Salterton is a small conservative Canadian community that sticks to old fashioned English customs and has distinct class divisions. Robertson Davies was sometimes accused of being an old fashioned conservative, but his later novels did evolve into becoming more multicultural. He was however a skilled comic writer and wasn’t afraid to make fun of himself or his characters. He also had experience in theatre as both an actor and a playwright, and that helped him write realistically about the actors in Tempest-Tost.

Plot of Tempest-Tost

The plot of Tempest-Tost is somewhat uneventful, but the colourful characters help make up for that. The dialogue is often hilarious as the small town characters are placed in embarrassing scandals and romances while preparing for the production of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Hector Mackilwraith in Tempest-Tost

Hector Mackilwraith is a serious and sensible 40-year-old mathematics teacher who is the accountant to Salterton's amateur theatrical group. He decides he would like to play a part in the production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and although untalented, manipulates his way in.

Once he begins to rehearse the play with the rest of the group, he falls hard for the unsuspecting 18-year-old Griselda. Griselda thinks Hector is quite strange and a bore, which is normal for a young girl, but he gets it into his head that she will eventually return his love. This is really quite uncharacteristic of him, as he’s been celibate all his life. It may have been a midlife crisis combined with being fed up with his uneventful life that led him to risk appearing foolish.

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