Miranda: Deconstructing Social Norms

William Shakespeare introduces the reader to a very intriguing female character by the name of Miranda in his play The Tempest. Miranda has spent the past 12 years of her young life on an island in the middle of nowhere, accompanied only by her father Prospero and the monstrous slave Caliban. With no contact from the outside world, Miranda has no idea what is deemed to be socially acceptable, and as a result occasionally acts in a manner that was not thought to be befitting of a lady (much less princess) at the time. The first example we get of this general lack of awareness is when she first lays eyes on Ferdinand and immediately offers herself up to him. Women back then were expected to be less direct, and instead play hard-to-get in an attempt to make themselves more desirable and woo any potential suitors. While Ferdinand fell for her anyway, Prospero was forced to step in and rectify Miranda’s “mistake” by enslaving Ferdinand in order to make Miranda seem like more of a prize. This brings me to the second instance of when Miranda displays her naivety regarding social norms. As Ferdinand is slaving away and gathering wood for a fire, Miranda offered to and then subsequently helped him despite his protests. Women in general, but particularly noble-born women weren’t supposed to perform physical labor, as it dirtied their hands and was decidedly not lady-like. Miranda's lack of awareness serves as an intriguing social experiment throughout the play.

Comments

  1. Olivia SmithNovember 4, 2017 at 4:46 PM

    Colin,
    I agree that Miranda was naive and broke the social norms of that time. To add on to your examples, I think that when Miranda sees the other men that were on the island for the first time at the end of the play, she shows her naivety once again. She speaks to them as if they are amazing men, and says, "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, / That has such people in ’t!" (Act 5, Scene 1). These men are symbolic of greed and the colonizers that fought for power, yet she knows no better. Miranda is innocent and naive when she praises the men like she did. I don't think this example is so much of Miranda not acting according to the social norms but rather naivety and lack of awareness in current events.

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