Serious Comedy

"O, woe the day." - Miranda 

Photo courtesy of Misti Atkinson. Painting by Rhett Murray. 

The photograph above is of a painting. The artist is my uncle, Rhett Murray. My aunt, Holly Atkinson Murray, posed as the model for Miranda - yes, she has long, curly, red hair. Yes, she is gorgeous. Yes, she knows it. Sorry, she is married. :) This painting hangs in my family's home and was, in fact, one of the reasons I was excited to read Shakespeare's The Tempest. My sister, Kristi, and I are reading The Tempest together. This painting highlights one of the concerns we had as we read Act 1 together.



This play is a comedy. It reads as a comedy with plenty of laugh out loud moments. And so this scene seems out of place. Miranda is absolutely heart-sick over these sailors and their seemingly tragic demise. She empathetically suffers with them.  She cries: "O, I have suffered with those that I saw suffer. . . O the cry did knock against my very heart. Poor souls, they perished."

I'm still trying to figure out why Shakespeare wrote in such a sad scene - something that, I assume, would've been a great anxiety of the time to those who had loved ones travelling the high seas. Is it to catch the audiences' attention by starting off with a bang? Is it to draw audiences in? Is it to highlight the movable nature of Miranda's character?

Curious about your thoughts on the matter. Why so serious?