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Virtue and Vice: How The Tempest and A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle Represent Virtue and Vice as Dominating Factors Within Society
After reading The Tempest by William Shakespeare and A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle by Milton, one can see the similarities between the two works in both style and in characterization. Both works have similar female characters, Miranda and the Lady, that are defined by their sexual innocence and therefore need protection. Both works also have outcasts, Caliban and Comus, who represent vice because they are non-human and want to obtain the virtue and innocence of the females from their respected works. By looking at the relationship between virtue and vice within both works one can see that the characters, although different in some aspects, represent the same roles within each work. Both Caliban and Comus wish to obtain sexual dominance over their female counterparts. Miranda and the Lady’s virtue and chastity are not only characteristics that make them desired but it is also these same elements that protect them from being overtaken by the male “others” in the works and reliant upon their male relatives.
The similarities between these two works can be seen in many different ways. First, one can look at the styles that these works are written. Although the play, “The Tempest itself in some ways resembles a masque, and Prospero stages what is in effect a masque, when in 4.1.118ff. he conjures up Iris, Ceres, and Juno in ‘a most majestic vision’”(Barnet 181). The Tempest, although a play encompasses elements of a masque, while A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle respectively has elements that challenge it’s classification as a masque. Comus “is described as a masque, though it is generally reckoned a pastoral play” (wikipedia.org). Because both Comus and The Tempest hold elements that forgo the traditional elements found in plays and masques, the two are very similar to one another. This is one reason why the two are so easy to compare and are often associated with each other. Another reason is the characters.
By their physical characteristics, one can see the similarities between Comus and Caliban. Both are non-human. Both of their mothers are infamous for disrupting the lives of men. Comus is the son of Circe;
(Who knows not Circe
The daughter of the Sun? whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a groveling swine) (Comus lines 50-53)
Circe is seen in The Odyssey. She is the goddess of magic that transforms some of Odysseus’s men into pigs. Her son, Comus shares his mother’s magic and witchery;
Excels his mother at her mighty art,
Off’ring to every weary traveler
His orient liquor in a crystal glass
To quench the drought of Phoebus, which as
They taste…
Soon as the porton works, their human cont’nance
Th’ express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear… (Comus lines 63-70)
Caliban also has a witch as a mother. His mother is Sycorax, who was banished to the island due to the spells she was casting.
This damned witch Sycorax
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,
Thou know’st was banished…
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child (The Tempest lines 263-269)
Due to their mothers, both Comus and Caliban are non-human, mystical creatures. They both are seen as “outsiders” and “be identified with vice and matter” (Leininger 152). Because Comus and Caliban are not a part of “the educated and privileged” they can possess vice, and go after the virtue and chastity of both Miranda and The Lady in their respected works.
Miranda and The Lady represent virginity, chastity and virtue. Both females need to be virgins in order to be protected and dominated. This virtue is what draws Comus and Caliban to them, and what allows them to be dominated within the works. In The Tempest, Caliban tells the audience how he desires Miranda. When Prospero asks Caliban if he “didst seek to violate the honor of my child” (line 347), Caliban responses:
O ho. O ho! Would’t had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans (lines 349-351)
Because Miranda is so pure and virtuous, she is vulnerable to Caliban’s sexual attacks.
This purity and innocence also causes Miranda to be dependent on her father to protect her. This dependence upon her father causes Miranda to become a slave herself. Her virtue has to be protected or controlled at all costs, and this allows her father to control his daughter and her outcome. Because she is so innocent and virtuous, she is put in a passive position to her father. When Miranda tries to intervene with her father on behalf of Ferdinand Prospero quickly reminds her of her role in his society. He responds to his daughter as; “What! I say, My foot my tutor?”(Lines 469-470). Lorie Jerrell Leininger interrupts this part of the play to mean that “Miranda is given to understand that she is the foot in the family organization of which Prospero is the head. Hers not to reason why, hers but to follow directions” (Leininger 148). Because Miranda is presented as a virtuous, innocent character, she is unable to make decisions of her own. Her virginity and chastity, two virtues that are taught to be celebrated, cause her to be dominated by her father and lusted after by Caliban.
Leininger also points out that “it was ‘only natural’ that the educated and privileged be identified with virtue and spirit…the tendency of allegory to link virtue with privilege and sin with misfortune, making particular power relationships appear inevitable, ‘natural’ and just within a changeless ‘divinely ordained hierarchical order”(Lininger 152). Miranda has to be virtuous because she is human and educated. Caliban has to obtain vice, because he is non-human. Because of the chastity that is dependent upon Miranda, she is forced to be controlled by her father and chased after by Caliban. Miranda’s chastity acts as the agent that allows Prospero to dominate over Caliban as well. Prospero has to protect his daughter’s chastity and hence has to overpower Caliban in order to ensure that Miranda’s virginity is protected. Miranda is not capable of protecting herself and therefore has to remain under her father’s control to ensure that her virginity, her virtue remains intact.
We see the roles of virtue and vice in A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle as well. The Lady, in this masque is also pure and virginal. She, like Miranda, belongs to the “educated and privileged” and therefore can be “identified with virtue and spirit”. Her chastity, as well as her beauty are factors that draw Comus to her. Comus, being non-human and therefore beholding vice, longs to take the virginity and innocence of the Lady. Comus captures the lady and tries to offer her to drink from his enchanted glass;
Nay, lady, sit; if I but wave this wand,
Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster,
And you a statue, or as Daphne was,
Root-bound, that fled Apollo (Milton 659-662)
Comus, like Caliban wish to overtake the female human’s virtue with their vice. Comus wishes that the Lady gives up her virtue, her virginity, to him and that they both can lead lives of vice. Although the Lady knows that Comus is trying to convince her to give up her chastity; “To him that dares Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words against the sun-clad power of Chastity” (Milton 780-782) she is unable to rescue herself. The Lady, like Miranda, is dependent upon others to protect her virginity and virtue.
The Lady needs to be rescued by her brothers. The brothers are well aware of their role as protectors of their sister’s virtue. They know that her virginity gives her and them privilege in the world and that this asset is something that is constantly in threat of being taken from the Lady. William Kerrigan shows that “The Younger Brother fears that his sister may be in the ‘direful grasp’ of ‘Savage hunger’ or ‘Savage heat’ (357-358), vulnerable to rape” (Kerrigan 512). This is yet another similarity to both the masque and the play The Tempest. Both Miranda and the Lady are at risk of being rapped because they are innocent and virtuous by beast that are non-human and therefore possess vice.
Both Miranda and the Lady are a part of the privileged educated class and therefore are allowed to be presented as virtuous. This virtue is linked to their chastity and virginity. These agents allow not only Miranda and The Lady to be dominated and controlled by their male relations but it also allows Comus and Caliban to be dominated. Comus and Caliban have to be non-human, mythical creatures because they hold vice and the readers need to be able to maintain a separation between themselves and these characters. By making Comus and Caliban non-human there is no way of associating oneself with them and hence associating oneself with vice. This similarity, as well as the set up of both works makes them ideal works to look at hand in hand. Both The Tempest and A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle are similar in both style and characterization. Both works cross the boundaries of typical plays and masques. Both works also show the relationship between virtue and vice with their female characters and the villains. Both works show how virtue allows the male characters to dominate and maintain control in both fictional worlds. If virtue is what frees Miranda and The Lady from Comus and Caliban, what trait will free them from their male relations?
Works Cited
Barnet, Sylvan. “The Tempest on Stage and Screen.” Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. New York: Signet Classics, 1998. 180-190.
Kerrigan, William. “The Root-Bound Lad in Comus.” Milton. Milton’s Selected Poetry and Prose. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 507-523.
Leininger, Lorie Jerrell. “The Miranda Trap.” Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. New York: Signet Classics, 1998. 146-155.
Milton. Milton’s Selected Poetyr and Prose. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
Shakespear, William. The Tempest. New York: Signet Classics, 1998.
“wikepedia.org.” wikepedia.org. 27 May 2011 <www.wikepedia.org>.