In Frankenstein and the Tempest the theme of power and control is present throughout the duration of both the novels. Frankenstein is about a man called Victor and his passion for science and how it led him to wanting to mimic God and bring dead bodies back to life. The author of Frankenstein was Mary Shelley who was born in 1797, Shelley had a very turbulent childhood as her mother died days after giving birth to Shelley. Shelley meet the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly who was already married. In 1816 Shelley and Percy spent the summer in Geneva in this time Shelley began writing Frankenstein. Later that year Percy’s wife died, and he married Shelley. In the years 1818 and 1819 both of Shelley’s two young children die Shelley was devastated. But then in 1822 Percy Shelly’s husband drowned Shelley was heartbroken. Shelley died in the year 1851. It is said that Shelley used some of her tragedies to inspire her to write Frankenstein. During the time Shelley was writing Frankenstein it was the era of the Romantic Movement even though Frankenstein can be recognized as a Gothic text there are significant connections between Shelley’s work and the Romantic Movement. To define correctly it was a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that celebrated nature rather than civilization; “Romanticism valued imagination and emotion over rationality”

 

The author of the tempest was William Shakespeare. The most common theory of what inspired Shakespeare to create the tempest, was that of a true life of a shipwreck in the Bahamas 1609. The sea venture the main ship of the Virginia Company which was carrying settlers to Jamestown located in Virginia. Two months into the trip the ship was caught in a hurricane similar to that of the storm (in the play), the captain and 150 people were the only survivors of the hurricane. 

In Frankenstein the main character is Victor Frankenstein and the novel revolves around him and his love of science, in particular bringing dead bodies back to life. Bringing dead bodies back to life links to the Aldini experiment which involved getting a dead body and sending electrical volts through the dead body and the intended results would be to activate the nerves and muscles and in turn the body should twitch.   

In this essay I will be exploring power and control is presented in these novels, I will also be exploring how the characters present power and control. Power is the ability to direct or influence the behaviour of other people around you or to be able to change the course of certain events. When people have power they will also most likely have control too because these two themes are very similar in the sense that they both evoke that feeling of superiority. In the tempest the themes of power and control are ever present in the character Prospero, these are present because he already possesses power and this is amplified by when he attempts to seek revenge on his brother and kill him in the storm. 

 In act 1 scene 2 the theme of power is the most prominent theme and this is shown through the relationship of Ariel and Prospero after Prospero had sent Ariel to cause a storm and kill Prospero’s brother king Antonio in act 1 scene 1 as Prospero was seeking revenge.

 In Ariel and Prospero’s relationship it is obvious that Prospero is the leader in the relationship he seems to crave the position as leader. Ariel is humble to Prospero and follows prospers every command. This is shown after Ariel returns back to Prospero after causing the storm in act 1 scene 1. ‘All hail, great master, grave sir, hail!’ also Ariel says ‘to answer thy best pleasure, be it to fly to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds; to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his qualities.

As soon as Ariel returns to Prospero he is already worshiping Prospero. I feel that Shakespeare has done this on purpose as in order to make sure that the reader automatically sees Prospero in a bad light as this is the first time the reader would actually be introduced to Prospero. In this sentence Shakespeare has already portrayed Prospero as a bully, the most distinctive words in this sentence are all hail by saying all hail Shakespeare has already cemented Prospero as the superior to Ariel. The type of power that Shakespeare has used is that of a hierarchy and the idea of superiority. After Ariel has welcomed Prospero he immediately offers to do jobs for Prospero despite Prospero not asking Ariel to do anything for him. Shakespeare has sort of shown Ariel in the light that he might be a bit scared of Prospero and wishes to please his master in anyway so he immediately offers to do jobs for Prospero. This shows apart from the power that Prospero has, the immense control he has because Ariel is offering to do a wide range of things such as diving into fire and has no consideration of what his actions might do to others, due to Prospero’s control over him. In certain ways it seems as if he puts Prospero before himself and will never question Prospero but the reason for this might be because of the way Shakespeare has created the character Ariel. He’s created Ariel as a character that has ability but that sees Prospero as a character that is a parent figure.

In act 1 scene 2 we see a contrast in the hierarchy system implemented in the tempest this happens when we are introduced to a slave that lives on the island called Caliban. Caliban is a slave faced with the concept of old world versus the new world. Because Caliban is from new world he is easier to manipulate because Prospero is from the Old world and because of this Prospero is able to take full advantage of Caliban.

“Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself. Upon thy wicked damn, come forth!”. The language that Prospero uses towards Caliban is much more cynical than that of what she uses towards Ariel. This is because Prospero Knows that Caliban has hate toward her and that Caliban has no fear over the power that Prospero possesses. Prospero uses ‘come forth’ to Caliban. This is a very assertive term to be using and compared to the way Prospero was speaking to Ariel.

In Frankenstein the first major moment that made Victor discover his passion for science was in Chapter 2 when lightning struck the tree outside Victor’s house. He witnesses the destructive power of nature when, during a raging storm, lightning destroys a tree near his house.

‘As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak tree which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished the oak had disappeared, an nothing remained but a blasted stump. 

Shelley describes the tree as dazzling and beautiful but then in a second this beautiful tree was absolutely decimated by the lightning. Shelley describes the demise of the tree as a very violent one, as to let what seems to the reader as the minimal demise of the tree, to be a big one. It is this sudden change in the form of the tree and the ruthless power nature had over the tree that gave him the interest in discovering what lies between life and death. A philosopher that specializes is nature and the natural world happened to be with victor and his family at that time and he explained to victor the concept of electricity. This is the moment where a spark goes off in victors head and because Shelley used words that carry forms of imagery such as dazzling it strengthens the thought of the immeasurable power that Victor has conjured up in his mind and how this power can create or destroy life. 

 

In chapter 5 of Frankenstein victor has escalated rapidly from a boy that was innocently passionate about learning more about science but he is attempting to create life from dead bodies. At the beginning of chapter 5 we meet Victor and he has just finished creating the creature using the best human dead parts. It is 1 am in the morning and this shows that Victor dedicated to his work and that it has lead him to depriving him of sleep. Shelley has included Victor bringing bodies back to life using electricity because in the time she was writing Frankenstein there was a man named Giovanni Aldini and he publically tried to bring parts of bodies together stitch them up and create one body.

 

‘His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! — Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black

‘For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.  Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room’

By trying to create life artificially and to destroy death itself, Victor rises against natural laws, which have been ruling the world for millions of years. He thinks that these laws are not immutable and indeed he seems to be right, as he successfully creates the monster. But even if he does manage to reach a God-like level or to acquire God-like powers, he doesn’t have any God-like knowledge or experience or responsibility. When he sees his monster or should I say, ‘his creation, he is afraid, tries to run away and to forget him. He will never try to care for him not to love him, nor will he feel a strong responsibility towards what we can call his son. Shelley describes the creature’s features as to be the best dead body parts yet as Victor finds out for the first time is that you cannot always control nature and play god and this is evident when he sees his creation for the first time. The creatures features are described to be beautiful and the creature is said to have ‘lustrous black hair’ Shelley has used imagery to make the reader think that the creature was beautiful but then she twists the plot then portrays the creature as grotesque this amplifies that it is not possible for humans to try and overcome nature.

In act 2 scene 2 we meet the characters Stephano and Trinculo and Stephano is drunk and is swinging a bottle of wine in his hand. Stephano meets Caliban and Caliban is scared because Ariel has been tormenting him. Stephano offers Caliban a drink of the liquor he is drinking and Caliban accepts the drink and he worships Stephano because he enjoys the liquor as he has never had anything like it before.

‘These be fine things, and if they be not sprites. That’s a brave God, and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him.

Caliban calls the liquor celestial liquor, the word celestial means something that does not exist on the earth but only in heaven this is how highly Caliban thinks of the liquor. The reason Shakespeare has added Celestial liquor is because it is because it was only available in the old world and Caliban is from the old world so it links together. Because of this Caliban is trying to offer himself as an offering to Stephano. The Celestial liquor is presented as power because even though it is an inanimate object it has control over Caliban.

In chapter 9/10 of Frankenstein Victor has just had a Breakdown and he goes to the Swiss Alps to clear his mind. When he gets there he experiences the Sublime, the sublime is something of very great excellence or beauty. By experiencing the Sublime Victor clears his mind of the creature and he get lost in the nature.

 

In both of these plays there are contrasting effects of power, in the end of Frankenstein Victor dies after seeking power and control but then Prospero gives up his power and control and frees Ariel because he notices that him seeking power will get him nowhere.