The Tempest

Overview
 More about The Tempest
Author
William Shakespeare

Year Written
c. 1611

Type
Play

Genre
Drama

Protagonist
Prospero is the main protagonist.

Antagonist
The Tempest has a large cast of antagonists, all of whom pose
challenges for the play’s protagonist, Prospero. The most important
antagonists are Alonso and Antonio, who conspired to assassinate
Prospero when he was Duke of Milan, and who are responsible for his
exile on the island.
About the Title
The title stems from the storm that casts the men aboard Alonso's
ship onto Prospero's island.

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Setting
Aside from the play’s first scene, which takes place on a ship, the action of
The Tempest remains restricted to the island. In addition to confining the
action of the play, the island is also a site of magic and illusion. With the
magician Prospero in charge of Ariel and his fellow spirits, strange things
happen on the island constantly, and these things tend to inspire confusion,
sadness, and horror more often than amazement. The illusions that populate
the island serve to confuse and manipulate. Although they do no physical
harm, they break individuals down psychologically. Despite the importance
of the play’s island setting, the precise location of the island remains a
mystery.

Tone
Over the course of the play, the tone of The Tempest shifts from threatening
to hopeful. By the end of the play, however, the tone enters a more hopeful
register as the characters resolve their conflicts and look to the future. The
tonal fluctuation from scene to scene reflects the chaos and confusion that
Prospero has orchestrated.

Foreshadowing
In The Tempest, foreshadowing creates a sense of inevitability about the
events that happen over the course of the play. The play opens with
Prospero explaining to Miranda the events that brought them to the
island and contriving to bring all the significant characters together
again, we get the sense that Prospero and Miranda’s situation will soon
be altered. Throughout, we get hints about Prospero’s decision to give
up magic to be restored as Duke of Milan. Other events and situations
are foreshadowed as well, including the way the social structure on the
island upturns social conventions.

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Characters

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Prospero
Prospero, the magician, is the former duke of Milan who was ousted by his
brother Antonio. After Antonio seized his title and property, Prospero was
exiled with his daughter and eventually found refuge on an island.

Ariel
Ariel is a spirit who serves Prospero as payment for being rescued from
imprisonment in a tree. A spirit of the air, he assists Prospero in seeking
retribution over his enemies.

Miranda
Miranda is Prospero's 15-year-old daughter. She has been on the island
with her father for 12 years.

Caliban
A slave of Prospero who is a native inhabitant of the island. He is the
offspring of the witch Sycorax and the devil. Prospero has made Caliban
his servant or slave, and in response, Caliban plots to murder Prospero.

Alonso
Alonso is the king of Naples. He believes his son has died and is overjoyed
to later find him. Alonso is repentant for the pain he caused Prospero in the
past.

Gonzalo
Gonzalo is an advisor to King Alonso and old friend of Prospero. He is an
elderly counsellor who saves Prospero's and Miranda's lives when they
are exiled. He provides a sense of hope and optimism when Ferdinand is
lost.

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Antonio
Antonio, the current duke of Milan, is Prospero's younger brother. He had
plotted against Prospero years earlier and now convinces Sebastian to
murder his brother, the king of Naples.

Boatswain
The boatswain is the leader of the boat's crew. He oversees the deck crew,
the rigging, and the anchor. He must try to keep the boat afloat during the
storm, even when the king's party makes demands upon his time.

Ferdinand
Ferdinand is the son of the king of Naples. During the storm, he was
separated from the rest of the king's party, met Miranda, and fell in love
with her.

Francisco and Adrian

Two of the king's lords. They try to offer hope and protection to Alonso.

Mariners
The mariners are the sailors on the ship.

Other spirits
Iris, Ceres, Juno, and the Nymphs are spirits that appear in the play.

Sebastian
Sebastian is the brother of Alonso. He is easily led into planning his own
brother's (the king's) murder.

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Shipmaster
The shipmaster is the master of Alonso's ship.

Stephano
Stephano is the butler of King Alonso. He arrives on the island drunk and
quickly becomes involved in a plot to murder Prospero.

Sycorax
Sycorax is Caliban's mother, a witch who uses magic in evil ways.

Trinculo
Trinculo is King Alonso's jester. When Stefano arrives with wine, Trinculo
joins him in drinking and then agrees to a plot to murder Prospero.

Character Analysis
Prospero
The magician Prospero is the main character in the play, both as the focus
as well as the orchestrator of all the action. As the duke of Milan, Prospero
was too focused on magical study and left the running of his dukedom to
his brother Antonio, who eventually deposed him. During the time that
Prospero and his daughter Miranda lived exiled on an island, Prospero
become a more powerful magician. When fate brings the men who
conspired against him within reach, Prospero uses his powers to elevate
his daughter's position in society and program revenge against his
enemies, including the very brother who took his dukedom from him. In the
end Prospero abandons his plan for vengeance and forgives his enemies

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of their offenses. He regains his dukedom and plans to return with his
newly engaged daughter to Italy. Prospero is the main protagonist.

Ariel
Prospero's faithful spirit servant, Ariel, helps execute Prospero's plans to
gather his enemies on his island to repay them for their traitorous crimes
against him. Ariel is still haunted by his former experience as a slave to the
witch Sycorax but serves Prospero willingly, enticed by the promise of
freedom, which Ariel receives at the end of the play. It is primarily Ariel's
magic Prospero uses to manipulate the other characters throughout the
play.

Miranda
Exiled with her father when she was only three years old, Miranda has
grown up on an island with no humans other than her father and their slave,
Caliban. When she meets Ferdinand, she is awed by his beauty and
immediately falls in love. As she is exposed to more people, she cannot
help but be amazed by all that humanity can be. Engaged to her beloved
Ferdinand at the end of the play, she prepares to travel to Naples for their
wedding. Miranda's name means "to wonder at or be admired," and she
acts with wonder and admiration to most of what she sees, including the
ship, Ferdinand, her father's explanation of how she came to live on the
island, and the other nobles.

Caliban
Son of the deceased witch, Sycorax, the half-human Caliban loses control
of the island when Prospero and his daughter Miranda arrive there 12 years
earlier. Prospero and his daughter try to educate Caliban in their language
and ways. They claim they treated Caliban with respect and kindness at
first however he later tried to rape Miranda. He is now a bitter, frequently
punished slave. When Caliban meets some of the castaways from the
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ship, he hopes to serve a new master. He soon realizes that the new
master is worse than Prospero.

Alonso
Alonso, the king of Naples, is onboard a ship returning to Italy from Africa,
where his daughter has married the king of Algiers. After the shipwreck
Alonso despairs over the presumed drowning of his son, Ferdinand. When
Ariel reveals Alonso's part in the exile of Prospero, Alonso repents of his
past sins. Overjoyed at his son's reappearance, Alonso celebrates over the
coming marriage between Ferdinand and Miranda.

Gonzalo
He is King Alonso's advisor and Prospero's old and loyal friend. Gonzalo is
the idealist in the play. When he sees the beauty and purity of the isolated
island, he considers the utopia he might create there, eliminating poverty
and wealth as well as social classes. As he helped Prospero escape long
ago, he has earned Prospero's gratitude.

Antonio
Antonio is the current duke of Milan after undermining his brother
Prospero's power and exiling him from his home 12 years before. A greedy
and unsympathetic character, he blames King Alonso for the shipwreck
and the drowning of Ferdinand. He then plots with Sebastian, King
Alonso's brother, to kill Alonso and take power. Though forgiven by his
brother Prospero in the end, Antonio shows no remorse over any of his
behaviour.

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 Themes
Language and Reality
In The Tempest language is power, and characters wield it to bless, curse,
confuse, manipulate, or heal. Prospero is the most powerful character
because of his studies of the liberal arts and advanced skill in manipulating
Ariel, who is a figurative representation of Prospero's thoughts. Caliban
deeply understands how spoken language and intentions are at the root of
Prospero's powers to create illusion, control nature, and obscure reality.
Miranda has taught Caliban to speak her and Prospero's language, and he
points out that, having done so, he is now able to curse his oppressors and
have them understand him. Both characters' speech patterns become
more poetic and rhythmic when they battle for power through language.
The noble characters, even though they do not possess magical powers
like Prospero's, still bless and curse in their ordinary language. When
Stephano stumbles upon Caliban and Trinculo appearing as one four-
legged monster, he observes that humans possess two voices: the
forward voice that speaks well and the backward voice that utters foul
speeches and detracts, suggesting again that pairing language with
intentions for ill or good carries weight.
Alliances, another kind of power, are created between those who share
the same language in The Tempest. Ferdinand and Miranda's love bond
begins with the recognition that Miranda speaks the same language as he
does, and their speech patterns match throughout the play. As much as
Caliban argues in Act 1 that learning language has done him no good but
to curse his masters, Caliban's shared language with Stephano and
Trinculo gives him the power to entice them to overthrow Prospero and
empathize with him. Gonzalo, who "prates" shallowly, fails to mock
effectively, and uses faulty logic in his discourse when speaking of his

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utopian commonwealth—saying he would be king of a region without need
of a king—fails to command respect from the language-savvy and
politically ambitious Antonio and Sebastian, providing a noticeable
contrast. Gonzalo, too kind-hearted to conduct the original plan to murder
Prospero, still lacks the intention necessary to harness language to be
used as a power.

Magic of Theatre
The obvious magic in the play comes from Prospero and his ability to
manipulate the island's spirit and nature. A terrible storm hits a ship, but
all its members survive and land in perfect sequencing upon the island. A
banquet appears and disappears in thin air. A specific man comes onshore
and meets the right woman at just the right time. As a magician Prospero
controls and manipulates circumstances and people around him, just as
Shakespeare as a playwright can do the same—eventually bringing
restoration and order. Prospero creates a tempest with an ultimate
sequence of events in mind—his daughter's marriage to Ferdinand, the
restoration of his throne, and the repentance of his enemies—and for the
most part things play out exactly as he has plotted, making him seem like
a clever author who can create a narrative using real-life characters.

Power and Exploitation

The play explores the role of power and its use in exploiting other people
in families and in the social order. In every scene Shakespeare reveals a
situation in which power and its exploitation creates a lack of harmony.
Even in the opening scene the community structure is disrupted when the
nobles come on board during the storm and interfere with the work of the
sailors; the boatswain points out that while men may respect royalty and
nobility, the storm does not, so the nobles have no authority at this
moment. The events driving the play began when, back in Milan, Antonio
exploited the power he was given to help his brother rule, becoming power
hungry and driving Prospero into exile. But that is just the beginning.

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Prospero lands on an island and becomes master of Caliban and Ariel,
despite Caliban's claim to the island. Antonio and Sebastian plot to take
King Alonso's power for their own. Trinculo and Stephano, aware that they
are superior to only Caliban, exploit the creature for their own gain.
Gonzalo's vision of an ideal commonwealth, in which no one rules over
anyone else, is treated as a naïve and unrealistic fantasy. It is not until
Prospero willingly gives up his "magical" power and his need for revenge
that the spell is broken and there is any hope of peace in the social order,
although that peace can only come about by returning Prospero to power
and marrying his daughter to an even more powerful ruler than he is:
Ferdinand, the future king of Naples.

Revenge, Forgiveness, and Restoration

The controlling energy of much of the play comes from individuals' desire
for revenge in pursuit of some form of justice. Prospero is driven by his
need to expose what was done to him and regain his rightful place as the
duke of Milan. Caliban, too, is set on revenging his displacement and the
wrongs inflicted on him by Prospero. When offered a way to do this through
Stephano, Caliban vows his allegiance to a new master—a far worse
master than Prospero ever was. The only way to destroy the power of
revenge is to absorb it rather than unleash it, which is what Prospero does
at the end of the play, willingly surrendering both his power and his need
for revenge.
All the major characters except Antonio and Sebastian show remorse over
some aspect of the past, asking for forgiveness. Prospero admits he was a
bad duke. Caliban regrets serving a new master, and Stephano admits he
would be a bad ruler even if he only had one subject. Alonso apologizes
and asks for Prospero's pardon. However, it is noticeable that Caliban
does not repent having attempted to murder Prospero or rape Miranda,
and Stephano and Trinculo do not repent for their part in the murder plot
against Prospero. Antonio and Sebastian never show remorse, and King
Alonso never discovers that they plotted against him because Prospero

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speaks of all the "sins" they committed while the nobles are under a spell.
The thematic significance derives from that fact that Prospero's
forgiveness at the very end of the play has no relation to the crimes
committed or the quality of or lack of repentance made by each character
at the climax of the play. Prospero offers pardon to all, even to his brother
who has not asked for it. In the end Prospero frees himself from his own
need for revenge through his gift of mercy, and forgiveness is shown to be
the most significant power explored in the play. Through forgiveness
freedom is restored to those washed up on the island, even as Prospero's
position in Milan is restored.

Utopia and Idealism

In each act of the play notions of utopian idealism are pitted against ideas
of disharmony and discord, beginning with the chaotic tempest itself,
which is only an illusion that causes no actual harm. Gonzalo's ideal
commonwealth speech in Act 2, Scene 1, presents the political ideas of a
utopian society to counterbalance Prospero's description of his brother
Antonio's dystopian deeds enacted before the play begins: using
Prospero's money and power and believing "his own lie" to feed his
growing ambition. Prospero believes in divine providence and heavenly
music, the power of nature, virtue, and the pursuit of knowledge. These
beliefs seem quite idealistic as compared to the forces driving Antonio. He
feels no remorse and lacks virtue. He acts opportunistically, seeking to
slay King Alonso within hours of being shipwrecked on a deserted island
far from society and uncertain whether he will ever make it back to
civilization. Prospero's idealism is consistent throughout the play—
notwithstanding his treatment of Caliban, whom he must keep distant
from Miranda—as he never takes real action for revenge and focuses his
energies on orchestrating the ideal circumstances for love to flourish
between Miranda and Ferdinand. And in turn the lovers display idealistic
qualities. They each perceive the other as divine at first sight, equally
enjoin to serve, and keep their vows of chastity. Those who seek

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disharmony and discord (Sebastian, Antonio, Caliban, Stephano, and
Trinculo) lose to the idealistic characters seeking harmony and balance.

The Illusion of Justice

The Tempest tells a straightforward story involving an unjust act, the
violation of Prospero’s throne by his brother, and Prospero’s quest to re-
establish justice by restoring himself to power. However, the idea of justice
that the play works toward seems highly subjective, since this idea
represents the view of one character who controls the fate of all the other
characters. Though Prospero presents himself as a victim of injustice
working to right the wrongs that have been done to him, Prospero’s idea of
justice and injustice is somewhat hypocritical—though he is furious with
his brother for taking his power, he has no qualms about enslaving Ariel
and Caliban in order to achieve his ends. At many moments throughout the
play, Prospero’s sense of justice seems extremely one-sided and involves
what is good for Prospero. The play reveals itself to often be morally
ambiguous. Prospero’s sense of justice begins to seem, if not perfect, at
least sympathetic. By using magic and tricks that echo the special effects
and spectacles of the theatre, Prospero gradually persuades the other
characters and the audience of the rightness of his case. As he does so,
the ambiguities surrounding his methods slowly resolve themselves.
Prospero forgives his enemies, releases his slaves, and relinquishes his
magic power, so that, at the end of the play, he is only an old man whose
work has been responsible for all the audience’s pleasure. The
establishment of Prospero’s idea of justice becomes less a commentary
on justice in life than on the nature of morality in art. Happy endings are
possible, Shakespeare seems to say, because the creativity of artists can
create them, even if the moral values that establish the happy ending
originate from nowhere but the imagination of the artist.

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The Difficulty of Distinguishing “Men”
from “Monsters”
Miranda and Prospero both have contradictory views of Caliban’s
humanity. On the one hand, they think that their education of him has lifted
him from his formerly brutish status. On the other hand, they see him as
inherently brutish. His devilish nature can never be overcome by nurture,
according to Prospero. The inhuman part of Caliban drives out the human
part, the “good nature,” that is imposed on him. Caliban claims that he was
kind to Prospero, and that Prospero repaid that kindness by imprisoning
him. In contrast, Prospero claims that he stopped being kind to Caliban
once Caliban had tried to rape Miranda. Which character the audience
decides to believe depends on whether it views Caliban as inherently
brutish, or as made brutish by oppression. The play leaves the matter
ambiguous. Trinculo’s speech upon first seeing Caliban, the longest
speech in the play, reproaches too harsh a view of Caliban and blurs the
distinction between men and monsters.

The Allure of Ruling a Colony

The uninhabited island presents the sense of infinite possibility to
everyone who lands there. Prospero has found it, in its isolation, an ideal
place to school his daughter. Sycorax, Caliban’s mother, worked her
magic there after she was exiled from Algeria. Caliban, once alone on
the island, now Prospero’s slave, laments that he had been his own king.
As he attempts to comfort Alonso, Gonzalo imagines a utopian society
on the island, over which he would rule. Stephano particularly looks
forward to taking advantage of the spirits that make “noises” on the isle;
they will provide music for his kingdom for free. All these characters
envision the island as a space of freedom and unrealized potential. The
tone of the play, however, toward the hopes of the would-be colonizers
is vexed at best. Gonzalo’s utopian vision in Act II, scene i is undercut by
a sharp retort from the usually foolish Sebastian and Antonio. Gonzalo’s

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fantasy thus involves him ruling the island while seeming not to rule it,
and in this he becomes a kind of parody of Prospero. While there are
many representatives of the colonial impulse in the play, the colonised
have only one representative: Caliban. The urge to rule and the urge to
be ruled seem inextricably intertwined.

Prospero’s Threats
Prospero issues many threats in The Tempest, demonstrating his innate
violence and cruelty. Prospero directs his threats at his servants.
Prospero’s threats typically contain elements of magic, as when he
reprimands Caliban for his disobedience. Prospero also makes harsh
threats against his more helpful servant, Ariel. Prospero has promised
to liberate Ariel after a period of faithful service, and when Ariel reminds
his master of this promise. Curiously, the tree prison Prospero
describes here echoes the tree prison the witch Sycorax had placed
Ariel in prior to Prospero’s arrival. Thus, not only do Prospero’s threats
indicate his cruel and domineering nature, but they also link him to other
tyrannical figures.

Obedience and Disobedience

The themes of obedience and disobedience underscore the island’s
hierarchy of power. Prospero stands at the top of this hierarchy. As both
the former Duke of Milan and a gifted student of magic, Prospero is the
most powerful figure on the island. He therefore demands obedience
from all his subjects, including his servants and his daughter. At some
point, however, each of these subjects disobeys him. Caliban swears
his allegiance to Stephano, trading one master for another to topple the
island’s hierarchy altogether. Other examples of disobedience in the
play are more nuanced. Miranda, for instance, believes she disobeys
her father by pursuing romance with Ferdinand. But her actions are in
line with her father’s wishes, since Prospero’s harsh treatment of
Ferdinand is designed to make Miranda take pity on him and fall in love

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with him. The situation is again different in Ariel’s case. Ariel has proven
himself a faithful servant, yet Prospero considers him disobedient when
he asks for his freedom. These complexities suggest that the island’s
hierarchy of power is less stable than it appears.

Treason
The first instance of treason occurred in the play’s prehistory, when
Antonio conspired with King Alonso to assassinate Prospero and
succeed him as the new Duke of Milan. The attempt to kill Prospero was
both political treason and brotherly betrayal. The theme of treason
returns in the form of twin assassination plots that arise during the play.
While Caliban and Stephano plot to kill Prospero and take control of the
island, Antonio, and Sebastian plot to kill Alonso and take control of
Naples. Both plots get interrupted, so despite these men’s treasonous
intentions, they do no real harm. Yet the interruption of these
assassination plots does not fully dismantle the theme of treason. The
play’s final scene features Miranda and Ferdinand playing chess—a
game that can only be won with the metaphorical assassination of the
opponent’s king. When Miranda accuses Ferdinand of cheating, she
recalls how her uncle Antonio cheated his way into power twelve years
prior.

Wonder/Admiration
The themes of wonder and admiration centre on Miranda, whose name
means both “wonderful” and “admirable” in Latin. Aside from Gonzalo,
Miranda most clearly symbolizes optimism about the possibility of new
beginnings and a better future: what she herself calls a “brave new
world.” Despite Miranda’s optimism, wonder sometimes carries a less
positive connotation in The Tempest. Under Prospero’s command and
Ariel’s magic, the island is itself a place of wonderful occurrences
meant to confuse and disorient. At one point in Act V Prospero
comments that Alonso and his company have had many wonderful

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visions, and that these visions prevent them from thinking clearly. In this
sense, the island’s wonderful occurrences conceal truth for the
purpose of manipulation.

Monstrosity
The theme of monstrosity constitutes the flip side to the themes of
wonder and admiration. Whereas wonder and admiration apply to the
beautiful and loving Miranda, monstrosity applies to the ugly and hateful
Caliban. The word “monster” appears most frequently in the scenes
with Stephano and Trinculo. Upon first laying eyes on Caliban, Trinculo
identifies him as a fishy-looking freak, and he imagines exploiting
Caliban’s monstrous appearance for profit on the streets of a city.
Caliban’s monstrosity derives not from his appearance alone, but from
the contrast between his savage appearance and his civilized language.
At one point Trinculo expresses surprise that a creature like Caliban
should use a term of respect like “Lord.” Although Caliban stands as the
primary example of monstrosity in The Tempest, Alonso also uses the
word “monstrous” to refer to illusory sounds and visions produced by
Ariel.

Symbols
Tempest
Storms suggest a swirling chaos of events beyond human control.
Shakespeare extends this idea of the storm in The Tempest. The magical
storm appears out of nowhere, the result of Prospero's long-held plan of
revenge against the enemies who drove him from his rightful place as duke
of Milan. The storm represents the eventual consequences of the
treachery and self-interest of Antonio. Shakespeare suggests that when
the natural order of things is disrupted, the repercussions create a conflict
that goes beyond the realm of humans and into the realm of the

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supernatural. In the end however, the chaos of the storm produces a
peaceful outcome and the restoration of order.

Magic Books
Early in the play the audience learns that it was Prospero's books that kept
him from ruling well in Milan: he was too focused on contemplative
pursuits to be an active ruler. As a result, he surrendered too much control
to his more active brother. After Prospero is deposed and is escaping,
Gonzalo sneaks some of his books onboard so that he will have them in
his exile. Through his magic books Prospero learns to use the power that
will help him execute revenge against his brother. The books symbolize
Prospero's unique use of power to control the world toward his own ends.
It is interesting, then, that at the end of the play Prospero surrenders his
magical powers and books so that he can rejoin human society and rule
well.

Sleep and Dreams

Sleeping and dreaming are frequent pastimes in The Tempest. Ariel
controls characters' levels of alertness and awareness by putting them to
sleep so the spirit and Prospero can execute other plans. The sleep and
dreams represent just how illusory human control is over life.

Motifs
Drowning
The prevalence of water imagery throughout the play serves to reinforce
the ever-present force of the tempest and its effects on the lives of the
characters. Prospero claims that his grief over his lost dukedom could
have drowned the sea; Ferdinand is certain that his father is drowned;
and Alonso believes that Ferdinand is drowned. Departure by drowning

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suggests a profound and complete loss: nothing returns from the sea.
However, loss is transformed into rebirth. Ferdinand and Alonso are not
drowned, and they reunite. Prospero, too, regains his dukedom through
the marriage of his daughter Miranda and Ferdinand.

Music
Music among other mysterious noises in the play creates a sensory and
enchanting experience for the characters and the audience alike. The
music reinforces the premise that the setting is magical. Ariel's music
leads Ferdinand to Miranda, and it wakes Gonzalo prior to Alonso's
attempted murder. The banquet and the wedding are awash in music. It
is as if music enchants the island.

Servants
Servant-master relationships dominate the play in an exploration of
power: Prospero and Caliban or Ariel, for example. Shakespeare asks,
in what ways is power used and abused in these unequal relationships?
Then he examines the effects of power in both positive and negative
lights as relationships under pressure are jeopardized or destabilized.

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