Discussion Guide Ariel by Grace Tiffany

Discussion Guide
Ariel by Grace Tiffany
Reading Shakespeare’s The Tempest in the Light of Grace Tiffany’s Ariel
Grace Tiffany’s Ariel is a modern, fictional adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The
Tempest.
The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, has inspired the greatest
number of creative adaptations by other authors. It has been nearly four hundred years
since The Tempest was first performed before King James I in London in 1611.
Shakespeare was still alive then, and possibly present, at this performance. In the fourhundred-years
since, playwrights, poets, novelists, movie directors, and even one writer of
a popular science-fiction television series have been inspired to reimagine Prospero,
Caliban, Miranda, and Ariel, the four beings who inhabit Shakespeare’s magic island. In fact,
one of the first adaptations of The Tempest, a late-seventeenth-century comedy by William
Davenant and John Dryden, actually renamed the drama The Magic Island. Twentiethcentury
authors have dreamed whole new settings for the play, which range from Greece (in
John Cassavetes’ film Tempest) to the French Caribbean island of Martinique (in Aimé
Césaire’s play Une Tempéte) to—at the extreme edge of imagination—other planets (in Fred
Wilcox’s film Forbidden Planet and one episode from Gene Rodenberry’s television series
Star Trek). Grace Tiffany’s Ariel is the latest and among the most imaginative of these
adaptations of Shakespeare’s play. A discussion of The Tempest in the light of Tiffany’s Ariel
might begin with the question, what might it be about The Tempest that has inspired such a
wealth of creative adaptations—that is, more adaptations than have been done of for any
other Shakespearean play, including the equally popular Hamlet, Macbeth, and The Taming
of the Shrew?
Discussion Questions
The following, more specific questions are designed to inspire discussion and encourage a
closer reading of Shakespeare’s The Tempest by prompting its careful comparison with
Tiffany’s novel.
1. Miranda is the only female in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In contrast, Tiffany’s Ariel
features three females: Sycorax, Miranda, and Ariel, who, though a spirit, first
appears in the figure of a woman and is henceforth described with feminine
pronouns. How does the increased presence of women in Tiffany’s work shift some of
the power from males to females? Do women have more power in Ariel than they
have in The Tempest, and, if so, what kinds of power do they have, and how do they
wield it? As a related question, why do you think Tiffany made Ariel female?
2. Ariel, of course, is not really a woman, but a feminine spirit. What is the difference
between humans and spirits, both in The Tempest and in Ariel?
3. Although many modern directors have tried to place The Tempest’s magic island in a
known geographical area, Shakespeare leaves its location vague. Does The Tempest
give any information about the location of the island? What modern themes
pertaining to European—New World conflicts does Tiffany’s placement of the island in
the Caribbean help convey? Are these themes wholly modern, or do they surface in
Shakespeare’s play as well?

4. Working in the different mediums of stage-play and novel, both Shakespeare and
Tiffany try ceaselessly to convey the sense that this island is surrounded by water.
How does Shakespeare make sure his audience never forgets that the sea surrounds
the island? (This, by the way, is no mean feat when his actors stand on a bare, landlocked
stage which lacks scenic backdrops and a modern sound system!) Does
Tiffany successfully create and maintain a similar sense of vast water around the
island, and, if so, how does she do so?
5. As a question related to question 4, how does water come into our lives? What do
watery things signify in terms of human experience? (Students are encouraged to
think of rain, solid or melting ice, sailing, drinking, birth—when “water breaks”—
swimming, baptism, dissolving, weeping.) How do those “watery” experiences figure
in The Tempest and in Ariel?
6. And, relative to questions 4 and 5, in The Tempest, when King Alonso asks Prospero,
“When did you lose your daughter?” Prospero replies “In this last tempest.” However,
we know that it is Alonso who has lost his son Ferdinand in “this last tempest”
(5.1.152-153), 1 while Prospero has not lost his daughter at all in a physical sense.
How does Tiffany’s description of Miranda’s first sight of Ferdinand on pp. 170-171,
beginning “She was at sea,” comment on and attempt to interpret Prospero’s odd
comment to Alonso in act five, scene one, of Shakespeare’s play?
7. Compare Shakespeare’s Caliban to Tiffany’s Caliban. Are they entirely different, or
does Tiffany truly appear to be basing her character on Shakespeare’s? Find at least
one specific passage or interchange of dialogue in Shakespeare’s The Tempest that
might support Tiffany’s interpretation of Caliban.
8. Is Tiffany’s Miranda anything like Shakespeare’s? Again, find passages in
Shakespeare that either justify or cast doubt on Tiffany’s version of Miranda.
Do the same with any of the other characters Tiffany represents.
9. In act five, scene one, of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Ariel tells Prospero that his
enemies Alonso and Antonio are now Prospero’s prisoners, and says, “[I]f you now
beheld them, your affections/ Would become tender” (ll. 18-19). Prospero responds,
“Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling/ Of their afflictions, and shall not
myself,/ One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,/ . . . be kindlier moved than
thou art?” (ll. 21-24). He concludes that he will forgive them. Compare Prospero’s
and Ariel’s interchange to that described by Tiffany on pp. 181-183 and pp. 202-205
of Tiffany’s novel. What is the difference between the influence Shakespeare’s Ariel
has on Shakespeare’s Prospero and the influence Tiffany’s Ariel has on Tiffany’s
Prospero?
10. What is Shakespeare’s Ariel? What is Tiffany’s Ariel? Do they represent different
things? Or do they represent the same thing, and Shakespeare and Tiffany disagree
about this thing’s worth?
11. Does Tiffany’s final chapter—her epilogue—go way beyond any implications of
European—New World encounter suggested in the original The Tempest? Or do the
ideas proposed in this final chapter take their root from something in Shakespeare’s
play?
1 William Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. Sylvan Barnet, NY: Signet, 1998.

12. What are some of the relevant distinctions between the genres of novel and play that
these two works invite us to observe? What can Tiffany do in her fiction, because of
the difference in the medium, that Shakespeare cannot do on the stage? Conversely,
what can Shakespeare create and achieve with his live actors on a stage that Tiffany
cannot do in her fiction?
Final questions might be: Should authors take the kind of license that Tiffany has taken with
Shakespeare? Why? Why not? Does her book help us understand Shakespeare? Does
Shakespeare help us understand her book?
Performance Exercise
Enact a scene or portion of a scene from The Tempest, then read aloud or dramatize
(casting a narrator and speaking characters) the section of Ariel that seems to be based on
that scene. Discuss the differences in theme and character that this way become evident.
Some possible scene comparisons:
Act one, scene one, of The Tempest and pages 159-161 of Ariel
Act one, scene two, lines 24-168 of The Tempest and pages 186-191 of Ariel
Act one, scene two, lines 314-374 of The Tempest and pages 136-138 of Ariel
Act one, scene two, lines 237-304 of The Tempest and pages 112-114 of Ariel
Act one, scene two, lines 397-503 of The Tempest and pages 167-174 of Ariel
Act two, scene one, line 148-331 of The Tempest and pages 176-183 of Ariel
Act four, scene one, lines 60-145 of The Tempest and pages 196-200 of Ariel
Suggested additional reading:
W. H. Auden, “Prospero to Ariel,” from The Sea and the Mirror, excerpted in W. H. Auden:
Selected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson, NY: Vintage, 1979, pp. 129-135
Ariel
By Grace Tiffany
Tr 0-06-075327-7 • $16.99 ($22.99)
Lb 0-06-075328-5 • $17.89 ($23.89)
Laura Geringer Books
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www.harperchildrens.com
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