Literacy and Additional Factors Leading to Power Anonymous 11th Grade

In “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Mary Louise Pratt proposes the idea of “contact zones” as areas of interaction between cultures in the New World. Pratt defines “contact zones” as areas where cultures “meet, clash and grapple […] often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (34). Pratt showcases the misunderstandings, power struggles, and collaborations that occur in contact zones in her essay. A key concept associated with contact zones is how literacy influences power. In Pratt’s essay, language symbolizes power, and she uses literacy to examine the balance of power. In order to understand this issue, the paper that follows will analyze the question of how power is obtained in Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Césaire’s A Tempest. Answering this question will help clarify the question of why only a few charismatic people can establish power in society while many other people fail to do so. In the plays, Prospero manages to obtain power while Caliban and Ariel do not, even though all three characters are literate. While Prospero, Caliban, and Ariel are all literate--in the sense that they not only speak English, but they also have common cultural understandings--only Prospero gains power. Prospero achieves power...