12.08.2009

Shockingness and Sorrow

My Language! Heavens,
I am the best of them that speak this speech,
Were I but where 'tis spoken.
(1.2.433-435)

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, this line talks about Ferdinand finding someone who speaks his language. Ferdinand had just been shipwrecked and thought he saw his father, the King of Naples, die in front of him. You can imagine, being on a foreign island and finding someone you can communicate with, let alone one who speaks of his home of Naples. It has got to be a shocking feeling for Ferdinand. Ferdinand says that he is the highest speaking person in the land, only because he is under the impression that he is now the King of Naples, even though his father is very much still alive. The fact that Miranda talks to him and the way she looks at him, her father, Prospero pulled aside and made up a plan for the two to find a way to appreciate the love they had just found for each other. Shakespeare makes this quote significant in the way that it is the turning point for Prospero, as the two have fallen in love, but now he has to prove their love. This quote is significant to the text of act one, scene two because it is the realization that the two have come together under Prospero’s plan and now it is time for Prospero to throw some curve balls in the mix, to strengthen their love and understanding for each other.

Will Prospero’s plan to get his daughter, Miranda, together with Ferdinand backfire on him, or will it always look as if fate brought them together on a foreign island?