Similarities Between The Tempest And Brave New World

William Shakespeare and Brave New World

María José Castañeda Guerrero

>>> William Shakespeare was an important 16th-century English writer who was widely known for his poems and plays, such as Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet or The Tempest. He has influenced many writers since his death and furthermore, has had an immense impact on recent films, plays and poems.

Shakespeare has had a lot of influence on Brave New World, one of the most important Aldous Huxley's novels; but to be more specific, the Shakespeare's play that has more connections with Huxley's novel is The Tempest, a romance where reality and magic are together.

The Tempest, popularly regarded as Shakespeare's last play, was performed in 1611 for James I and first published in 1623.

Both characters are considered as rebellious savages that are controlled, Caliban by Prospero and John by the World State.

The Tempest can be interpreted as a play about colonialism because when Prospero arrived at the island, he imposed his own rules and put Caliban under slavery, just as Europeans when they took possession of the lands of Americans and enslaved them.

From this point of view, Prospero and the World State are very similar because they both use their power to control over people and to preserve their own stability (Prospero using his magic and the World State using soma).

The topic of slavery and servitude has a strong relation with the Great Chain of Being, which was a medieval idea in which God is the supreme being. This concept is reflected in many Shakespeare's plays, such as The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet or The Tempest.

Utopia and Dystopia are also important themes in both works.

A Utopia is an ideal community in which there aren't wars, poverty, illnesses, crime and so on. It comes from the Ancient Greek and means literally 'good

Miranda has lived all her life isolated in the island, knowing only his father and Caliban; like her, John has always lived in the Savage Reservation, without knowing any civilized person except his mother.

With regard to their love life, both characters fall totally and unexpectedly in love with another character in the work (Miranda with Ferdinand and John with Lenina). They both have to face a world full of sexual temptations without having been educated for it through their lives.

Although The Tempest is the play that has more similarities with Huxley's novel, there are also other Shakespeare's plays that has connections with it.

An example of this is Hamlet, a tragedy of revenge set in the Middle Ages that share many features with Brave New World. For instance, the characters of Hamlet and John are very common in their life aspects because they both suffer from alienation because of their mothers. They also feel bad when they see their mothers sleeping with a man (Claudius and Pope).

Other Shakespeare's play that share ideas with Huxley's novel is MacBeth and Romeo and