Miranda

Miranda is the beautiful, innocent, fifteen year old daughter of Prospero in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, probably written around 1611. She and her father, a magician and a dethroned duke, have been living in exile on an island. The duke’s brother and his party are passing the island and Prospero, having divined this fact, throws a storm into the works, causing a shipwreck. When Miranda first sees Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples, she immediately falls in love with him. Well, he is, after all, the first young man she has seen in twelve years. Ferdinand, for his part, finds Miranda to be perfection itself. Miranda is a very obedient daughter, but in the matter of love she is able to stand up to her domineering father, and she openly and boldly declares her love for Ferdinand. When all is said and done (and in Shakespeare, much is said and done), it is the union of Miranda and Ferdinand that directly leads to the reinstallation of the Duke to his rightful reign, and everyone goes back home to live happily ever after. Not bad work for a teenage and a girl, at that.

Miranda Priestly is the Boss from Hades in Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 best seller, The Devil Wears Prada, and it is all but impossible not to see her exactly as the marvelous Meryl Streep played her in the movie of the same name. Miranda Priestly is editor-in-chief of Runway, a high style fashion magazine (read Anna Wintour at Vogue). She is as chic and stylish as her magazine an over-the-top arbiter of taste - expensive taste. She is also a demanding and cold slave-driver who brooks no insubordination and from whose withering commentary no employee is safe. Clad in fantastic designer clothes, shoes and jewelry, she doesn’t find it at all necessary to have a smile be her umbrella. All in all, she is a major delight in the world of fiction and film, and one hopes never to bump into her in what we loosely refer to as “real life”.

The Tempest