The Tempest: a postmodern reading
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Date
2016-04Publisher
BRAC UniversityAuthor
Palma, Theodore SouravMetadata
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The works of William Shakespeare have a universal influence and are considered the
representatives of ‘all time and all ages’. Critics, scholars, academics and students have been
rereading, reexamining, retelling and restaging his plays century after century. This dissertation
proposes to examine The Tempest as a postmodern text. The postmodern elements: ant-formality,
pastiche, intertextuality, paranoia, irony, playfulness, puns, wordplays, conspiracy theories,
temporal distortion and supernatural elements create an atmosphere in The Tempest which can be
described as postmodern. Focusing on the Ihab Hassan and Brian McHale’s definition and
characterization of postmodernism which have created an opportunity to have a postmodern
approach to The Tempest, this paper illustrates how Shakespeare deconstructs the formal
properties of the text and uses pastiche that project a postmodern connotation of the play. The
dissertation also explores the religious, mythological, geographical and historical references of
characters and their names, events and incidents, and locations and places that construct
intertextuality and insert paranoia in the play. In identifying postmodernist elements—
particularly the presence of supernatural and dreamy world—this dissertation attempts to
examine binaries natural vs. supernatural and reality vs. dream which are pivotal postmodern
concepts. Based on Foucault’s The Eye of Power, the dissertation also discovers the Panoptical
Gaze of Prospero who has assigned Ariel—as a surveillance to keep an eye on everybody and
everything in the island. Finally, this paper aims at rereading The Tempest—as a postmodern text.
Description
This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in English, 2016.Department
Department of English and Humanities, BRAC UniversityType
ThesisCollections
- Thesis, B.A. (English) [595]