Great Globes and Brave New Worlds: An Adaptational Analysis of The Tempest and Forbidden Planet

McCormick, Michael

Great Globes and Brave New Worlds: An Adaptational Analysis of The Tempest and Forbidden Planet

Persistent URL

https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/10456/56784

Author(s)

McCormick, Michael

Date Issued

April 21, 2023

Abstract

The assumption made with this analysis is that The Tempest and Forbidden Planet are two separate installments in what is, effectively, a generation-spanning story. To quote the introduction of the Arden Shakespeare edition, such would be a demonstration of “its multiplicity of interpretive perspectives and [...] its appeal to diverse eras and cultures” (Vaughn, 2). As such, it is imperative, in answering the prior pair of questions, to draw attention to each text’s like qualities, and dissect the similarities and differences to analyze the relationship between them. The most pertinent features that bring the two texts together, and best fit this analytical format, are the characters at the heart of each texts’ plot, as well as to the ideological, social, and political notions that either plot intends to communicate. On the side of The Tempest, the characters in question are those of Caliban, Ariel, Prospero and Miranda, and Dr. Morbius, Altaira, and Robby the Robot on the side of Forbidden Planet. Each of these characters serve, in their respective texts, a narrative regarding the ethics of mastery and of power, as well as the ways that mastery and power, out of the view of polite society, empower social disorder. However, in the pages of The Tempest this was done to sate the curiosities of an England that was already entrenched in its imperial might, painting a vivid picture of the mystery that lies outside of the mainland’s gaze. Whereas the film reels of Forbidden Planet aims to use that mystery to tell an astounding, if haunting, morality fable to comment on contemporary anxieties regarding unchecked technological advancement paired with savagery latent within the hearts of man.

Major

English

First Reader(s)

Votava, Jennie M.