SOURCE: “The Miranda Trap: Sexism and Racism in Shakespeare's Tempest,” in The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, edited by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, University of Illinois Press, 1980, pp. 285-94.

In the following essay, Leininger discusses the oppression of women and non-whites—personified in the characters of Miranda and Caliban, respectively—in The Tempest.

Shakespeare's Tempest was first performed before King James I at Whitehall in November of 1611. It was presented a second time at the court of King James early in 1613, as part of the marriage festivities of James's daughter Elizabeth, who, at the age of sixteen, was being married to Frederick the Elector Palatine. The marriage masque within The Tempest may have been added for this occasion. In any case, the Goddess Ceres' promise of a life untouched by winter (“Spring come to you at the farthest / In the very...