When creating this drawing, I was inspired by the chess game played by Miranda and Ferdinand in Act 5 Scene 1 of The Tempest. Miranda tells Ferdinand, "Sweet lord, you play me false," confronting him for cheating (5.1.172). He denies this accusation, and Miranda responds, "[F]or a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, / And I would call it fair play" (5.1.174-175). Although Miranda is unafraid to be assertive with her future husband, she relents because of her love for him. I did not see her ultimate passiveness as weakness, but as her way of living with a situation in which she is mainly a playing piece to those around her.
From there, I began to think that the queen chess piece is most reflective of her character. The queen in chess is the most powerful and mobile piece, as it can be moved in any direction spanning any number of squares on the board. Aside from the fact that Miranda will literally become a queen, she is capable of such power herself; she voluntarily disobeys Prospero's (apparent) wishes in order to speak to Ferdinand, and proposes to him first, stating, "I am your wife, if you will marry me; / If not, I'll die your maid" (3.1.83-84). However, Miranda's real power in the play lies in others' conceptions of her as an object of value. Caliban attempts to rape her, intending to gain control of the island with his own offspring (1.2); Ferdinand says that he admires her because she does not have "some defect," unlike other women he has taken interest in (3.1.44); and Prospero, who controls Miranda's relationship with Ferdinand in order to return to power, says outright to Ferdinand, "[A]s my gift and thine own acquisition / Worthily purchased, take my daughter" (4.1.13-14). Miranda is the central component in each of their plans for power, marriage, and offspring. She is a powerful playing piece, but a playing piece nonetheless, and Prospero is the player controlling her every move. A chess player holds their queen piece in high regard because of its power, but may choose to sacrifice it in order to protect their own king piece or checkmate the opponent's king. If Prospero's king piece is his own power, and his chess opponents are his political rivals (Antonio and Alonso), then Prospero indeed sacrifices his queen (Miranda) in order to protect his own power and trap Antonio and Alonso into allowing his return to status.
To encapsulate this analysis in my drawing, Queen Miranda, I first positioned Miranda in the center of the piece to reflect her centrality in the other characters' plots. She rests her hand on a large queen chess piece, representing her future position as queen and emphasizing the qualities she shares with the queen chess piece. Prospero grasps her shoulder, just as she holds the chess piece; although she is the queen, he is the player using the queen, and ultimately has control over her actions. Miranda wears a nightgown-like dress, conveying her vulnerability, but also looks directly at the viewer, displaying her aware and assertive side. Like a gnarled hand hanging over Miranda, the leafless tree branch represents Prospero's deeply-rooted control over his daughter and the events of The Tempest. As for details lost and gained through this visual art adaptation, none of the other characters are present in the drawing, so Miranda and Prospero's interactions with them are lost. In addition, the drawing has no particular setting, removing the imagery of the island in favor of emphasizing the conceptual nature of the drawing. At the same time, the lack of realistic background and other characters allows the viewer to focus on the relationship between Miranda and Prospero alone, as well as reflect on the meaning of the queen chess piece and tree branch. Drawing the concept of Miranda as chess-queen led me to examine Miranda's character more closely than I had before, and gave me a clearer sense of the hierarchy in The Tempest.