Eucatastrophe Reader

“Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law”

Your Honor Season One REVIEW

In Greek tragedy, the protagonist often suffers for some unbalanced virtue or some desire for a perfection that is not advisable in such an imperfect world. Oedipus insists that he will discover the cause of the plague that afflicts his people, not knowing that by doing so, he will uncover a secret about himself that, when he knows, brings about his own demise. If only he had not cared about his city so much, he might have been spared. If only he had been willing to “let well enough alone” – to let some tragedies go unexplained.  

One might argue that the Showtime series, Your Honor, is a classically tragic Greek play told in modern terms, and that Judge Michael Desiato (Bryan Cranston) is an example of a classic hero in the Classical Greek tradition of tragedy writing. Judge Desiato is regarded by all who know him as an incorruptible, fair, and noble soul. In the opening scenes, we can see that he cares about justice but has a keen eye for mercy. He resists corruption, goes out of his way to uphold the laws and the just society they represent. Furthermore, he loves his son and his dog.

And then the Fates open up a wormhole into his life to try him by fire. When Michael’s son, driving through a seedy section of New Orleans, accidentally strikes Rocco Baxter,  the 17 year old son of “the most violent crime family in the history of New Orleans” riding a motorcycle on a deserted street, Judge Michael Desiato makes a calculated decision to do whatever he can to spare that son the certain revenge that he knows would soon follow if Jimmy Baxter, Rocco’s father, ever discovers who it was driving the car that day.

A father’s love soon overwhelms all other moral concerns and, over ten episodes, we watch as the noble hero, Michael Desiato, is dragged by his original compromise into a seemingly endless descent into criminality himself. By the time the final curtains are drawn to the end of season one, Michael “Oedipus” Desiato, clutches his own dying son, shot in the neck by a bullet intended for Rocco’s brother – shot with a gun purchased with the judge’s own hush money by a brother of one of Desiato’s own innocent victims. Karma is not kind to him for letting one virtue compromise all others. In one scene, Judge Desiato tells a juror that she should care more for her daughter than for some abstract justice. In advice that he himself clearly follows, he says, “Nothing is more precious than her. Not principle, not courage, not conscience. “In the last episode as Michael’s cover-ups and crimes in the defense of his son are exposed, he insists to one of those who has found him out, “Justice and principle? Do you think either of those take precedence over the life of your own child? Ever?”

The script writers of this series are clearly going to make the case that Judge Michael Desiato should be allowed to express his love for his son; Just not by using the powers granted him by the State to pursue justice for the victims of violent crimes. For this betrayal of the innocent in the courts of justice, “the gods” will that the judge be made to pay, and it is an ironic and targeted sentence when it comes due.  

“Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law,” Antigone says in Sophocles famous play, Antigone. The script writers of this Showtime series have clearly taken the side of Sophocles that the children of powerful men cannot be allowed to become more important to them than the children of their neighbors, the well-being of the innocent, and Justice itself. Some recent political figures and their sons immediately come to mind.  

Question for Comment: One of the complicating factors that cast a shadow over every decision that Judge Desiato makes in this story is the violence of certain sub-populations of the city he serves and corruption of the law enforcement agencies of the same. In short, the dearth of morality in the environment disincentivizes moral actions makes moral behavior unwise. The city itself eventually becomes the source of all of its most virtuous citizens’ inability to make virtue their highest priority. To what extent is the moral demise of Judge Michael Desiato something to be laid at the doorstep of the whole community? To what extent is his moral demise his and his alone?

To all my friends who are mothers, God mothers, and do motherly things

“Raised by the women who are stronger than you know
A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn
And the threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth
By your mother and her mother, the weavers of your cloth”
-Mary Chapin Carpenter, Family Hands

It occurs to me today that we are all tangled up in the webs of relationships in life. There are many of them. Some are what environmentalists would call “food chains.” We are tied to the people who make our food and the things we need to live. I play a part in the life in the man who fills my oil tank and the student who seeks a better life on the other end of the credits I offer through my college. I can provide the dandelions a sanctuary in my yard and I can actually remember to water my house plants. I pay my taxes and someone else’s child goes to school. I paint my house and the family across the street can look out their window and say “what a lovely shade of blue!” If my neighbor sits on his front porch and plays his guitar, I can enjoy it while I listen to a book that John Grisham wrote for me to read.

In all these relationships, I am giving and receiving. Soliciting aid and being solicited.

Ultimately, these various webs can be categorized in a variety of ways. There are some that were designed to get as much out of me as can be gotten with the least expense. There are others in which the web-maker has every intention to give as much as they can if I will only stay connected to them. My connections to them are umbilical cords of grace extended to me and I am not charged. Amazing. Their kindness never seems to get “put on my tab." The longer you live, the more you realize how rare and valuable these are. You realize that the world seems so full of the webs of spiders being spun to lure you in, trap you to some sticky contrivance that makes it impossible for you to escape while they take your innards out through some well-designed proboscis.

 The philosopher Frederic Nietzsche once wrote that all living things express a “will to power” and that the instinct to control, to own, to dominate, and to imperialize is a natural and altogether to be expected part of our natures. “Every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force,” he said. “[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body... will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power... 'Exploitation'... belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function.”

I am so grateful today that I did not have Frederic Nietzsche for a mother. MY mother seems to have entered my life with what I would call “the will to nurture.”

I would like to thank my mother in particular today. And vicariously, to thank my sister who is also is a very anti-Nietzsche sort of person and a great mom in her own right. I would like to thank my sister-in-laws Heidi and Cheryl who care deeply for their families and friends in their communities. I would like to thank my niece, Steph. I so enjoyed seeing your children’s happy thriving the other day. Rosie. Thanks for what you wrote about your mom in your blog the other day. To C.E., A.W., M.N., R.H., M.L. D.H. A.W., E.H., C.L., P.W.., and to H.M’s mom, and to all the God Mothers (G.O and H.M.) and those other people who I know that may not be mothers but who nurture the world I live in, thank you.

I hope it will be okay if I take a moment here to say thank you to Rebecca and Sally Anne. Thanks for all you do for the two wonderful young men that we were all somehow given to love through this life.

Painting by jackie brown-fourez

“scissor-poke cowardice and reservation in the eyes”

Walden on Wheels REVIEW

Chapter One: Cart-Pusher

1. How would you compare Ken Ilgunas’ experience of getting into college debt compare with your own experience? How does he find himself, as he says on page 9, “trapped in school”?
2. What non-monetary benefits does Ken Ilgunas feel himself receiving from his education in this chapter and what does this have to say about the purpose of college in your mind?
3. Ilgunas speaks to the matter of freedom in this chapter. What does freedom mean to him? How does he suffer as he feels that it is being lost and how does he strike out to regain it? Is his approach a logical one in your mind? Why or why not? Note his comment on pages 12 and 13, “I became afflicted with a burning restlessness that stirred up irrational, impractical dreams and coaxed out strange, subconscious voices.”
4. In concluding the chapter, Ilgunas says that we are nothing but our stories. – “an accumulation of experiences that we have fashioned into our own grand, sweeping narrative.” If you sat down like Ilgunas does, to write the narrative of your experiences, could it be made into an interesting readable book?

Chapter Two: Cheechako

1. “Climbing this mountain was my chance to start over,” Ilgunas writes of Blue Cloud on page 25. He says that that one climb took on mythic proportions. How does this event determine much of what follows in the book?
2. Would you describe Ken Ilgunas as foolhardy or adventurous? Or both? Why?

Chapter Three: Applicant

1. “By 2009, 17.4 million college graduates had jobs that didn’t even require a degree.” As Ken tries to figure out how to pay his college debt in this environment, how does he envision his alternate futures in “career world” and as an adventurer? Page 38. Do you think his perceptions are accurate or skewed?What does the view after college look like to you at this moment?
2. Do you think Ken Ilgunas makes a wise or a foolish decision after he graduates? How does one know when to surrender and when to persist in a dream anyway?

Chapter Four: Tour Guide

1. What is Ken Ilgunas’ attitude towards work (page 46) and how does it compare with Jack Reakoff’s? Do you think either or both attitudes are healthy or unhealthy?
2. Ken manages to reduce his financial burdens by shifting some of them to his mother (though he intends to pay her back and begins to). How did you determine when to accept help and when not to? This is a question Ilgunas will come back to later in the book by the way.

Chapter Five: Garbage Picker

1. Ken’s gets excited about Bob Abrames proposal to travel in a canoe through Canada. Have you ever experienced a similar excitement about a task or job or adventure?
2. Ken’s description of working as a garbage picker doesn’t sound all that appealing. What has been your worst job thus far? How does that job fit into your narrative? Your story?

Chapter Six: Night Cook

1. Ken starts chapter six by describing some of the people who live and work in Coldfoot Alaska during the winters. His ability to draw caricatures of people is one evidence of his ability to write. Have you ever tried to describe people that you work with? Are they interesting enough to write about?
2. “Everyone else seemed to be decomposing,” Ilgunas says of people he works with. How are people in Coldfoot affected by the weather and climate where they live? How does where you live matter as much or more than what you do?
3. “My life was so monotonous, so goaless, so pathless. What was my purpose? To service truckers who worked for the oil industry?” p. 70 What does Ken’s estimation of his life in Alaska say about the relative importance of WHERE you are over WHAT you do?
4. Ilgunas says that he felt anger when he first saw the stars in Alaska. “It was as if I had just learned of an inheritance that had been stolen from me. If it wasn’t for Alaska, I might have gone my whole life without knowing what a real sky was supposed to look like. . .. what other sights had the foul cloud of civilization hid from my view?” What is the most amazing thing you have ever seen in nature? Why is experiencing such things valuable to human beings?
5. Why does Ilgunas say that people often WANT to have their freedom taken away?

Chapter Seven: Maintenance Worker

1. Thoreau made me feel like I’d been a sane man wrongly assigned to live in a madhouse.” (p. 78) Like Thoreau, Ilgunas discovered that he is better off when he is “doing without.” I wonder if you would agree with him or with Thoreau? Make reference to some passages from Thoreau’s Walden in your response.
2. Both Thoreau and Ilgunas like to calculate their accounts. What can be learned from the figures that they use to represent their personal economies. When you look at your own budget, how are you different or like them? What do these numbers say about you?
3. “James Suburban left me speechless. It was a mockery of conformity , an affront to conventional wisdom, a symbol of his complete lack of regard for the rules and norms and standards of our age.” Have you ever met someone who inspired you somehow?  How do you explain why different people inspire us in different ways?
4. How does Ilgunas deal with rejections letters (0 for 35 he says on page 86). How do you deal with rejection?

Chapter Eight: Hitchiker

1. What does Ilgunas mean when he says that he wants to “scissor-poke cowardice and reservation in the eyes” on page 96? And “It was time to find out for myself” on page 97? How does this compare to Thoreau’s passage in walden where he says that he wanted to “live deliberately”?

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”

2. How does Ilgunas characterize the people he meets hitchhiking? What does he mean when he writes on page 104, “I walked a tightwire above a net of compassion, stretched out by the hands of strangers”? What do you think of his estimation of people’s character? Is it naïve or accurate or overly pessimistic? Have you ever questioned just how much an appropriate amount of trust one should have in strangers is.

Chapter Nine: Voyageur

1. “Life was good and simple” Ilgunas says of his experience as a voyageur. He finds himself “daily shedding the traces of his century.” Perhaps you have noticed that at every step of this book, the author is getting more adept at doing without. Is this a skill you should like to encourage in yourself? Or is it a coping mechanism for the lazy and undisciplined?
2. Ilgunas talks on page 116 about how the “coming of age” adventure has been abridged from a young person’s life experience, leaving no bridge, no moment of real freedom in between school and career.” What do you think would make a good post-highschool pre-college adventure?
3. At the end of this chapter, Ilgunas tells us about “standing up” for himself in a way he had never done before. Can you think of a similar experience in your life?

Chapter Ten: Corpmember

1. In this chapter Ken Ilgunas describes his relationships with the girls he meets in Mississippi as an Americorp worker. How does his description of falling in love with someone compare to your own experiences? How does Ilgunas explain himself to himself and does he seem to be as good at observing his internal self as he is at observing nature and character in other people?
2. The psychologist, Carl Jung suggests that what we look for in a romantic partner is often the part of ourselves that we are too repressed to let out. How might this be illustrated in Ken’s description of Sami? If we were to ask Sami to write about her attraction to Ken, what might she say?
3. How does Ken’s friend Josh’s experiences at Westwood College contribute to the theme of the book (p. 135) You might want to read pages 159=161 as well.

Chapter Eleven: Son

1. How does Ken respond to Sami’s news and what does that tell you about him at this point in his life?
2. How does Ken imagine parenting and how does the responsibility of parenting fit into that all-important “narrative” that he enjoys telling? Could this book have been written if Ken had become a parent at this point?
3. On page 142 AND 143, Ken Ilgunas explains why the relationship with sami is “unsustainable.” When relationships break up, there is usually an “initiator” and it is not unusual for them to begin laying the groundwork for their exit before informing their partner (as Ilgunas does here.” Does he seem like a noble person to you? Or does he come across as someone who “uses people”?
4. On page 145, Ken inventories his feelings about huis parents’ lives. This is often an important exercise in the individuation process as we figure out how we want our lives to be different. “I wanted to work but I wanted to be free” he says. To what extent are these two things mutually exclusive.
5. On page 149 and 150, Ilgunas tries to understand the allure of video games in the modern world. Would you agree or disagree with his observations?

Chapter Twelve: Ranger

1. “Let the intrepid few have wild places where they might be stunned by the extraordinary, and let the sedentary many have such places too. “ What is Ilgunas’ argument for making some National Parks inaccessible to any but the dedicated? Compare Ilgunas’ views of nature in the National life to the conservationist, John Muir. You can easily find a few of his writings online.
2. “Why did they hire me?” When Ken starts his job as a park ranger, he can’t believe he could be so fortunate. Why do you suspect he was hired given what you know about him thus far?
3. “Dwelling in me also was an unmotivated suburbanite, a lazy couch potato, a sometimes alcoholic, loser. If I put myself in a comfortable situation, my lesser self would take over …” (p. 162) Is this a criticism of most people’s lives? Does it seem arrogant or realistic in your experience.
4. “What had our relationship been? IT was about to fall to the ground in a cloud of dust like a demolished building. It was a young cottonwood about to be charred and splintered by an errant lightning bolt. It was a wild river doomed to be damned. … it wasn’t supposed to last forever. It was simply a means of getting from one point to another, of helping us get from our past selves to our future selves. And like the hitchhike, we’d take from it, learn from it, say goodbye to it, be the better for it and think back on it fondly. Devestated and completely unsure about what I was doing, I kissed her forehead and left the café.”  (p. 163)
   
   We can have a tendency to make a declaration about our experience of something as though our perception of it is the experience itself. One wonders reading this if Sami’s narrative and Kens would diverge about what is happening here. But it provides an opportunity to think about your own approach to ending relationships that you form in life. What advice from your experience would you have given to Ken Ilgunas at this point in his story?

Chapter Thirteen: Package Handler

1. Ken begins this chapter talking about his friend Josh’s job at Westwood College. When we take jobs, we generally have some impact on them. But they also have an impact on us. What impact does your job have on you?
2. “If I didn’t do it now, I might never,” Ken says of applying to graduate school after he pays off his debt. What do you think of doing when you think like that?
3. On page 171, Ilgunas prepares for an interview. What can you learn from him about the achievement of goals? This can include more ideas than simply his approach to college interviews?
4. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of attempting to graduate from college or graduate schools debt free?

Chapter Fourteen:  Purchase

1. “When you have got nothing, I guess you have got nothing to lose.” Time for a reality check. Ken Ilgunas has just paid off his debt with money that he made from the American Park Service – money that the park service has solely because millions of people are working and paying in taxes to the National Treasury. He lives without health insurance and soon, the new President will be driving a health care reform process that has, as a central tenant the idea that young people like Ken must be forced to pay a fine if they do not provide for their own insurance. His decision to live in a van will mean that he will not be contributing property taxes for the local school system. His hot water and electricity will be funded by other students at Duke. Is he being admirably frugal here or is here merely externalizing his costs to others? Feel free to take a position.

Chapter Fifteen: Renovation

1. Vandwelling is an entire lifestyle choice as we will soon learn. Does it appeal to you? Why or why not?
2. Ken Ilgunas explains why he decides to become a van dweller on page 191. It reminds one very much of Thoreau’s explanation for why he lived in a cabin by Walden (thus the title of the book). Does his defense of his lifestyle strike you as compelling? Or is there something about the insecurity of it all (as he describes in the introduction) that more than offsets the benefits?
3. “While I had hoped to sneak my way around college tuition,” Ilgunas says on page 192, “ I’d met warty mustachioed border patrolmen on all the conventional roads to an affordable education.” What alternative routes to affordable education have you tried and thought about trying?
4. Have you ever created a detailed budget like Ken does on page 199? How might it help you?

Chapter Sixteen: Acclimatization

1. “In order to graduate debt free, I’d have to lie. There was no way around it.” This is as good a place as any to talk about Ethics. What is your take on Ilgunas’ argument here. How might his logic be applied by others in different ways and this an argument against doing what he is doing? Or understandable. (Note for instance how he feels about Westwood College lying to potential students for money.)
2. “I preferred to remain useless at everything” Ilgunas says of his decision to pursue a liberal arts degree on page 211. “I didn’t want a ‘marketable skill – I could learn one later if I wished.” For Ilgunas “figuring stuff out,” is a priority. What are the best and worst arguments for taking liberal arts programs and classes so far as you can imagine them?

Chapter Seventeen: Adaptation

1. I am a member of the “careerless generation,” Ilgunas says on page 221, “the screwed generation.” “We are the first generation in a while who will less well-off and less well off than their parents.” Is this your estimation of the situation and if so, how do you explain it and feel about it?
2. Ilgunas turns down his mother’s offer to send him money on page 222. Why? What is your estimate of his decision? Would you turn down parental help if you had it?
3. Ilgunas concludes the chapter by saying that he was only one accident or injury away from bankruptcy. These ar typically the sorts of people that predatory lenders look for because such people must charge at high interest rates when emergencies happen. Ken Ilgunas mentions that his mother tried to convince him to put some of his debt payment into savings. Debate the wisdom of her advise. Does Ken’s approach only work because he is fortunate enough not to have an accident or illness?

Chapter Eighteen: My First Guest

1. On page 236, Ilgunas addresses the issue of loneliness (something he had to live with in exchange for his frugal lifestyle and obsession with freedom). “I found that Icould not due without people the way that I could ddo without luxuries” he writes. Has he made assumptions about himself that have not turned out to be so? And if so, what does he do about it?
2. “I met students everywhere,” Ilgunas says on page 241, “who had devoted half their twenties to something they had little passion for. Eventually, they would be hyperspecialized and would only be qualified for work that didn’t at all fit their true interests or character.” Is this something likely to happen to you and if so, it as bad for your life as Ilgunas suggests? He defines smart as knowing and being willing to follow your passions. What is your estimate of that determiner of intelligence?
3. Thorough made a habit of critiquing the lives of farmers in Concord. Ilgunas begins to criticize the career choices of some of his fellow students at Duke. He sees them as “squandering their lives.” Is this fair? Explain.

Chapter Nineteen: Solitude

1. Loneliness, no doubt caused anquish,” Ilgunas writes, “but over time, solitude gave me something I never would have expected: a culture of my own.” “Why should I listen to society? Society was insane.” What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a culture of your own?

Chapter Twenty: Ranger

1. “I was happy to have suffered. I was happy to have been miserable. I was happy to have been alone. And I knew that I would soon be happy to have been scared half to death by that bear.” “Comedy is tragedy plus distance” someone has said. What is the process by which you turn your suffering into happiness?
2. Ilgunas insists that “you have to become you.” That there is no happiness outside doing so. What does that advice mean to you?

Chapter Twenty-One: Pilgrim

1. Ilgunas tells us that he eventually decided to make his van experiment public in an article in Salon magazine (a contact provided him by one of his teachers). You can find his article here:
   
   http://www.salon.com/2009/12/07/living_in_a_van/
   
   What would you write an article about if you had the chance?
2. On page 281 of the book, Ilgunas begins to self-reflect on his obsession with frugality and independence. Is he, in your opinion learning to compromise and is this a good thing?

Chapter Twenty-Two: Graduate

1. “James Joyce said, ‘When the soul of man is born, there are nets thrown at it to hold it back from flight.’” What are some of the nets that have been thrown at you?
2. Why does Ilgunas say that he leaves Duke feeling wealthy even though he is almost twenty five and has almost no savings, no possessions, no assets, and no job?
3. “Go for it.” What would “it” be for you?

“As you from crimes would pardoned be Let your indulgence set me free.”

The Tempest REVIEW

Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a play that I arrived late to. Not literally. I simply have only read it recently and I saw it for the first time at Middlebury college’s Bread Loaf (Thanks to my dear friend, Hilary who got me tickets).

The theme of the play seems to revolve around the subject of power and freedom. All of the characters seem to illustrate just how addictive the ability to use coercive power to control others can be and just how much humans dislike having coercive power used on them. The play demonstrates the lengths that humans will go to get power and the lengths that they will go to obtain freedom when they are exploited by powerful people. The play is full of contentious master-slave relationships.

The main character, Prospero, was the Duke of Milan. But he handed over all the responsibilities of his position to his brother so that he could pursue his studies in the magical arts. It becomes clear that Prospero was interested in obtaining even more power than his political title gave him. He wanted some sort of cultish power as well. He is deeply bitter about his brother taking that political power from him (as though anyone would actually want the responsibilities of such a position without the advantages of it!).

Prospero’s brother, Antonio demonstrates how much power means to him when he strikes a deal with Alonzo, the King of Naples. In exchange for Alonzo’s help evicting Prospero and Prospero’s three-year-old daughter, Miranda from the city, Antonio is willing to have Milan pay tribute to Naples. In short, he makes himself a servant in order to be a master. Later in the play, he tells Sebastian that his “brothers’ servants were once his fellows” but “now they are my men.” Clearly, he relishes the change.

There is also a clear master-slave relationship between Prospero and the inhabitants of the island to which he and Miranda are shipwrecked. When Prospero arrives, he finds the island inhabited by Caliban, the deformed son of the witch who used to dominate the Island. Prospero offers to be a patron of Caliban for some time, teaching Caliban language in return for Caliban’s intimate knowledge of the island. But then Prospero reduces Caliban to a slave, making him haul wood and other such menial tasks. Prospero’s ability to use his dark art magic to inflict pain and suffering on Caliban for any scintilla of disobedience reveals just what a tyrant Prospero is (and may always have been) when he is disposed to be.

Prospero also retains a heavy-handed control over the sprite, Ariel. Ariel had been a servant of the witch, Sycorax. When Ariel refused to do Sycorax’s evil bidding, Sycorax put Ariel in an oak tree and inflicted suffering on her there for twelve years. Caliban frees her when the witch dies and constantly reminds Ariel that she must needs serve him as a result. Prospero has the ability to put her back in the tree for another twelve years and reminds her constantly that he will do so if she does not follow his every command. But unlike his relationship with Caliban, Prospero promises that he will reward Ariel for her service by liberating her someday when he no longer needs her services. Interestingly, later in the play, Caliban reveals that all the beings on the island who must abide by Prospero’s tyranny secretly “hate him.” We much include Ariel in that group I suppose.

There are other characters in the play who also demonstrate just how tempting power is to humans and how distasteful it is to them to be placed in subservience to others. King Alonzo’s brother, Sebastian, at one point in time in the play is on the verge of murdering his own brother in order to obtain his brother’s throne. Antonio, the usurping brother of Prospero encourages Sebastian to commit the murder, seeking to liberate himself from the fealty he promised to Alonzo as a means of acquiring Milan in the first place.   

The play opens with a scene on a ship in the middle of a storm that Prospero has sent to shipwreck his enemies and even on the ship, one senses the tension between the sailors and the aristocrats they carry on board. The aristocrats resent any hint of insurrection or disrespect exhibited by the crew of plebians and the sailors resent the interference of the meddling aristocrats trying to tell them how to handle the boat. The whole play revolves around the bitterness and resentment created when humans are made to serve other humans by means of coercive power. Coercive power is something we seem to love when we have it at our disposal and can weaponize it against those below us and yet, the same coercive power is something we hate when those in the hierarchy above us use it on us.

Characters seethe with resentments. Prospero calls his brother “the ivy which had sucked my verdure out.” Prospero will, from time to time, simply use his magic to make people do what he wants. At one point, he nonchalantly puts his teenage daughter, Miranda to sleep when he wants to talk to Ariel  privately, saying to Miranda, “I know you cannot choose.” Ariel, who we later come to understand, deeply resents her loss of freedom, still refers to Prospero as “great master” and “grave sir.” “I come to answer thy best pleasure,” she says to him, “to swim, to dive into the fire ….” One suspects that she is obsequious on the surface, but seething on the inside. Prospero responds to any hint of complaint on the part of Ariel with a dismissive “How now, moody!” and asks her if she would like to be returned to her tree.

[The more we see of Prospero’s use of his magical powers, the better we understand why it might have been that Antonio wanted to be rid of him].

Prospero treats Caliban even worse than he treats Miranda and Ariel. He describes Caliban as a “freckled whelp” and “hag-born, not honored with a human shape . . . got by the devil himself.” “A dull thing whom I now keep in service” he says of Caliban. Prospero threatens him with bee and sea urchin stings and cramps if he so much as expresses an iota of resistance. Prospero refers to Caliban as “the most lying slave whom stripes may move, not kindness.” Later he calls Caliban his “abhorred slave which any print of goodness will not take.” “Thy vile race,” he says to Caliban, “had that in it which good natures could not abide to be with …”

And as Prospero’s tyranny over Caliban is the most severe and absolute of all tyrannies in the play, Caliban’s rage is the most virulent and destructive. We get the sense that the use of coercive power will always instill resentment reciprocal to the coerciveness. What is interesting is that Prospero cannot see the relationship between his resentment towards his brother’s theft of Milan, and Caliban’s resentment of Prospero’s theft of the island. Having power to inflict subservience, Prospero has no need for the kind of reflection that might provide him insight into Caliban’s actual nature. His daughter has the capacity for empathy, but he does not.

“Among the oppressed, are many who would like to oppress,” Napoleon once said.

 All of this sounds pretty bleak, but there is a ray of hope for humanity to be found on this enchanted island as well. Three of the characters serve as counterweights to the general theme of the corruptive influence of power on the human psyche.

The first of the three characters who remains immune from the love of power is Gonzalo, an honest old counselor to Prospero who helped to save his life when Antonio conspired to be rid of his brother. Gonzalo is a bit of a hippie and something of a John Lennon among all the wretched power-besotted aristocrats. Gonzalo has a cheery disposition and betrays a “60’s-like” optimism about life. You might say that he looks at the world through rose-colored glasses. As he surveys the island, he thinks about what a utopia it might be if we all “imagined” a world without power and control. “A new golden age” he calls it.

I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things.
For no kind of traffic
Would I admit. No name of magistrate.
Letters should not be known.
Riches, poverty, And use of service—none.
Contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard—none.
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil.
No occupation. All men idle, all.
And women too, but innocent and pure.
No sovereignty—

Translated into modern English this sounds like this:

“In my commonwealth I’d do everything in the opposite way from what's normal. I wouldn’t allow any business. There would be no judges. There would be no school or learning. No riches, poverty, or servants. None of that. No contracts, inheritance, privately owned land, farming, or vineyards. None of that. There’d be no metal-work, no grinding of corn, no wine-making, or making of olive oil. There'd be no work. Men would do nothing at all. Women too, except those things that are innocent and pure. There’d be no kingship—"

“The later end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning,” says Antonio sarcastically in response at this juncture in Gonzalo’s pontificating. “Long live Gonzalo!”

To Gonzalo, all exercises of power involving one human being given coercive power over another are corrosive and destructive to human happiness.

The last two characters that must be considered in this analysis of the play and power are Prospero’s daughter, Miranda, and Alonzo’s son, Ferdinand. These two love-struck teenagers demonstrate how powerful love is in counteracting the alure of power. For, as we observe Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love, we see two people whose current is running in the opposite direction. Their love actually turns them into each other’s servants and makes them delighted to be so. “The mistress I serve … makes my labors pleasures,” Ferdinand says when Prospero makes him haul wood like he has Caliban for so many years. And Miranda, so in love and so capable of empathy, offers to carry the wood for him. Ferdinand refuses. He will have none of it, having no wish to be served by her. “The very instant I saw you, did my heart fly to your service,” he tells her, and “there resides to make me a slave to it and for your sake am I this patient log-man.”

Miranda reciprocates, offering to marry him and even if he refuses, she says, “I’ll be your servant whether you will or no.”

“I’ll be your husband,” Ferdinand responds, “as the enslaved ever wished for liberty” [modern translation]. In other words, he suggests that when you are in love, you actually want to serve the other person with the same intensity that you do not want to serve the person who applies coercive power to you.

It may well be that watching Ferdinand and Miranda’s teenage love affair is what brings Prospero back to his senses. For as the play concludes, he is ready to bury his magic books, dispose of his magic cape, foreswear all his use of magic spells, and release all of his subjects -  his brother Antonio, the king of Naples, Ariel and even Caliban himself. At the very end, he sets the powerful Ariel at liberty, and gives Caliban back his island. And then, in the last couplet of the play, Prospero asks the audience to “set him free.”

“As you from crimes would pardoned be
Let your indulgence set me free.”

For no one wants to live out their lives as some extension of another’s will and power.

One last note with respect to the theme of power. Shakespeare also has something to say about the relationship between power and empathy. The play demonstrates the danger of combining power with emotional callousness. One might contrast Miranda’s empathy with the lack of empathy we see in Prospero and Antonio. When the play begins, Miranda stands on some cliff looking at the shipwreck and feels herself shipwrecked to see it. She pleads with her father to relent if he is the cause of the storm. “Oh, I have suffered with those that I saw suffer!” she says. Their cries, “did knock against my heart!”

“Poor souls, they perished. Had I been any god of power, I would have sunk the sea within the earth …”

 Prospero’s response betrays a chilly Stoicism. “Tell your piteous heart there’s no harm done.”

Later in the play, Sebastian asks Antonio if he feels any guilt about supplanting his brother in such a nefarious way. “You did supplant your brother Prospero,” Sebastian queries.

“And look how well my garments sit upon me,” replies Antonio. “Much feater than before.” “I feel not this deity in my bosom,” he adds, speaking of his non-existent guilt. “Twenty consciences that stand twixt me and Milan, candied be they and melt ere they molest!”

Thus does Shakespeare draw our attention to just how dangerous power can be when divorced from compassion. It may well be that Prospero’s decision at the end of the play to divest himself of power and to make room for compassion is crucial to Shakespeare's message. Towards the end of the play, Prospero’s charms have all worked to dreadful effect and all of his former enemies have been practically driven mad. Ariel informs Prospero of their wretchedness.

They cannot budge till your release. The King,
His brother, and yours abide all three distracted,
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
Him that you termed, sir, the good old Lord Gonzalo.
His tears runs down his beard like winter’s drops
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ’em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.

Prospero replies, “Dost thou think so, spirit?” to which Ariel continues.

“Mine would, sir, were I human.”

This proves to be a pivotal moment for Prospero realizes just how little room there has been for empathy in his life.

“And mine shall,” he tells Ariel.

“Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury
Do I take part.”

Prospero seems to recognize that this sacrifice will involve some period of pain and withdrawal. It is as though his relationship with power has become an addiction to him. He speaks of retiring to Milan where “every third thought shall be my grave.” His surrender of power will not be easy. “Release me from my bands,” he says in a tremendous use of irony. The great and mighty Prospero – so capable of incarcerating and subduing Ariel, Caliban, and his enemies has, by his very use of power, incarcerated himself and must himself plea for deliverance.

Question for Comment: What is your relationship to power when you have it over others or when others have it over you? How do power and love co-exist in your relationships? Or can they? What do you think of Gonzalo’s utopian society – free of all sovereignty? Would we be happier living in such a place? Why or why not?