Blog #8

This week I didn’t get to go to school because of a pandemic. I had online school and was tasked to read over The Tempest. In Act 5 of The Tempest, there were many types of rhetoric. “ I drink the air before me, and return Or ere pulse twice the beat” (Tmp 5.1.102-103). Ariel said this line after being free from Prospero. It’s ironic that a spirit that controls elements breathes in air. This shows that having a title to something can change someone’s view of their environment. Another interesting piece of rhetoric is when Ferdinand says “ Though the seas threaten, they are merciful” (Tmp 5.1. 179). This shows the antithesis: opposing forces that show conflict throughout the play. 

I used rhetoric this week to convince my parents to buy more food. They weren’t panic over this pandemic because it wasn’t close to us. Since there was a case of COVID-19 in Collin County, my parents are realizing the severity of this situation. I convinced them to go buy food and supply because other people are buying all of the supplies, and we won’t have any left. 

Media displays overdramatized COVID-19 causing many people to panic. The stock market is getting worse and over 2 million people lost their jobs this week. This causes harm for many people because they depend on that income of their job to survive. California has officially become on lockdown to prevent COVID-19 from spreading to other places. The Tempest shows how when some people don’t have control of what they are doing, they do acts they would never do before. For example, the plan to kill the king. They would have never done it before in Naples, but these people have no control of the situation of being in another place. This is shown in reality as well. When there was no COVID-19, people bought things in a normal amount; however, since people don’t have control over this virus, people are panicking and buying more than what they have done before.     

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Edited by David Lindley, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2013. Accessed 8 Mar. 2020