This definitions covers Key Terms within Theme: Power & Control for GCSE English Literature. Revise Theme: Power & Control in The Tempest for GCSE English Literature with 12 exam-style questions and 16 flashcards. This topic shows up very often in GCSE exams, so students should be able to explain it clearly, not just recognise the term. It is section 11 of 17 in this topic. Make sure you can use the exact wording confidently, because definition marks are often lost through vague language.
📖 Key Terms
- Usurpation
- The seizure of power from a legitimate ruler by force or fraud. In The Tempest, Antonio's overthrow of Prospero in Milan is usurpation — and the play's opening crisis. Sebastian's plot against Alonso is an attempted second usurpation within the play's present action.
- Patriarchal power
- Authority exercised by a father-figure over dependants, particularly women. Prospero's control over Miranda — deciding her education, her marriage, her knowledge — is an exercise of patriarchal power that the play largely presents without critique.
- Theatrical self-reflexivity
- When a play draws attention to its own nature as a performance. The Epilogue is Shakespeare's most explicit example: Prospero steps outside the fiction to ask the audience for applause — making visible the power relationship between playwright, performer, and audience that the play has been exploring through Prospero's magic.
- Renunciation
- The formal giving up of power, a title, or a claim. Prospero's abjuring of his magic is an act of renunciation — the voluntary release of something he could have kept. Shakespeare presents this as a moral choice, not a defeat.
Practice questions for Theme: Power & Control
Miranda's exclamation 'O brave new world / That has such people in't!' reveals which of the following about her situation?
Read the following quotation from Act 1 Scene 2: 'Hag-seed, hence! / Fetch us in fuel.' How does Shakespeare use language technique to present colonial power in this quotation? [2 marks]