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Spring 2012 Patricio Prez Dr. Yuri Cowan

Mirandas Paradox: Agency and visibility in The Tempest

(Postcolonial) Revisionist readings of Shakespeares The Tempest since the 1960s have focused extensively on the role of Caliban as a symbol of resistance and rebellion in colonial regimes but have paid considerably less attention to the figure of Miranda both as subject of a patriarchal regime and as complicit to her fathers colonial subjugation of the native inhabitant of the island, Caliban. I intend to draw attention on her paradoxical position of oppressed and oppressor on the one hand, and to contribute to a literacy of Miranda that maps visibility of minorities in social studies, and in society in general, on the other. I will argue in this short essay that while neglecting Mirandas role(s) has been interpreted as a way of reinforcing her marginalised position in the play, putting her on the foreground implies the paradox of recognising her as an active agent playing a questionable role in the exploitation of the island and the enslavement of Caliban. I will also try to demonstrate the ways in which patriarchal and colonialist discourse intersect, a link that has not always been acknowledged by early postcolonial readings that have failed to address the relationship between struggles for territorial and cultural independence and the emancipation of women as Jyotsna Singhs points out, for instance, in relation with rewritings of The Tempest by anti-colonial non-Western authors in the wake of decolonisation (209).

While early (18th and 19th century) romantic readings of The Tempest have seen in Miranda (if shes been seen at all, that is) a symbol of virgin nature or pliant womanliness,

as Jessica Slights argues (360), postcolonial approaches to the play have excluded her on the same scale from her role as a dynamic participant in the plot by focusing on the enslavement of Caliban (Slights 361). Feminist readings of The Tempest on the other hand have denounced this exclusion of Miranda from critical discourses and have this way contributed to a visibility of her character but they have more often than not neglected Mirandas necessary complicity in the colonial subjugation of the island and its native inhabitant, Caliban. In Jyotsna Singhs landmark essay Caliban versus Miranda, Miranda is understood as a symbolic gift in a system of women-gift exchange amongst men in which she plays a completely passive role being alternatively disputed, offered, denied and taken by the male characters of Prospero, Caliban and Ferdinand (211). Singh argues that the basis of the power struggle between Prospero and Caliban () is an implicit consensus about the role of woman as a gift to be exchanged (215). Essentially, Miranda is denied all agency being objectified in the power transactions of an all-male community. She represents the means through which Prospero will get them into the royal court of Naples which he therefore needs to preserve from Caliban who sees in Miranda an object of sexual desire and a means to people the island with his descendants. This objectification nevertheless appears to be only applicable to her role in the context of the negotiations between the three men but doesnt account for the complexity of Mirandas relationship to each of them separately. This is especially true with regard to her relationship with Caliban which reveals a more complex interchange between the two characters. Lorrie J. Leininger, for instance, explores this relationship proposing an alliance between Miranda and Caliban against the omnipotent figure of Prospero (291). And although there is no actual evidence in the text to support this interpretation, it is interesting because it throws light on the intersection of the critical discourses of anti-colonialism and feminism and their common strategies and portrays

Miranda and Caliban as implicit allies in the interconnected struggles for gender and territorial and cultural emancipation. However, their relationship is far from being one of kinship and while they could be, theyre not allies against the patriarchs all-embracing power but rather represent counterpoints in the power structure of the island: Caliban actively plots against Prospero and defies his authority whereas Miranda aligns with her father whose discourse she makes her own; they speak the same language after all for which Caliban curses Prospero, for having it taught to him. She has internalized the colonialist discourse in which Caliban is represented as naturally vile (a villain in Mirandas own words, whom shed rather not even look at) projecting not just the superiority of the colonizers but also the need for the occupation and economic exploitation of the island and the implantation of foreign systems of moral values symbolically conveyed by language in the play. It is here, in my opinion, that Mirandas active role in the political universe of the island is materialized and not, as Jessica Slights claims, in her pity for the victims of the shipwreck or her decision to marry Ferdinand (376). In fact, despite her praiseworthy attempt to emphasize Mirandas agency as a dynamic participant in the fictional world of the play, she fails to give a convincing argument for Mirandas defiance of her fathers authoritarian power, at once exaggerating the extent and significance of her expressions of disagreement (seeing a politically subversive potential (Slights 367) in Mirandas rather nave oversight of her fathers command not to speak to Ferdinand But I prattle/Something too wildly, and my fathers precepts/I therein do forget, for instance) and interpreting her curiosity about her fathers account of the events that led them to the island (Wherefore did they not/That hour destroy us? (I.ii. 138-9)) as a subtle form of challenge to Prosperos authority (368). This inconsistent attempt seems to overlook the fact that even when Miranda disagrees, she is in fact fulfilling her fathers plans

to restore their honour and noble lineage through her royal marriage with the son of the king of Naples.

To sum up, I have argued that recognising Mirandas agency in the fictional (political) world of the island implies the paradox of positioning her as complicit to her fathers colonialist economic and cultural exploitation of the island they inhabit and the enslavement of Caliban, that is a dynamic participant of the power struggle between her and her father on one side, and Caliban on the other. Unlike Slights claim, I suggest that Mirandas role in the play doesnt offer (any) alternative to the paternalist order with which the play opens (376) neither on a discursive level nor in her actions. On the contrary, Miranda identifies herself with her fathers discourse and willingly participates in the patriarchal plan Prospero has designed for her.

Works cited Leininger, Lorie Jerrell, The Miranda Trap: Sexism and Racism in Shakespeare's Tempest in (eds.) Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1980, pp. 285-94 Shakespeare, William The Tempest (1610-1611), New York: Signet Classic/Penguin edition, 1987 Singh, Jyotsna G. Caliban versus Miranda: Race and Gender Conflicts in Postcolonial Rewritings of The Tempest in (eds.) Valerie Traub, M. Lindsay Kaplan, and Dympna Callaghan, Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture: Emerging Subjects, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 191-209.

Slights, Jessica, Rape and the Romanticization of Shakespeare's Miranda in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 41, No. 2, Tudor and Stuart Drama. Houston: Rice University, 2001, pp. 357-379