Mirror, Ch.2

William Shakespeare’s “Tempest” was a play depicting the Europeans colonization of America. Written from the conquerors point of view, the play views the English expansion as a form of human progress. The author, Ronald Takaki, describes the expansion as “a defining moment in the making of an English-American identity based on race.” The author uses the play as a metaphor which helps us recognize the beliefs and feelings of Europeans during this time in history. Takaki questions the significance of progress and savagery in the European sense of the word.

Takaki argues against Shakespeare’s and the Europeans knowledge of the native people, and the choices they were making by characterizing these people. They saw the Indians as savages, but were they realizing their own racial savagery in the process. Questioning if the play was a prologue for America?

I don’t believe that the evidence here could support a different conclusion. I believe his assumptions are none biased. He is not arguing for the existence of the native people, he is merely questioning the Europeans thoughts and actions during this period. I believe that the majority of us today (even those of European descent) would consider the actions of the European settlers towards the Indians to be savage. The play seems to depict the account quite literally, and at the time it was produced the Europeans seemed to view it with a sense of normalcy and acceptance. However this was not the beliefs of the natives at the time. The challenge here was that both societies viewed the other as being savage and uncivilized, which brings us to the question of who was right? In today’s society we can easily recognize the savage people as the European Settlers. As depicted in the play, the Indians accepted the new civilians onto their land; even when they viewed them as being both God like and war like. The settlers on the other hand refused the offer, seeing the land and the Indians as an opportunity for improvement instead of acceptance and peace. The Indians offered a peace treaty, and the Europeans reluctantly declined due to the simplicity of their society. They began taking over the land as their own and attempting to civilize the Indians in their own sense. The result is that the European settlers unknowingly became the savage and uncivilized people they once despised.

My interpretation of the reading is that race cannot be defined by any particular people or person. It may never be possible to define words such as race, savage and civil. For when a culture defines it they later come to realize their mistakes as portrayed in Shakespeare’s “tempest.”