Discussion Guide Ariel by Grace Tiffany
Discussion Guide Ariel by Grace Tiffany
Discussion Guide Ariel by Grace Tiffany
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<strong>Discussion</strong> <strong>Guide</strong><br />
<strong>Ariel</strong> <strong>by</strong> <strong>Grace</strong> <strong>Tiffany</strong><br />
Reading Shakespeare’s The Tempest in the Light of <strong>Grace</strong> <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
<strong>Grace</strong> <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s <strong>Ariel</strong> is a modern, fictional adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The<br />
Tempest.<br />
The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, has inspired the greatest<br />
number of creative adaptations <strong>by</strong> other authors. It has been nearly four hundred years<br />
since The Tempest was first performed before King James I in London in 1611.<br />
Shakespeare was still alive then, and possibly present, at this performance. In the fourhundred-years<br />
since, playwrights, poets, novelists, movie directors, and even one writer of<br />
a popular science-fiction television series have been inspired to reimagine Prospero,<br />
Caliban, Miranda, and <strong>Ariel</strong>, the four beings who inhabit Shakespeare’s magic island. In fact,<br />
one of the first adaptations of The Tempest, a late-seventeenth-century comedy <strong>by</strong> William<br />
Davenant and John Dryden, actually renamed the drama The Magic Island. Twentiethcentury<br />
authors have dreamed whole new settings for the play, which range from Greece (in<br />
John Cassavetes’ film Tempest) to the French Caribbean island of Martinique (in Aimé<br />
Césaire’s play Une Tempéte) to—at the extreme edge of imagination—other planets (in Fred<br />
Wilcox’s film Forbidden Planet and one episode from Gene Rodenberry’s television series<br />
Star Trek). <strong>Grace</strong> <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s <strong>Ariel</strong> is the latest and among the most imaginative of these<br />
adaptations of Shakespeare’s play. A discussion of The Tempest in the light of <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
might begin with the question, what might it be about The Tempest that has inspired such a<br />
wealth of creative adaptations—that is, more adaptations than have been done of for any<br />
other Shakespearean play, including the equally popular Hamlet, Macbeth, and The Taming<br />
of the Shrew?<br />
<strong>Discussion</strong> Questions<br />
The following, more specific questions are designed to inspire discussion and encourage a<br />
closer reading of Shakespeare’s The Tempest <strong>by</strong> prompting its careful comparison with<br />
<strong>Tiffany</strong>’s novel.<br />
1. Miranda is the only female in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In contrast, <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
features three females: Sycorax, Miranda, and <strong>Ariel</strong>, who, though a spirit, first<br />
appears in the figure of a woman and is henceforth described with feminine<br />
pronouns. How does the increased presence of women in <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s work shift some of<br />
the power from males to females? Do women have more power in <strong>Ariel</strong> than they<br />
have in The Tempest, and, if so, what kinds of power do they have, and how do they<br />
wield it? As a related question, why do you think <strong>Tiffany</strong> made <strong>Ariel</strong> female?<br />
2. <strong>Ariel</strong>, of course, is not really a woman, but a feminine spirit. What is the difference<br />
between humans and spirits, both in The Tempest and in <strong>Ariel</strong>?<br />
3. Although many modern directors have tried to place The Tempest’s magic island in a<br />
known geographical area, Shakespeare leaves its location vague. Does The Tempest<br />
give any information about the location of the island? What modern themes<br />
pertaining to European—New World conflicts does <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s placement of the island in<br />
the Caribbean help convey? Are these themes wholly modern, or do they surface in<br />
Shakespeare’s play as well?
4. Working in the different mediums of stage-play and novel, both Shakespeare and<br />
<strong>Tiffany</strong> try ceaselessly to convey the sense that this island is surrounded <strong>by</strong> water.<br />
How does Shakespeare make sure his audience never forgets that the sea surrounds<br />
the island? (This, <strong>by</strong> the way, is no mean feat when his actors stand on a bare, landlocked<br />
stage which lacks scenic backdrops and a modern sound system!) Does<br />
<strong>Tiffany</strong> successfully create and maintain a similar sense of vast water around the<br />
island, and, if so, how does she do so?<br />
5. As a question related to question 4, how does water come into our lives? What do<br />
watery things signify in terms of human experience? (Students are encouraged to<br />
think of rain, solid or melting ice, sailing, drinking, birth—when “water breaks”—<br />
swimming, baptism, dissolving, weeping.) How do those “watery” experiences figure<br />
in The Tempest and in <strong>Ariel</strong>?<br />
6. And, relative to questions 4 and 5, in The Tempest, when King Alonso asks Prospero,<br />
“When did you lose your daughter?” Prospero replies “In this last tempest.” However,<br />
we know that it is Alonso who has lost his son Ferdinand in “this last tempest”<br />
(5.1.152-153), 1 while Prospero has not lost his daughter at all in a physical sense.<br />
How does <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s description of Miranda’s first sight of Ferdinand on pp. 170-171,<br />
beginning “She was at sea,” comment on and attempt to interpret Prospero’s odd<br />
comment to Alonso in act five, scene one, of Shakespeare’s play?<br />
7. Compare Shakespeare’s Caliban to <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s Caliban. Are they entirely different, or<br />
does <strong>Tiffany</strong> truly appear to be basing her character on Shakespeare’s? Find at least<br />
one specific passage or interchange of dialogue in Shakespeare’s The Tempest that<br />
might support <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s interpretation of Caliban.<br />
8. Is <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s Miranda anything like Shakespeare’s? Again, find passages in<br />
Shakespeare that either justify or cast doubt on <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s version of Miranda.<br />
Do the same with any of the other characters <strong>Tiffany</strong> represents.<br />
9. In act five, scene one, of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, <strong>Ariel</strong> tells Prospero that his<br />
enemies Alonso and Antonio are now Prospero’s prisoners, and says, “[I]f you now<br />
beheld them, your affections/ Would become tender” (ll. 18-19). Prospero responds,<br />
“Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling/ Of their afflictions, and shall not<br />
myself,/ One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,/ . . . be kindlier moved than<br />
thou art?” (ll. 21-24). He concludes that he will forgive them. Compare Prospero’s<br />
and <strong>Ariel</strong>’s interchange to that described <strong>by</strong> <strong>Tiffany</strong> on pp. 181-183 and pp. 202-205<br />
of <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s novel. What is the difference between the influence Shakespeare’s <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
has on Shakespeare’s Prospero and the influence <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s <strong>Ariel</strong> has on <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s<br />
Prospero?<br />
10. What is Shakespeare’s <strong>Ariel</strong>? What is <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s <strong>Ariel</strong>? Do they represent different<br />
things? Or do they represent the same thing, and Shakespeare and <strong>Tiffany</strong> disagree<br />
about this thing’s worth?<br />
11. Does <strong>Tiffany</strong>’s final chapter—her epilogue—go way beyond any implications of<br />
European—New World encounter suggested in the original The Tempest? Or do the<br />
ideas proposed in this final chapter take their root from something in Shakespeare’s<br />
play?<br />
1 William Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. Sylvan Barnet, NY: Signet, 1998.
12. What are some of the relevant distinctions between the genres of novel and play that<br />
these two works invite us to observe? What can <strong>Tiffany</strong> do in her fiction, because of<br />
the difference in the medium, that Shakespeare cannot do on the stage? Conversely,<br />
what can Shakespeare create and achieve with his live actors on a stage that <strong>Tiffany</strong><br />
cannot do in her fiction?<br />
Final questions might be: Should authors take the kind of license that <strong>Tiffany</strong> has taken with<br />
Shakespeare? Why? Why not? Does her book help us understand Shakespeare? Does<br />
Shakespeare help us understand her book?<br />
Performance Exercise<br />
Enact a scene or portion of a scene from The Tempest, then read aloud or dramatize<br />
(casting a narrator and speaking characters) the section of <strong>Ariel</strong> that seems to be based on<br />
that scene. Discuss the differences in theme and character that this way become evident.<br />
Some possible scene comparisons:<br />
Act one, scene one, of The Tempest and pages 159-161 of <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
Act one, scene two, lines 24-168 of The Tempest and pages 186-191 of <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
Act one, scene two, lines 314-374 of The Tempest and pages 136-138 of <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
Act one, scene two, lines 237-304 of The Tempest and pages 112-114 of <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
Act one, scene two, lines 397-503 of The Tempest and pages 167-174 of <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
Act two, scene one, line 148-331 of The Tempest and pages 176-183 of <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
Act four, scene one, lines 60-145 of The Tempest and pages 196-200 of <strong>Ariel</strong><br />
Suggested additional reading:<br />
W. H. Auden, “Prospero to <strong>Ariel</strong>,” from The Sea and the Mirror, excerpted in W. H. Auden:<br />
Selected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson, NY: Vintage, 1979, pp. 129-135<br />
<strong>Ariel</strong><br />
By <strong>Grace</strong> <strong>Tiffany</strong><br />
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