“TEACHING SHAKESPEARE IN A MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON” Which statement best describes what Bates’ work with the inmates helped reveal about the play Romeo and Juliet?

Laura Bates offered herself to teach Shakespeare in the maximum security section of a prison in the state of Indiana. What resulted was that the inmates liked the English writer.

Bates decided to share its experience in her book “Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years of Solitary with the Bard. Interviewed by Michael Martin of NRP news, Bates shares the central idea of teaching Shakespeare in a maximum security prison. Bates comments that for many inmates was easy to make sense of some passages of Shakespeare’s works because they had lived something similar or could relate to. Something that scholars found complicated to relate with.

Bates sets the example of “Mcbeth”, in which the prisoners related to the story for the inner struggle of the main character and their personal situations. When prisoners got into Macbeth character, that helped them to got inside their own characters.

Explanation:

the first proposition is to question economic materialism and victorian christianity. the lines are:

“it moves us not.—great god! i'd rather be

a pagan suckled in a creed outworn; ”

wordsworth is stating that nature no longer interests mankind, that the latter is not “moved” by it and explains that ancient western paganism had a more positive attitude concerning nature since it lacked the perv erted judaeo-christian interpretation of having received the world and all its animals and elements from god to use as we , instead of humans actually being not only part of nature but its wardens, meant to appreciate it and protect it.

the next lines are:

“so might i, standing on this pleasant lea,

have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

have sight of proteus coming from the sea;

or hear old triton blow his wreathed horn.”

wordsworth here make it very clear that by actually looking and contemplating nature, human beings would reconnect with happiness, serenity and purpose. the use of mythological figures is quite evocative as well, proteus is a greek mythological god of the changing sea. he personifies the sea that changes, which symbolizes the way nature changes and inevitably can change to be destructive not only due to natural causes but to human pollution. furthermore, the sea is even more symbolic since all life originated in the sea so it is not only our past but our future since no life form in our planet can survive without water and if all water is destroyed in earth all life will be gone as well.

he then uses triton which is symbolic of the synthesis of both nature and mankind. triton is a mythological greek god that has the upper body of a man and the lower body of a fish (a merman). this human fish duality evokes the fact that humans are not only human but also part of nature, the fish tail representing nature. the main attribute of this god was that he used a conch shell as a horn to calm the roaring seas. in other words, triton uses nature through science for the benefit of human sailors who risk death during tempests. with the use of such metaphor, wordworth is conveying the message that human technology   is supposed to use nature to preserve nature and thereby humanity as well.