Reading for the week of Jan. 21, 2007

The reading for this week is by Ronald Takaki entitled " The Tempest in the Wilderness". The main idea behind the article is the viewpoint of the English, and their view of the "Savages" that were the Irish and Indians. He relate those two groups of people to the Shakespeare work called "The Tempest". In this play, the character Caliban is an Indian in the New World, and he becomes victim to English conquest. It was a common thing in that day to talk about the pride of English conquest, and Shakespeare was no different.

One of the main questions I have about this reading is why the English did not find brotherhood with the country of Ireland and surrounding countries of that time? Why would the English find Irish people to be incompetent savages, other than the pure fact that they were nomadic. It was also a problem with Scotland at the time, where the English found themselves to be far superior than their counterparts. It would be more profitable to view the Indians and Irish as an equal and work with them to find a better way of producing agriculture and other necessities.
I
felt very taken back by the reading, being of Irish decent. I was not raised with the idea that the Irish were savages or nomadic. Maybe I was raised in a way to show the pride in my heritage and not the rough times, but at the same time I never knew of the battles between Ireland and English.