Tempest Blog #2

Ross Schonberg

Ms. Gubanich

English

November 24, 2015

Servitude vs loyalty

In The Tempest, there are several characters who are either slaves, servants, or just people who are a higher class than others. In the story, they all are on the island that the wizard Prospero “brought” them to, and many of them are separated, but some of them are still together. In some scenes, this proves the loyalty of characters, whether they are truly loyal to their superior, or if they could be deceitful and are just serving their superior because they are forced to. These qualities are shown between many characters and it is interesting to see how they act.

After the shipwreck in the first act, we learn that all of the characters have survived. We are told this information, not through some narration telling us, but from a character named Ariel, who is basically a magical spirit who lives on the island. Ariel also works for Prospero sort of like an indentured servant, because Prospero saved Ariel after he was trapped in a tree earlier by an evil which, so Ariel has to work for Prospero until it gains its freedom back. Ariel is very grateful for Prospero saving it, so Ariel has become very loyal towards Prospero, as he says in the quote “All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure, be ’t to fly,To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curled clouds. To thy strong bidding, task Ariel and all his quality”(1.2.224-228). It is clear that Ariel is a trusted servant to Prospero. There are two other characters that are not servants, in fact, they have very high positions, but are still below a superior. They are Sebastian, who is the King Alonso’s brother, and Antonio, who is Prospero’s brother and also had Prospero taken out of being the duke. Both of these characters work right below King Alonso. Antonio is hungry for power, so he basically just servers underneath Alonso because he has to. But really Antonio and Sebastian both want more power, so they try to kill King Alonso, but that doesn’t work out. Basically, Antonio and Sebastian are really just doing things when King Alonso tells them to, rather than them actually showing some loyalty towards the king. 
Lastly, one of the most prominent characters that demonstrates these characteristics is Caliban. Caliban is a native of the island, and is actually the son of the evil which that trapped Ariel, so when Prospero defeated the which, he took Caliban in as his slave. Prospero doesn’t mistreat Caliban horribly, but Caliban hates being his slave because, unlike Ariel, Caliban is not able to get freedom. Even though Prospero has provided Caliban with fresh food and water, Caliban only serves Prospero because he has to, rather than out of loyalty, since he always says how much he hates Caliban. Caliban does become loyal to Stephano though, but only because he thinks that he has been freed from Prospero’s tyranny.

In conclusion, there are many characters in this story that can and cannot be trusted, depending on their loyalty. I think that it is very intriguing to see what these characters will do since some of them don’t care about the others, and also see how characters act that do care about the others. The difference between servitude and loyalty is really defined in the story, which makes for some interesting character choices.

Tempest Blog #1

Ross Schonberg
Ms. Gubanich
English
November 18, 2015

              Appearance vs. Reality

               In The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, the opening scene takes place with a ship, holding some regular crew on a ship, but also some very high and important people of Naples. As the play opens the ship seems to be under attack by a bad thunderstorm. Although the people on the crew see this as a bad storm, what is really happening is that there is a wizard named Prospero, who is using his magic to make a storm on that ship, for unknown reasons so far. This can bring up a topic that makes the characters think differently and the reader has a may or may not have a clear understanding of what is happening. In this act, there is a difference between what things appear to be and what the reality is.

               First, the main difference between appearances and reality is that appearance is when something appears to be there, that might not be what it actually is. While reality is exactly what really took place. Within the first act as the people on the boat are struggling on the water, they think that they are fighting through a storm, which they are, but they think it is a storm caused by the weather, rather than magic. An example of when they are in the storm is when the Master says "Good speak to the mariners. fall to 't yarely, or we run ourselves aground. Bestir, bestir!" (1.7, 3-4) .When in fact the reality of the situation is that the wizard Prospero, who has been trapped on a magical island, is creating the storm above the boat. In a way we, as the reader, get to see both the first appearance and the reality, because at first you only think of the storm is just a regular storm, added to the plot simply because that is how they would probably drift to the island. Then we are told that the storm is on purpose, so that means that the storm wasn’t really a boring plot point when it was really a “catalyst” created by Prospero. There is also a small example from act one (since there aren't many because it is a very short act), which is when we are introduced to Prospero he appears like a reclusive wizard, but then in reality he used to be a duke of Milan, but eventually got bored of that position. It turns out that Prospero used to work with the people who are on the boat. So the reality is that all of these characters are connected.


          In The Tempest, there are a lot of different perspectives, and many things seem to be shown in different ways. After doing some classwork with the play, it seems like appearance and reality will play a very important theme throughout the book. Personally I find it interesting that the story makes us think that the storm is a regular storm when really it’s a wizard making the storm. That type of story is a way for people to see things one way at first and a different way later. So that can be some of the ways that the Tempest is going to act with how readers and the characters see things as the story progresses.

Tempest Timeline - Ross

Fantasy story - James the firefighter

Ross Schonberg
Ms. Gubanich
western literature
November 4, 2015

James the Firefighter

           It was a cold and brisk day in New York City. In the heart of Winter, when everything is frozen. Everyone is heading out to go to, either taking a train, taxi, or even riding a bike, which is dangerous, but then again it is NYC. James, one of the best firefighters in New York is getting himself a nice warm cup of coffee and some toast from the local diner. As James is heading to his fire station at the intersection of Blaze st. and Friction rd. one of his friends, who also works as a firefighter, catches up and walks with him. Once they get to the station James starts his daily routine of making sure his fire gear is good in case of an emergency, and checking in with his chief. 

            As James is sitting down with his coffee, toast, and a newspaper that he reads, when all of the sudden an alarm goes off, which means that there is a fire somewhere. James gets on his gear, hops on the firetruck with the rest of the firefighters. James isn't any regular firefighter, in his type of job he has to fight people who are able to shoot fire out of their hands, regular people call them "Flamethrowers". All of the people who shoot fire have gone down the wrong path, probably due to being feared, not loved and made an outcast by society. There aren't many of "Flamethrowers" left in the world because James and his firefighting team have taken them down. James and his fire team are gooing to an old, run down building, that has cought fire by one of the Flamethrowers. When James is coming up to the building, he sees a tall man who is glowing bright orange with flames coming out from his hands. As he got closer to the "Flamethrower" he realized that this wasn't a regular Flamethrower, it was the king Flamethrower, Heatrise.

           James's fire team arrives at the old building, he sees Heatrise. Heatrise turns around from lighting up the building and looks at James at the rest of the fire fighters. All of the sudden Heatrise forms a fireball in the palms of his hands and starts throwing them at the fire fighters. James has never fought against a Flamethrower this powerful. He realized that the only way to beat him its to make him overheat and become "burnt". So james decides that the best way to get him to overheat is to get extremely angry and just use to much of his fire power. He starts to antagonize and make mean comments. Eventually Heatrise gets so enraged that his whole body turns bright red and he exploeds into a giant fire puff. So once james Defeated Heatrise, he finally got to have his coffee and toast.