Literary Debate...

After reading George Will's Literary Politics and Stephen Greenblatt's The Best Way to Kill our Literature is to Turn it into a Decorous Celebration of the New World Order I came to the conclusion that both authors have different opinions on the content of literature. George Will believes that literature always reflects political beliefs. For example, in his essay he states that "all literature is, whether writers are conscious of it or not, political." Will also argues that people read too much into the meaning of the text and interpret it in their own way. This leads to the reader making false conclusions of what the text was supposed to mean. Stephen Greenblatt has an opposing view. He believes that readers should look for underlying meaning of the text. I think that he wants readers to analyze stories so that they can come up with their own opinions. To argue both of their points they use The Tempest. Will states that “The Tempest reflects the imperialist rape of the Third World.” Greenblatt on the other hand believes that the Tempest is “full of conspicuous allusions to contemporary debates over the project of colonization.” He believes that if we relate colonialism to The Tempest then we will better understand what it “has to teach us about forgiveness, wisdom, and social atonement.”

            I think that both authors make good arguments, but they are very extreme about their opinions. I agree with Will in some ways because I think that sometimes people over analyze things and come up with things that do not reflect what the author meant for it to be. Although I do believe that Greenblatt made some good points and that it is important to be aware of when the text was written so that you can better analyze the meaning. Both articles had good arguments.  

Postcolonialism

In the video “How Hollywood Stereotyped the Native Americans” it talks about how Native Americans have been portrayed in a negative way in the media for the past 100 years.  This video reminded me of the one that we watched last week “The Danger of a Single Story” because the Native American man that was interviewed in the video said that when he was watching the movies about his people when he was a kid he did not know any more than the white kid sitting next to him. This can be dangerous in the long run because people will have the wrong information about Native Americans.  This video and the packet we read about postcolonialism all relates to The Tempest. In Act II and III there is evidence that Caliban is a representation of native peoples. For example, Prospero says to Caliban “thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam, come forth!” This is an example of alternity. In the text about postcolonialism alternity is described as “the others” being “excluded from positions of power and viewed as different and inferior.” This is exactly what Prospero does to Caliban in The Tempest because he treats him badly and makes him a slave. Caliban was a native of the island but was forced to give it over to Prospero because he had no power. Prospero was able to take control by manipulating Caliban. The Tempest, the article on postcolonialism, and the video about Native Americans all relate to each other very well.  In this case, Caliban can relate to the Native Americans because they both were controlled by people that took over their land. They were seen as different and inferior to the people that took control of their land.

The Tempest Act 1

Prospero is the protagonist in The Tempest, he is also the father of Miranda. He is able to manipulate the other characters in the play by constructing historical narratives. One of example if this is when he tells his daughter “here in this island we arrived, and here have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit than other princesses can that have more time for vainer hours and tutors not so careful.” In basic English this quote means that Prospero acted as his daughter’s teacher when he brought her to the island and gave her a better education than any other princess. He is able to control her because he makes himself seem like he truly cares about her. Although he does not really care about her at all he just wants to have power over her. Prospero also tell stories in such a way to make other people look bad, he tells his daughter “whereon, a treacherous army levied, one midnight fated to th’ purpose did Antonio open the gates of Milan, and, i’ th’ dead of darkness, the ministers for th’ purpose hurried thence me and thy crying self.”                This is yet another example of Prospero makes up a story to make himself look better so that he can have more power. He is successful in controlling his daughter through these lies because she is not able to remember what truly happened. By telling this story he is able to change Miranda’s opinion of Antonio. Most of the methods that Prospero uses to manipulate the people in the play are also seen on Orwell’s 1984. He changes the past in order to control the future just like the government does in the book. In both the play and the book the residents are given false information so that they are more easily controlled.  

socratic circle

I really enjoyed this week’s Socratic Circle because I had never participated in anything like it before. I thought that the topics that we discussed were very interesting and I was surprised that I had never heard of this issue before. After the discussion and hearing my classmates opinions I came to the conclusion that there is no possible way to have a history book with no bias in it. Because of this I believe that students should be presented both sides so that they are able to make their own opinions on what happened. There are always two sides to a story, so both should be given in the textbooks.


I took part in the discussion about the Texas Board of Education changing information in history and economic textbooks. I was shocked that I had never heard of this issue before reading the article in class on Thursday. During the Socratic Circle it was brought up that the people that were trying to change the curriculum in Texas were not even experts on the topics. I thought that it was interesting that this small group has been given so much power that they are able to basically rewrite the history books. One of the board members said that they “are adding balance” to the textbooks, but I don’t think that these people are qualified to do so because they are not experts in these subjects.

Every textbook will have some bias information in it, but if there is more than one opinion given it would help give the students come to their own conclusion on what they believe to be true. I think this would give the students a better idea of what actually happened and would give them more information. Although this would make textbooks much bigger I believe that it would be worth it.