The Tempest Feature Article

8/18/2019 The Tempest Feature Article

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The God Within Us AllHercules’ Lack of understanding, Dionysus’ tormented childhood, Odin’sstruggle for knowledge and He haestus’ hideous a earance! "magine, our

mortal #aws contained within some of the worlds most courageous andowerful mythological $eings! This uncon%entional way of imagining godswas resented to me during Ale&ander Holmes’ e%ocati%e seminar TheHumans Within Gods! He laced se%ere em hasis on the conce t ofdisco%ery and how it allowed these 'eings to understand or resol%e theirfatal #aws, concluding his seminar with the resonating hrase ( e%en thegods with their all encom assing ower ha%e much to learn)! Des ite $eingstolen from the god of war game, this *uote has dee seeded roots,em hasi+ing the uni%ersal nature and im act of disco%ery! Throughout theseminar he laced large em hasis on hakes eare’s the tem est and Da%id-linchers -ight clu$, as he $elie%ed they are relata$le te&ts, which allow meremortals like us to understand such a com le& conce t! After hours ofgoogeling " .nally reali+ed how $ad " was at understanding these conce ts,causing me to a roach ydney Uni%ersity’s literary rofessor Adam /iley,who kindly ga%e u his time to answer my *uestions!

Odin the 'lind

At .rst Holmes’ decision to use a 0112year2old lay to relate to the audienceseemed *uite laugha$le! That was until " reali+ed how well hakes eare’s

The tem est is a$le to reiterate owerful conce ts such as the

understandings and hardshi s which the disco%ery of knowledge can resentto us! 3uoting Holmes ( an e&ce tional way to ercei%e Odin’s struggle forknowledge is through the 4ros ero re#ection scene (! hakes eare o ensthis scene with the stage directions, where 4ros ero’s daughter 5irandaassists him as he remo%es his magical cloak, the sym$olic em$odiment of his

ower and ro$lems! /iley e&tends this sym$ol through 4ros ero’s (li$rary)which is 6u&ta osed to his (dukedom) , em hasi+ing the %alue of knowledgeand moral hiloso hy in the si&teen hundreds!

This em hasi+es the arallel $etween Odin and 4ros ero, as they are $othwilling to gi%e u forms of sight to attain e&tra knowledge! Howe%er,4ros ero’s stri%e for knowledge changes him, noted through the sim lesi$ilance ( my state grew stranger, $eing trans orted and ra t in secretstudies)! /iley em hasi+es this as a ( heldon 7oo er like trait), whichcomes with se%ere re ercussions, in this case $eing usur ed $y his $rotherAntonio who is meta horically com ared to)i%y, which had hid 8his9 rincelytrunk! (! 4ros ero’s loss is ower is e&em li.ed through his emotional $lank%erse and owerful imagery, com aring the situation to the ( death ofdarkness)! /iley reiterates how (disco%eries can come at the cost oftransformati%e im acts), in#uencing eo le like you and " to re2e&aminesituations $efore fully erusing them!

Dionysus The Drunk


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"nterestingly Da%id -incher almost 011 years later is a$le to reiterate thesame facets of disco%ery through his henomenal .lm -ight 7lu$! As Holmes

ut it ( we easily mesh with this .lm as it is a modern master iece:;s ecially woman as it stars 'rad 4itt (! Through the .lms unnamed narratorects) littered on the $lack as halt! /iley hel sus understand his feelings $y drawing attention to the ( musical ostinato

layed during this scene, em hasi+ing his emotional malnourishment )! "n anattem t to cure his mundane life 6ack disco%ers Tyler, a man he con6ured ashis schi+o hrenic counter art, seen through -inchers %arious deli$erate #ashframes containing Tyler! Holmes arallels this conce t with his godly analogy,linking 6acks re%itali+ation to Dionysus, a mythological $eing who esca edthe torments of his childhood through the refuge resented $y wine and cultlike artying erences in their immediate conte&tand understanding! This is articularly the case when discussing the nati%e%ictim to hysiognomy known as 7ali$an! /iley notes that (4ros ero’sdisco%ery of 7ali$an $ecomes a transformati%e moment for the (5onster) ashe is forced into sla%ery and stri ed of ( the island


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6u&ta osed to te hano and Trinculos use of rose! 7ali$an wise natureultimately causes him to reassesses his disco%ery, allowing him tounderstand the foolish decision to worshi such a (drunkard for a god)! Hisdes eration caused him to make oor decisions, howe%er causing him tolearn from them later! As Holmes notes, (understanding 7ali$ans characterallows us to ercei%e He haestus’ struggles as he too ree%aluated hisin%itation to re6oin the Olym ians)! The lesson learnt from these aralleledcharacters allows us to reali+e im acts conte&t has on disco%ery, may$e

re%enting us from recreating their mistakes!

Hercules The 7onceited

One of Holmes’ more serious oints during the seminar was how near deathe& eriences can act as a catalyst for indi%iduals, allowing them to relin*uishtheir $urdens and disco%er their own true nature! This is seminally e& loredthrough .ght clu$s dri%ing scene, $ut to discuss that we must $reak the .rstrule of .ght clu$: Lets ho e were not caught out! The rain, dark colorscheme and non2diegetic heart$eat sets the re#ecti%e and gloomy tone ofthe scene! -incher ela$orates on this mood through @acks dramatic dialogue( " wouldn’t feel anything good a$out my life), showing how life has let himdown more than the ending of how " met your mother! 3uoting /iley (Tyler’sre etiti%e command to 6ack, forces him to ( let go) of his worries) and indoing he disco%ers new ossi$ilities and resultantly tries to em$race life!

-incher uses this as a $oiling oint for the .lm, utili+ing the #ashing lights ofoncoming tra c to mimic feelings of re$irth within 6ack, ultimately clima&inginto a se%ere car crash! Des ite nearly dying and $ecoming another (statisticin a re ort) , Tyler ironically e&claims ( we 6ust had a near life e& erience(!-incher e&tends @ack’s re$irth $y 6u&ta osing the crash to the followingscene, where the color scheme is %i%id and ( Tyler is gone (! Through this weunderstand that death is re6u%enating for 6ack, .nally allowing him to makehis own conscious decisions! Through Holmes’ God allusion, he arallels 6ackshuman struggles to that of Hercules who had to relin*uish his ride and di%einto the it of souls in order to understand the nature of $eing a god!

Through their similarities, /iley draws our attention to the uni%ersalre%itali+ation of near death e& eriences and the im acts such disco%eriescan ha%e on us!

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The Tempest Feature Article