After our class discussion from last week, I no longer see Prospero as an extension of Shakespear; that is: in do not see Prospero as the writer of the drama. Since we discussed the role of British colonialism, and since I now know that Shakespear had more than a passing knowledge of British colonialism, I have a different reading of the play.
Prosepro is userped and “banished” to the island. When he gets there, he does the same thing to Calaban that his brother did to him; he, in a sense, gains Calaban’s confidence only to userp the island from him. While I haven’t formulated a purely British-colonialism-reading that can run through the entire play, I am considering it.
