Remembrance "Rich and Strange": Ariel and Reiterative Resistance in Shakespeare's The Tempest

Abstract

The significant role remembrance has to play throughout the text of Shakespeare’s The Tempest has been critically well established. This thesis identifies two distinct configurations of such re-memory running throughout. The first, utilized by Prospero, enforces remembrance as a death that attempts to petrify the world by striving toward a determinate telos that will force history to stand still. The second, deployed by Ariel, disrupts and fragments Prospero’s commemorative project by using reiterative praxis to enforce remembrance as resistance. By deploying repetition with ethically oriented difference in response to Prospero’s commands, Ariel fosters the mobilization of all the inhabitants of the isle. What Ariel ultimately achieves is a reiterative ethic that remembers the dead and the past they are a part of in a manner that ensures that the space of ethical accountability remains open and forever mobile.