Narration

Prospero, from Shakespeare's The Tempest, seems to have secluded himself upon an island into a world of his own making. His 'daughter' Miranda washed upon the island when she was too young to remember life in any contrary surrounding and therefore is free to build a world upon whatever advice and teaching Prospero, who does remember life outside the island, chooses to give her. Prospero describes he and Miranda's arrival upon the island was due to Prospero's subjects of Milan who "So dear the love my people bore me" that they dumped Prospero and Miranda in a boat and pushed them out to sea. This story, to Miranda, is as likely as any other because she doesn't know that anything else could possibly exist. She likely also believes all that Prospero tells her, considering he is and has been her parental role model from as far back as she has memory.  Prospero also said, "here in this island we arrived, and here have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit than other princesses can that have more time for vainer hours and tutors not so careful." Since Miranda has no point of reference for what princesses could possibly be taught by their tutors, she may as well believe that Prospero's teachings are the greatest she could receive. In reference to our previous reading material, the Party also infects the minds of its subjects like Prospero does the mind of Miranda by creating a world of constant evil, which, although evil from the point of view to a happy, knowledgeable American, is simply the way of life for citizens of Oceania who have never experienced otherwise. Julia, for example, wants to rebel against the wretched absurdities of life, putting sex down as if it were a crime and then relishing it in privacy, advocating loyalty to the party and fighting against it from every angle. But she has no reference point to know how life could be any permanently different. She has no hope. She merely wants immediate change, a short bit of satisfaction. Anyway, not only can Prospero control the elements, but also his daughter's mental state and his enemy's location. Prospero, within himself and partly due to his ethereal powers, is a kind of Shakespearean Big Brother.