No Fear Shakespeare The Tempest Pdf

[Ortiz Ullery]

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This painting is a little different than most of the work on my site. I was commissioned to paint the passage in the New Testament describing Christ calming the tempest. I wanted to use the painting to show the range of emotions, from fear on the far left, to faith on the right. The closer the disciples are to the Savior, the more they turn to him, the more their faith increases and fear is pushed away.

The man on the far left is trying to save himself, he cannot see Christ and is in darkness, afraid, looking out at the storm. The next two disciples, struggling with the rigging of the boat, are just starting to turn to Christ, though they are still engaged with trying to save themselves. They are looking towards Christ and their faith is growing. The man behind the mast was just a moment before grasping the sail, trying to right it. At this point he has let go, and is turning towards the Savior.

The next three disciples have nearly pushed their fears away. They are focused on Christ and the storms and turbulence of life have been tempered with a feeling of peace. Finally comes Peter, kneeling at the Savior's feet. Just a moment before, when the storm was raging, he had the faith to put himself completely in the hands of Christ, trusting Him, knowing that He would save him.

As I worked on the composition of the painting, I started to relate to some of the disciples, more often to those at the back of the boat than at the feet of Christ. That is life though, learning, growing and better coming to understand your own spirituality. I can say that at the times when it seems my life gets hectic and the winds and storms blow (which isn't all that often, I have had a wonderful life), I know when I exert the faith to include God in my day, there is a little less fear, a little more peace.

A little side note. In doing research for the painting, I decided that I needed some significant reference for the boat. My wife and I did some research and feel that we had a pretty good idea of what the boat would look like. In fact, there is a full scale model of what they believe is a boat that would have been on the Sea of Galilee around the first century. It was, unfortunately in Israel, and that seemed a bit far to travel, not knowing if I would be able to even photograph it, let alone, light it the way I would need.

So, I built my own. Smaller of course, but following the advice given by James Gurney in his book Imaginative Realism, I took the time to build a realistic model of the boat. I designed the basic structure in Maya, printed it out and glued the paper to a sheet of poplar. Cut out the ribbing and keel, assembled them and then glued on strips of balsa wood. a day and half later, a boat that I could get wet, light, scratch up and play around with. Some of the best reference I have ever had for a painting. Here is a shot of it:

One of my favorite Gospel passages is Mark 4:35-41, in which Jesus and the disciples are traveling across the Sea of Galilee at night. A supernatural storm arises and begins to capsize their boat. The disciples are terrified, but Jesus sleeps serenely through the storm. In the disciples' fear and anxiety, they awaken Jesus, who then stills the storm and asks the disciples, "Why are you afraid? Do you still have so little faith?" Often this passage is taught and preached as if Jesus means by his questions, "Didn't you know God wouldn't let our boat capsize?" But Jesus means no such thing. He doesn't promise that everything will turn out just fine, or that the boat will keep an even keel. Jesus lives in the gritty, real world, and he knows that sometimes the storms upend our lives. What Jesus means to convey to the disciples is that, even when the storms sink us, God is with us. That is how he can sleep in peace while the tempest rages.

God abides with us in love when we sail and when we sink. God shares our joy and bears our sorrow. Faith is the recognition and trust that there is no fathom we must endure without God. I have thought of this passage and this promise repeatedly this week as, for so many of us, brief periods of light and warmth have been surrounded by long stretches of cold and darkness. There is no storm in this life greater than the God who creates the heavens and the earth. There is no darkness in this world that can overcome God's light. It is my prayer that God's ever-presence with each of us be felt palpably in these days. We are, each and all, loved beyond measure, and, as we support one another every way we can, I pray that warmth of heart sustain us until warmth of hearth returns.

Grace and peace,

The Very Reverend Barkley Thompson,

Dean

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At the start all hell breaks loose. The beginning of the play is spectacular and action-packed. There are flashes of lightning, rolling thunder, and urgent shouts of distress. People are running about, either in sheer panic or in rapid, orchestrated labor. As we have heard, the opening stage direction says, "A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard. Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain." The actors are shouting to be heard over the noise of the storm (the first word is pronounced, "bosun"):

19In the face of dire danger, the mariners work together with admirable skill and courage. "Yarely" (nimbly and diligently) and "cheerly" (heartily) are the key words used to characterize their cooperative action. The courtiers, who are their passengers, show far less patience or fortitude. Shakespeare differs from the Strachey letter's description of how both the sailors and passengers worked to save the ship. The change makes a political point about the possible failings even of high-ranking people just as it does about the possible abilities and virtues of commoners. The usually good-humored counselor Gonzalo turns his own fear of dying into a wish to see the Boatswain hanged: "his complexion is perfect gallows," he says. "Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging. Make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage" (TLN 37-40) Prospero's villainous brother Antonio, also terrified of the storm, puts the same wish more directly and rudely: "Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!" The Boatswain is abrupt enough in his turn, shouting at his social superiors to shut up and to get out of the way: "What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin; silence! Trouble us not!" (TLN 24-6).

20This scene of deafening noise, exploding fireworks, whirling action and angry exchange is, however, also one that features moments of poignant fellow feeling. The mariners work together yarely and cheerly, as we have seen. Once there seems no hope of saving the ship, they leave the stage to pray and to await their deaths. At the moment the ship seems to be breaking up, we hear them taking leave of their absent families and of each other--"We split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children! / Farewell, brother! We split, We split, We split!" (TLN 72-3) Even the villains Sebastian and Antonio, finally face-to-face with death, have the sense to think about someone beside themselves. They do not mention either prayer or divine mercy, but they do show a spark of compassion as they leave the stage to say good-bye to the King, who has stayed below decks during the storm. By the way, we can note that, even at this moment of noisy cataclysm, Shakespeare is taking care to make subtle but telling distinctions between characters: Antonio seems incapable of seeing anything except that everyone is going to drown, whereas Sebastian is thinking about the actual act of exchanging words of farewell:

22The storm scene shows us an artist at the top of his powers. In the sections that follow, we will look more closely at some of the brilliant features of structure, language, and character that make the play such a pleasure to read and perform, as well as at the history of the play as literature and as theater, but here it is important to understand Shakespeare not only as a supremely accomplished artist but also as a remarkably clear-eyed and compassionate thinker. Indeed from beginning to end, The Tempest is a philosophical drama that is intent on exploring the couplings of harshness and tenderness in human life; the play instructs its readers and spectators in complex and even contradictory ways of understanding and responding to the world and of holding these very different ways of seeing and feeling together.

23The harshness can come from nature, as it does, or seems to do, in the storm. And, as we have also seen, it can come from humankind, as when Antonio, frightened for his own life, curses the Boatswain and wishes him hanged. Prospero has a well-developed harsh side, which he keeps turned toward Caliban (who fears him more or less as the tortured fears the torturer) and a harshness that he can on occasion turn against Ariel or even his daughter. His most acerbic remark is aimed at Antonio--"most wicked sir -- whom to call brother / Would even infect my mouth -- I do forgive / Thy rankest fault" (TLN 2094-6). Antonio himself is capable of real cruelty, as we learn once Prospero begins to tell his story to his daughter Miranda in the second scene. Twelve years before the action of the play, Antonio handed his brother Prospero and Prospero's three-year-old daughter Miranda over to a "treacherous army," a small commando force directed by the Neapolitan counselor Gonzalo (more about him in Section 3). The poor man and little child were cast adrift at sea in an unseaworthy boat--"A rotten carcass of a butt: not rigged, / . . . The very rats / Instinctively have quit it (TLN 252-4)". But tellingly, the injury done to him as well as his own physical suffering engendered in Prospero a deep and enduring tenderness toward his daughter Miranda, who, he tells her, was an angel that kept him going through his hardship--

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