity or running water in the cabins. One morning, she texted me some old, sepia-toned photos of the place: girls in modest bathing costumes, rowing canoes. “I learned to write letters,” she said. “There were limits on technology in my life growing up that kept my inner kid safe for a long time.” For high school, she attended St. Andrew’s, a boarding school situated on more than two thousand bucolic, wooded acres in Middletown, Delaware. These traditional institutions—including, more recently, Harvard—are steeped in a sense of stoicism, seriousness, and erudition. They have had an undeniable aesthetic and spiritual influence on her. “It wasn’t until I saw ‘The Holdovers’ that I was, like, ‘I am deeply the product of this environment,’ ” Rogers told me. “I’m so obsessed with creating something that feels timeless but modern.”

Rogers, by her own admission, can be intense. “I’m so fucking headstrong,” she told me one morning. We were eating fried eggs at Washington Square Diner, an old-school breakfast joint near N.Y.U. “I’m not wishy-washy in any way. People get scared of me. But the right people aren’t scared.” In conversation, Rogers is open, generous, and cerebral. But she is not prone to abiding inanity. (Once, when I was pestering her to describe her childhood, she stopped me, suggested that I could probably find most of the information I was looking for online, and then said, “This is a little bit like fact-check-y speed dating,” which did not feel like a celebration of my reportorial prowess.) “I’m fundamentally in the business of selling my own emotions,” she said. “There has to be some real humanity kept sacred.”

It’s easy to be skeptical of artists who suggest that no, really, they can take it or leave it—celebrity requires constant and effortful maintenance, after all—but I came to believe Rogers when she said that she was more interested in the process of making things than in whatever happens afterward. For years, I heard the single “Light On” as about love doomed by bad timing—a person asking, earnestly, What if there was a way for us to hold and care for one another, beyond the sometimes impossible confines of a traditional relationship? The chorus presents a kind of compromise:

If you keep reaching out Then I’ll keep coming back If you’re gone for good Then I’m okay with that If you leave the light on Then I’ll leave the light on

During my time with Rogers, I started to hear the song as a rejoinder to fame. The sort of attention that she commanded at the start of her career has been supplanted by a quieter, steadier sort of stardom, and she is now focussed, she said, on recognizing “that the cup is full, and not overflowing, and how nice that is.” Buttering a triangle of toast, she continued, “That’s even better—there’s no mess. I’m trying to have a good time, and make shit that I love with people I love. If that works, if it communicates or connects, awesome. If it doesn’t, eighty thousand other records came out that day. It’s O.K!” She went on, “On ‘Heard It in a Past Life,’ I was very commercially ambitious. On ‘Surrender,’ I was very artistically ambitious. Now I’m in this era where it feels very personally ambitious, in the sense that I’m just trying to have the best time while I’m here.”

Musically, a focus on pleasure seems to suit her. The songs on “Don’t Forget Me” aren’t quite as tonally striking as “Alaska,” but they have an intoxicating ease: Rogers sounds unhurried, languid, free. I hear the single “So Sick of Dreaming” as a kind of modern companion piece to Linda Ronstadt’s “When Will I Be Loved,” a No. 1 country hit in 1975, written by the Everly Brothers. Both are refutations of selfish lovers, though “So Sick of Dreaming” contains a bolder declaration of independence. “I’m so sick of dreaming,” Rogers sings. “Oh, I’m all that I’m needing.”

I asked Rogers if she ever wished that her rise to fame had come about differently. She thought for a moment. “I wish that I had uploaded ‘Alaska’ myself,” she said. “But, because of the way it happened, this deeply unguarded version of myself as a student is the version people first saw. My authenticity was full and center. I didn’t have the chance to put on the mask.” She has also had to contend with another very famous person being an inextricable piece of her origin story. “I was being asked about him every single day, and had to be, like, ‘I don’t know him. You’ve seen everything,’ ” she said. More recently, she and Williams have reconnected. “Pharrell and I are friends now. He’s so cool—duh.”

The experience of performing “Alaska” at Carnegie Hall, in front of people culled from various corners of her life—her parents, classmates from Harvard, old professors, her musical peers, Joan Baez—felt like an apotheosis. “I’m gonna get emotional talking about it,” Rogers said, her eyes slowly filling with tears. “It’s been almost ten years since I wrote that song. I was thinking about the person who I was when I wrote it, and thinking about where I am now. I think the girl who wrote that song would be really proud.” She has been experiencing a lot of moments like this lately. In late March, she performed with Bruce Springsteen and the country singer Zach Bryan at the Barclays Center. “Craziest shit in the entire world,” she said the next morning. “My hand is purple. I overenthusiastically tambourined and gave myself a bruise.”

Rogers recently bought an apartment in New York. It was on a list of three things (find an apartment, release a new album, finish the book) that she wants to do before she turns thirty, at the end of April. One afternoon, she and I decided to visit the Dream House, a site-specific “sound and light environment” conceived in the nineteen-sixties by the minimalist composer La Monte Young and his wife, the multimedia artist Marian Zazeela. The Dream House has been situated in a two-room, third-floor space in Tribeca since 1993. (Young, who is eighty-eight, lives downstairs; Zazeela died last month.) Inside, two atonal compositions (one by Young and one by the artist Jung Hee Choi) play on large speakers. Neither of the pieces gestures toward melody or rhythm, and, because of the way that the speakers are arranged, every movement, however slight—a breath, a blink—changes the shape of the sound. Zazeela’s lights give the room a cool, pinkish-purplish glow. If you’ve ever walked by a buzzing neon sign late at night and wondered what it would be like if you could squeeze your entire body inside and slowly dissociate from time and space—welcome to the Dream House.

Shoes are not allowed, and, given the volume, talking isn’t possible. If you arrive with a companion, you will have to figure out a subtle little gesture to indicate to each other that your insides have been rearranged and you are ready to depart. The space features thick white carpeting. A stick of incense is perpetually crumbling to ash. After a while, Rogers and I sort of loonily nodded at each other, and stumbled back onto the street. She asked me if I knew how long we’d been inside. Time felt elastic. I guessed that it had been fifteen minutes—thirty, tops—though it had actually been an hour. “Dude,” Rogers said.

Outside, it was bracingly cold. We wandered around until we found a tiny champagne bar, which felt like an appropriate coda. Inside, we toasted to the Dream House, to dreams, to dreaming. Rogers said she’s trying to inch further away from the isolation of what she refers to as “first name, last name” pop stardom. It has been helpful to focus on music as an inherently communal practice, shared with her collaborators and her fans. “I had all these moments in the early years where I felt really alone,” she said. “I was putting so much of it onto one leg. Now it’s a tripod, and it’s so much more sturdy.” ♦

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