Book Review of Prospero’s Daughter: Retelling of Shakespeare’s the Tempest
As the title suggests, Nunez’ story is a retelling of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. In this case, however, the author seeks not so much to entertain as to send a message about the harshly drawn lines of class and racial discrimination that existed in Trinidad, and other British colonies, before independence. The lines are drawn even more boldly in this case, because many of the British who came to Trinidad, came to achieve a social position denied them in their own country, where they had to contend with a class system that had been in place for centuries. In Trinidad, the black residents were the lower, servant class, and every person of English blood was upper class.
But what about mixed blood? Here the situation gets murky for the Englishmen. Here the lines between good and evil become blurred. Carlos, who is of mixed race, is accused of attempted rape, although the facts deny it. His mother was white; therefore, she was a whore, “a blue-eyed hag.” Once this Pandora’s box is opened, we see that purity may exist only on the surface, or true purity may be a quality below the surface.
Prospero’s Daughter is set at the beginning of a new era in race relations, when the Civil Rights movement in the United States was in full swing. The British Empire was dwindling bit by bit. With this background, Peter Gardner has arrived from England with his young daughter – and a secret.
His daughter, Virginia, grows up on the island, and although her father tries to raise her in an atmosphere as British as possible, the island is her home. Carlos, the rightful owner of their house, and Ariana, who cooks and takes care of the house, are the only companions she has besides her father.
Inspector Mumsford, who is assigned to investigate, is clearly aware of the sensitivity of the case, since the alleged victim is a fifteen year old white girl from England, and the accused a young Trinidadian of mixed race. Mumsford wears a neatly pressed uniform befitting an English officer of the law, and the counterpoint running in the back of his mind all day involves what his mother will serve him for dinner. He is expecting something special to atone for the small transgression of dropping crumbs on his desk, leaving it vulnerable to ants. He travels from Trinidad to the small island of Chacachacare in a small boat, struggling to hide his terror of the rough sea from the native boatman. He does not intend to interview the supposed victim, a young English girl, and therefore the flower on innocence.
As Mumsford begins his investigation, he finds out that the distinctions in class and background are not always what they seem. Truth is not the prerogative of whites only, and lust and disease are not the sole property of blacks and the lepers who inhabit part of the tiny island of Chacachacare.
As in Shakespeare’s play, the theme of justice runs throughout. Prospero, or in this case Dr. Gardner, is banished from his home unjustly and his inheritance stolen. But the secrets behind his banishment, and his cruelty and manipulation of his daughter Virginia, Carlos, whose house he steals, and Ariana, call for a different kind of justice.
Dr. Gardner personifies men as monsters. He steals Carlos’ house through trickery and enslaves both him and Ariana.
In Shakespeare’s play, Prospero is restored to his rightful place, and the last act ends happily with the wedding of Ferdinand and Miranda. In Prospero’s Daughter, justice is served, but the winds of change that swept much of the world in the 1960s have their influence. The colonial empire is crumbling, and along with it, many of the old ideas of social place. In the last act of The Tempest, Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, speaks the line:
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in ‘t!
Her optimism may be echoed by Virginia, her counterpart in Nunez’ book, who stands on the brink of a world where class and race matter less, although discrimination certainly is not eliminated.
