THE TEMPEST A Study Guide CONTENTS Suggested Coursework Assignments Synopsis of the play Analysis of the play, scene

by scene Brief Character Analyses More about Caliban & Ariel Compare and contrast Caliban and Ariel Ariel in the The Tempest Caliban: A Character Study Caliban: Semi-human brute or oppressed native person? Key Themes in The Tempest The Tempest A Critique of European Colonialism? The Tempest Origins & History Questions for Discussion Tempest Bibliography Suggestions for Further Reading

SUGGESTED COURSEWORK ASSIGNMENTS

In discussion with your tutor, you may choose one of these assignments for your detailed study of a Shakespeare play. However, you may suggest other possible assignments concerning The Tempest following your first reading.

Assignments
1. Compare and contrast the creation, treatment and use of Ariel and Caliban in The Tempest. 2. Ultimately, Caliban is more deserving of our sympathy than Ariel. To what extent do you agree with this interpretation of The Tempest? 3. O brave new world That has such people in't (V, i., ll.181-184). Where and how do you imagine Caliban and Ariel might fit into the brave new world described by Miranda? 4. Do you see Caliban as a semi-human brute or as a misunderstood and oppressed native person? 5. To what extent do you think Prospero was justified in taking the island from Caliban, and in returning the island to him at the close of the play? 6. To what extent do you agree Ariel earns his freedom as much Caliban deserves his enslavement? 7. The real monster in The Tempest is Prospero rather than Caliban. How far do you agree with this point of view? 8. With particular reference to his treatment of Caliban and Ariel, how does Shakespeare establish the connection between outward appearance and inner spirit? To what extent do you think he is justified by events in The Tempest?

THE TEMPEST - Synopsis

ALONSO King of Naples. SEBASTIAN his brother. PROSPERO the right Duke of Milan. ANTONIO his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan. FERDINAND son to the King of Naples. GONZALO an honest old Counsellor. ADRIAN Lords. FRANCISCO CALIBAN a savage and deformed Slave. TRINCULO a Jester. STEPHANO a drunken Butler. Master of a Ship. (Master:) Boatswain. (Boatswain:) Mariners. (Mariners:) MIRANDA daughter to Prospero. ARIEL an airy Spirit. IRIS CERES JUNO presented by Spirits. Nymphs Reapers Other Spirits attending on Prospero.

SCENE A ship at Sea: an island.

There are only nine scenes in The Tempest and, aside from the opening shipwreck scene, they are all set on parts of Prospero's Island (the location of which is deliberately ambiguous, with textual signs pointing toward Bermuda in the New World and to the Old World of Mediterranean Tunis). Events do not cut back and forth between locations, there is nothing akin to dramatic tension in the play, and even its dual murder plots are never to be taken seriously. Act IV and Act V each consist of a single scene in which changes of scene unfold in transitions from reality into dream-like illusion. There is, in fact, very little plot in The Tempest. Its central narrative can be sketched in a few short strokes. Prospero and his daughter Miranda were set adrift by his brother, Antonio, in league with the King of Naples, Alonso. They wound up on an exotic island where Prospero has used his knowledge of magic to control its non-human inhabitants. Through his powers, Prospero arranges for his brother, the king and others (including the king's son Ferdinand) to be shipwrecked on that island.

Often working through the sprite Ariel, he then uses magic to orchestrate the repentance of the wrongdoers and arrange the marriage of Miranda to Ferdinand. While this is a fair summary of the plot, it does not begin to describe what takes place before our eyes (and ears). Perhaps most notably, it includes no reference to one of the most memorable denizens of the Island -- and in all of Shakespeare's magical comedies -- the ridiculous monster Caliban.

Act I Scene i: The opening shipwreck scene is prefaced by Shakespeare with the stage directions a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning is heard. We are aboard a sailing ship in uncharted waters and in the midst of a violent storm, the thunder and lightning being but the first brace of the special effects that fill the play. Apart from the ship's captain and crew, there are five major male characters on board: Alonso, the King of Naples; his son, the young man Ferdinand; his brother, Sebastian; Antonio the Duke of Milan; and a counsellor to the King, Gonzalo. In this brief scene, while the King and his son are at prayers below, Antonio and Sebastian curse the sailors as fools and drunkards who are unable to hold the ship together in the storm; the good counsellor Gonzalo refrains from this useless carping. But the ship splits and all of its passenger and crew are dumped into the violent seas off Prospero's Island. Scene ii: The setting now moves to dry land, to what we shall refer to as Prospero's Island, and there we see Prospero himself, the brother of Antonio and once the Duke of Milan himself, speaking with his daughter, Miranda. She has witnessed the shipwreck off the coast of the Island, knows that her father's magic caused the storm, and is empathetically disturbed by the suffering at hand. Prospero, a master sorcerer and the ruler of the Island's strange inhabitants (which include sprites like Ariel and the half-human monster Caliban), assures her that no harm has been done, that all of those aboard the ship are now safe on the Island. Prospero then discloses to Miranda why he has caused the storm and what her actual background is. We learn that Miranda came to the Island when she was only two years old. Prior to that, Prospero had been the Duke of Milan. His brother Antonio, however, with King Alonso's approval, took over Prospero's estate and then set him adrift in a leaky craft with his infant daughter. Had it not been for Gonzalo's provision of food and water, they would have died; instead, they reached the exotic island where Prospero now reigns, Gonzalo having preserved Prospero's book of magic.

The time is now right, he tells her, to bring his perfidious brother and his accomplices (King Alonso and his brother Sebastian), to a reckoning of sorts. Beyond this, Prospero is silent about what his plans are. Miranda falls asleep and the winged-sprite Ariel enters. It is through Ariel that Prospero has caused the storm, and Ariel tells his master that he has carried out his instructions to a tee. We then learn that when Prospero came to the Island, Ariel had been imprisoned in a tree stump for refusing to carry out the evil orders of its ruler at the time, the hag-witch Sycorax. Prospero used his magic to free Ariel on the condition that the sprite now serve him; Ariel wants to be freed from this bond and Prospero assures him that he will release him from service once his plan for Antonio and the others has been carried out. Prospero gives Ariel additional instructions, telling him to become invisible to the shipwrecked mortals. The sprite departs, Miranda wakes up, and Prospero summons another one of the Island's fabulous denizens, Caliban, the son or spawn of Sycorax, whom the master magician has already described as a freckled whelp, hag born), not honor'd with/A human shape (ll.282-283). Caliban, too, is under Prospero's magic, consigned to menial labour that he performs in a resentful, surly way for fear of being pinched by spirits under the magician's command. We learn that Prospero enslaved Caliban because the abhorr'd slave tried to rape Miranda. Caliban expresses no remorse for his lust, saying that he wished he had peopled else/This island with Calibans (ll.349-350). After Prospero sends Caliban to gather some wood, Ariel returns with the youthful Prince of Naples, Ferdinand, entranced by the sprite's piping and songs. Ferdinand is the first human that Miranda has seen since she was a baby and she immediately falls in love with him; for his part, Ferdinand is charmed by Miranda's almost supernatural beauty and charm. Her father approves of their love but he wishes to test the young man (and his love for Miranda) by first putting him to hard labour. As part of the test, Prospero tells his daughter that Ferdinand is actually a poor example of a young man. He then sends Ariel on another mission. Scene i: On another part of the island, King Alonso is in despair, believing that his son Ferdinand has been lost at sea. Gonzalo tries to console him, saying that Ferdinand may still be alive, but Antonio and Sebastian mock these false hopes, asserting that the king's son must be dead. Invisible to all of them, Ariel arrives and puts Alonso and Gonzalo asleep. As they lay in slumber, Antonio suggests to the king's brother Sebastian that this is a perfect opportunity to murder Alonso and (with his son dead) for
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Sebastian to become the next king. Sebastian eventually gets Antonio's drift, they draw their swords, but before they can strike the king and Gonzalo, Ariel (still invisible) returns and rouses the intended victims from their sleep. Unaware of the plot against him, King Alonso and the other three men continue their search for Ferdinand. Scene ii: On yet another part of the island, Caliban encounters one of the king's shipwrecked court, the jester Trinculo. Trinculo is amazed by Caliban and is unable to say whether the monster is a man or a fish. When thunder roars, Trinculo becomes frightened and hides under Caliban's cloak. Just then, another comic character, the court butler Stephano appears, and it is apparent from his songs and the bottle that he carries with him that Stephano is drunk on wine that he salvaged from the ship. Seeing Trinculo and Caliban in the same outercloak, Stephano thinks he is in the presence of a single, two-headed creature. The confusion is resolved and Stephano gives some wine to Caliban. Caliban is elated with its effects, he offers to serve Stephano and Trinculo as gods, saying that he will exchange his old master Prospero for these new masters as the trio sallies forth toward more bottles of wine. Act III Scene i: Back at Prospero's cell, we see Ferdinand carrying a heavy pile of wood. While the young man rebels in words at this menial servitude, he is still happy to perform the task because his beloved Miranda is nearby. Miranda enters; the lovers affirm their ardour for each other; eavesdropping, Prospero is pleased by Ferdinand's attitude, is glad that his daughter has found a worthy husband-to-be, but then says that he must keep his grand plan on schedule. Scene ii: Going back to the drunken trio of Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano, the monster becomes displeased by Trinculo and says that he will only serve Stephano. He proposes that Stephano kill Prospero and seize the source of his magical powers, his sorcerer's book, taking Miranda as his bride and then naming Trinculo and Caliban as his Viceroys. Cloaked by invisibility, Ariel appears to us on stage and sets the three at odds with each other through insulting asides. The sprite then plays a tune on his tabor and pipe, and leads these three fools along. Scene iii: On another part of the island, the King and his company search for Ferdinand. Now invisible himself, Prospero causes a magic banquet to appear attended by spirits in many Shapes. When Sebastian and Antonio move toward the goods that they have brought with them, however, the spirits and the banquet vanish into thin air.

Disguised as a harpy, Ariel addresses Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian as three men of sin. He reveals that the man whom they wronged a dozen years ago, Prospero, has brought them to this island to exact revenge. He tells them that they will be tormented by spirits under Prospero's command until they repent, atone for their misdeeds, and disown evil-doing. The men are amazed by this as a still-hidden and unheard Prospero congratulates Ariel and Gonzalo approves of the justice that is now at hand. Act IV Scene i: The only scene of Act IV takes place in front of Prospero's cell. The magician apologizes to Ferdinand for having been so hard on him and reveals that the enforced labour ordeal was a test of the youth's character and love for Miranda. Ferdinand has passed the test and Prospero calls forth a series of ancient goddesses (Iris, Ceres, and Juno) all of whom bless the union of Ferdinand and Prospero's daughter. Nymphs and musicians lend further revelry to the festive scene. Almost as an afterthought, Prospero then remembers that Caliban and his new masters are plotting to kill him. He arranges for Ariel to bring them to his cell and to place some regal garments in their path. Seeing these beautiful clothes, Trinculo and Stephano move immediately to put them on, but Caliban is angry with them, realizing that this is one of Prospero's tricks and fearing the punishment that the magician will inflict on him once the assassination plan has gone awry. Prospero unleashes spirits in the form of hunting dogs who chase after the three plotters. With this out of the way, Prospero says that since his brother, the king, and Sebastian are now at his mercy, the final phase of the plan is at hand: he will be merciful toward all of his enemies and will release Ariel from bondage soon.

Act V Scene i: Again the only scene of the act, the final movement of the play remains at Prospero's cell. Ariel reports to Prospero that his enemies are now captured after their harrowing experience, while the good and loyal Gonzalo is griefstricken by Ferdinand's apparent death. Prospero again affirms his promises to be merciful, to free Ariel, and then to leave the Island and his magical powers behind when he returns to his rightful place in human society as Duke of Milan. He sheds his sorcerer's robes and dons his Duke's noble attire.

Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian arrive in Ariel's tow and once their senses have been restored, they learn that Prospero, the man whom they wronged, is behind the bizarre travails that they have suffered. They are penitent, Prospero forgives them, and, in return, his brother and the king recognize him as the rightful ruler of Milan. Alonso's grief over Ferdinand comes to an end when Prospero reveals the young man with Miranda and their wedding plans are announced. Some of the minor characters, including the captain of the wrecked ship, arrive and marvel at the scene before them, and we learn that the ship itself has been miraculously repaired (it is through Ariel that this final marvel has occurred). Prospero invites virtually everyone (save the drunken trio and Antonio) into his cell for a wedding celebration that includes a dance or masque. He then makes good on his promise of freeing Ariel and recites the play's closing epilogue speech to the audience, asking them to free him from the bond of producing more shows for their amusement.

THE TEMPEST ACT BY ACT ANALYSIS Analysis of Act I: Scene 1 & Scene 2 The play begins with a pair of contrasting scenes; one showing men who are helpless against the storm they believe to be nature's wrath, and one showing the storm itself to be merely the work of an illusionist, trying to reclaim his place through his magic. In the first scene, the boatswain suggests that men, despite their power, are still subject to nature; what cares these roarers for the name of king, he asks, when the king's ship is being pummelled by the storm (I.i.16-17). The boatswain's statement makes sense in the context of that scene; however, it becomes ironic in the second scene, when Miranda and Prospero reveal that it was Prospero himself who caused the storm. Antonio and Sebastian's behaviour also reveals the brutish, unkind characteristics that mark them throughout the play; Antonio's depiction in this scene gives credence to Prospero's traitorous depiction of his brother that comes out when he tells Miranda about the wrongs perpetrated against him. The first impression of Gonzalo is not quite as correct as those of Antonio and Sebastian; he abets their affront of the boatswain, and shows little of the honesty or kindness which he exhibits later in the play, or for which Prospero remembers him. Also, Antonio and Sebastian's diffidence toward the boatswain on account of their status is the first demonstration in the play of social hierarchy, which becomes an important theme. Characters within the work, like Antonio,
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Sebastian, and even Prospero, depend upon the perpetuation of this hierarchy to give them their power, and only become leaders when those beneath them in station submit to them. Caliban is well aware that Prospero's position depends on Caliban's obeisance, as he says to Prospero, I am all the subjects that you have; though it is Prospero's art and power, rather than a landed title, that makes Caliban, the natural owner of the island, subordinate. The nature of power is repeatedly in question in this first act; Prospero believes Antonio's power to be marred by its underhanded acquisition, while Prospero believes his own power to be valid and just because he acquired it through his own knowledge and effort. Prospero reasserts his authority over Ariel, claiming that his pains to free her indenture her to him; and over Caliban too, because the charge of attempted rape takes away his credibility, as far as Prospero and Miranda are concerned. However, Prospero's power is not as justly attained as he would like to believe; he keeps Ariel in unwilling bondage, as Sycorax did, and keeps control of Caliban through threats of his power. Prospero debates throughout the work that his power, which he achieved through oppression, is more legitimate than Antonio's, which he achieved through theft; and it is this value judgment that allows Prospero to cast himself as the victim, and Antonio as the villain, though this case might not be correct. If Prospero has a mirror in any of the characters, it is Sycorax, whom Prospero repeatedly condemns as a witch. Their histories are remarkably similar; both were banished from their native countries, fled to the island for a new life, and gained control over the spirits on the island. Despite Prospero's dislike for Sycorax (which is curious, considering his only knowledge of her is from Ariel), they are also similar in their failings; they share the same anger, both demand servitude from those who are unwilling, and keep others in control though constant threats. Prospero and Sycorax have the same magical abilities through their mutual claim of Ariel, and share the ability to perform feats of magic through the servitude of Ariel. Prospero's long speech in scene 2 shows several of the contradictions inherent in Prospero's appearance and nature. Prospero can be empathetic and calm, as shown when he gracefully allays Miranda's fears for the safety of the men; but, he is also angry and vengeful, when he speaks of his past and his brother's alleged treachery. He calls his brother perfidious, false, and casts his brother as a villain when telling his history to his daughter. Paradoxically, Prospero also admits that it was his being so retired from his duties that awaked an evil nature in his brother, and his trust did beget of [his brother] a falsehood (I.ii.91-96). Prospero himself causes events, like the shipwreck, without which the play could not exist; in these powers of manipulation, he performs the functions of the author from within the work. Some essayists have gone as far as to claim
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that Prospero is a mirror of Shakespeare as a writer because of how he fulfils the author function, though there seems to be little supporting evidence for this claim. As of the end of Act One, Prospero is the only character who is fully fleshed out. The characters of Antonio and Sebastian have been sketched out; and Ariel, Caliban, and Miranda appear, though their interactions with Prospero do more to further Prospero's characterization than their own. However, in Prospero, more than any other character, key themes come into play, and Act One begins the development of this exceedingly crucial character.

Analysis of Act II: Scene 1 & Scene 2 In the first scene of Act 2, Sebastian and Antonio first display a mischievous skill with language which they use to mock Gonzalo, then the nobleman Adrian. Sebastian teases the somewhat long-winded but good-hearted councillor by saying that Gonzalo is winding up the watch of his wit, by and by, it will strike when he begins another entreaty to the king. When Gonzalo opens his mouth again, he is answered with Sebastian saying one, as if Gonzalo had struck the hour, like a clock. Then, they change the subject of their puns to money; what a spendthrift is he of his tongue, says Antonio, speaking of Gonzalo as if he were a character more akin to the very garrulous, somewhat foolish Polonius from Hamlet (II.i.25) Gonzalo and Polonius hold the same position, of head councillor to the king, but is not the same wastrel of words that Polonius proved to be; he makes a few remarks in this act that are beside the point, like his statements about their garments being fresh, but nothing that sounds so foolish as Polonius' brevity is the soul of wit speech in Act 2 of Hamlet. Antonio and Sebastian detach themselves from their party through their mocking wit. Adrian and Gonzalo try, in a level-headed way, to both take stock of their situation, and hearten their party; they note the subtle, tender, and delicate temperance of the island, and report that here is everything advantageous to life (II.i.42,50). Gonzalo becomes optimistic, making statements about how lush and lusty the grass looks; Antonio and Sebastian's replies to Gonzalo's benign remarks are distinctly negative, contradicting Gonzalo with claims that the ground indeed is tawny, and that he lies in his positive assessments (II.i.53,54). In this act, notice how Sebastian and Antonio are thoroughly characterized as heedless, careless, harsh, and arrogant through their disregard for their fellows, their predicament, and through their constant bickering and insulting remarks. All of their character flaws that are exposed in this act are important in the later
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action, foreshadowing their backstabbing tendencies and their eventual comeuppance. Act 2 returns to the themes of political legitimacy, source of power, and usurpation that arose in the first act. While Prospero firmly believed that the only legitimate power was the power that came from one's knowledge and hard work, Antonio believes that the power he usurped from his brother is legitimate, because he deserved it more and had the skill to wrestle it away. Look how well my garments sit upon me, much feater than before, Antonio brags to Sebastian; Antonio's lack of remorse over his crime, and his arrogant claim that his power is just because he uses it better, foreshadow a confrontation with his brother Prospero, and an eventual fall from this illgained power. However, Ariel's involvement in this conspiracy shows it to be part of Prospero's plan; Ariel makes all but Antonio and Sebastian go to sleep, and then causes conspiratorial seriousness to settle on them as well. The situation is created as part of Prospero's project, to reinforce his idea of his brothers as villains, and act as Prospero foresees through his art that they will. His project dies if Antonio and Sebastian's deviant plot is not made; and here, Prospero again shows himself to be a manipulator of the play's events, influencing the course of the play from within. There is great dramatic irony in this situation, and in the fact that Prospero causes his brothers to do the very things that he condemns them for. The most important literary elements in the second scene are probably those that are used to refer to Caliban. Upon finding Caliban lying on the ground, Trinculo calls him a dead Indian; indeed, in Elizabethan times, natives were brought back to England from foreign lands, and their captors could earn a great deal of money exhibiting them in London. Trinculo's speech is significant because he describes Caliban as a fish, and a strange beast, showing his Western contempt and lack of understanding of a person with a different skin color than his own. Stephano assumes that Caliban is a mooncalf, or a monstrosity, the term alluding to a folk tale of the time. Although Caliban asserted his natural authority over the island in Act 1, Prospero's usurpation of Caliban's power is negated by Caliban's portrayal as a savage seeking a new master. Caliban proves Prospero's view of him, as a natural servant, to be true, when Caliban immediately adopts Stephano as his new master upon Stephano's sudden appearance. Caliban, as a native, is seen as a monster, not only by Prospero, but by Trinculo and Stephano also; their contempt for dark-skinned Caliban is analogous to Europeans' view of natives in the West Indies and other

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colonies, and Shakespeare's treatment of Caliban provides some interesting social commentary on colonization. In fact, when this play appeared in the First Folio of Shakespeare's work, shortly after Shakespeare's death in the early 17th century, Caliban's character description marks him as a savage and deformed slave, despite glimpses of his noble character in the play. As a representation of a man apart from Western society, Caliban is seen as a contemptuous character because of prejudices of Shakespeare's time; these Elizabethan-period social prejudices also belong to many of the characters in the play, and are the prime determinant of the negative view that Prospero, Stephano, and Trinculo have of Caliban in the play.

Analysis of Act III: Scene 1 & Scene 2 & Scene 3 Ferdinand is stripped of the privileges of his rank by Prospero, who did the same to Caliban by making him a slave as well. Prospero's action in this case might not be fair, but Ferdinand bears it, and in so doing, legitimates Prospero's rule, just as Caliban did; this case again stresses the theme that wilful obedience is a legitimate source of power. Prospero's tone, when speaking of Ferdinand in this act, is a curious mix of affection and distaste; he refers to Ferdinand as poor worm, which could be taken as a statement of endearment. However, the worm was often used as a symbol of corruption and lust, as mentioned in Act 2, scene 4 of Twelfth Night, and as it is represented in William Blake's poem The Rose. In this case, the symbolic meaning foreshadows Prospero's suspicious warnings to the couple to wait until their wedding ceremony, and recalls his accusation of Ferdinand of treason and bad faith in the first act. In his speech in this act, Ferdinand employs paradox, overstatement, etc. in his many entreaties to Miranda. The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, and makes my labours pleasures, Ferdinand says, using paradoxes that communicate how magical and wonderful his beloved is, to turn the unpleasant pleasant (III.i.6-7). A contrast between Miranda and her father shows her to be much more pleasant than her father, who's composed of harshness: yet, he declares, with overstatement, that he will carry some thousands of these logs for his stern taskmaster, because of the great sweetness of Miranda (III.i.9-10). Ferdinand overstates his resolve, in order to impress upon Miranda how much he would do for her; he swears that he would rather crack [his] sinews, break

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[his] back than see her work, though his work could scarcely be hard enough to cause these injuries (III.i.26). They make all the vows of marriage to each other; Ferdinand swears to love, prize, and honour Miranda, and in turn Miranda pledges to give him her modesty, meaning her virginity (III.i.73, 54). They give each other their hands, and Miranda declares him her husband; the show of love is nice, but they know almost nothing about each other, and given that they have been together for less than twenty-four hours, the sentiment is rather rash, and almost foolish. In scene 2, Caliban is still regarded as a servant-monster, despite being revealed as a human. Stephano and Trinculo, though arguably less intelligent than Caliban, still treat him like he is hardly human because of his native status and skin color; and the fact that Caliban tolerates this treatment and namecalling shows that he accepts this inferiority and Stephano's tenuous authority as well. The previously rebellious and independent-thinking Caliban is suddenly reduced to asking if he can lick [Stephano's] shoe and the intelligence he demonstrated in Act 1 has all but disappeared. Caliban is once again shown to be a natural servant because he is a nativeanother reflection of the prejudiced Elizabethan views which Shakespeare uses to shape Caliban as a character. However, these prejudices mean that Caliban, as a character, is very erratic, and his motivations are vague; when he first appears in the play, he is churlish toward his captor and shows a remarkable power of thought, but quite unexpectedly, he turns into a fawning, blind, mindless servant who refuses even to think for himself. As characters' intelligence, nobility, and feelings become apparent through their language, Caliban's intelligence, though completely contradicted by his actions, is clear in the words he speaks to Trinculo and Stephano. At line 40, Caliban begins to speak in lines that approximate the rhythms of blank verse; and his speech, in lines 132-141, show a great descriptive power and poetic potential in this allegedly savage man. However, it must be noted that Ariel also appears right before line 40, and that means that Caliban could merely be voicing words that Prospero had already written for him. Prospero wants Caliban to try and murder him, so that his view of Caliban as a cut-throat, cruel savage is confirmed; it is difficult to tell whether Caliban's murder plot is in any way a product of his own hatred for Prospero, or whether it springs from the sole influence of Ariel, who is present for the length of Caliban's conspiratorial speech. Though so many of the characters in this play openly show contempt for the natives on the island, Gonzalo is probably the only exception. He does describe

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them as being of monstrous shape, which is hardly complimentary and also recalls Trinculo taunting Caliban as being a monster. However, Gonzalo is more open-minded in his appraisal of the natives than this statement would suggest; their manners are more gentle-kind than of our human generation you shall find, he says of them, noting the nobility that savages like Caliban are capable of displaying (III.iii.33-34). Colonial attitudes toward native peoples are an important theme of the work, and Shakespeare's treatment of Caliban is marked by the prejudices of his time. But, what is strange about Gonzalo's remark is that Prospero is moved to call him an honest lord because of it, though Prospero himself has a negative view of the natives, and does not question the correctness of his own view. That Gonzalo is considered good because of it, despite the author's and many of the characters' contradictory views is ironic, and also difficult to understand.

Analysis of Act IV Prospero tries to dismiss his tyrannical demands for Ferdinand's service as trials of thy love but also makes mention in this first scene that he has punished Ferdinand, which implies a need for retribution for a wrongdoing (IV.i.6). The word punished that he uses recalls the fabricated charges Prospero raises against Ferdinand in the first act, of Ferdinand being a spy or a potential usurper; and the irony is that Prospero heaps his suspicion on Ferdinand, who has no such designs, while forgetting the very real plots of Caliban and his brothers. Prospero's actions, however, were unfair and ungrounded; he uses the couple's love to try to excuse himself in this instance, but Prospero is not the just judge he would have himself appear to be. Ironically, Prospero's decision to let Miranda and Ferdinand marry was made even before Ferdinand came to the island, and was made because the marriage would secure Prospero's position back home, and would make his daughter queen as well. The work Prospero made Ferdinand do, coupled with the enchantment that he put his daughter and Ferdinand under so they would fall in love, merely assured that Prospero's plan would succeed, as it finally does. But, be wary of the difference between the way Prospero's character appears, and the machinations and plans lying beneath the appearance he would like to project, especially in instances such as this one. However, just as Prospero begins to promise a blessing upon their union, his tone again becomes threatening. It is so important to Prospero that they not consummate their marriage before full and holy rite be ministered, that he

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would wish them barren hate if they do, and continues with enough bitter, harsh-toned rhetoric to hopefully drive his point home (IV.i.17-20). Prospero conjures up a frightful image of disdain, personified as being soureyed; and, in meaningful contrast with the traditional flower-strewn marriage bed, an image of hateful weeds symbolizing the downfall and pollution of the marriage. Prospero's language, heavy with unpleasant images and symbols, does yield some result; Ferdinand, in earnest, forswears his worser genius, or any possible influence of lust and dishonour within him. Prospero seems preoccupied with Miranda's virginity because it is inextricably bound up with Prospero's own power. Her virginity is their prime bargaining chip in winning an advantageous marriage that will secure both of their positions; and if she does marry Ferdinand, their power back in Italy is secured for both of them. Virginity was often an important bargaining pointmost notably, for Queen Elizabeth, who used her eligibility to gain a great deal of power throughout her reign. If Miranda's virginity is thrown away, then Prospero's greatest hope for regaining his estate and position is gone too; so Prospero tries his best to keep Miranda well-informed of her importance, and keep Ferdinand warned as to the potential consequences of his actions. Prospero's great concern foreshadows the importance of this theme in the betrothal masque; in the masque, Iris makes mention that the couple cannot be together till Hymen's torch be lighted, her language parallel to that in Prospero's earlier entreaty to the lovers. Prospero reduces his daughter, who is intelligent and worthy, to a mere object, wrapping her with the language of exchange when speaking of her to Ferdinand. Prospero refers to his daughter, not by her name, but as a rich gift, compensation for Ferdinand's pains; he says his daughter has been worthily purchased as an acquisition, further building up his metaphor of his daughter as a thing of exchange. Prospero's metaphors, and overstatement of his daughter's perfection (she will outstrip all praise) could be meant to distract Ferdinand from what Prospero and Miranda are getting in the bargain. Indeed, Prospero never makes mention of the power and position that he and his daughter are regaining because of this rich gift, or the true purchase price of his daughter's hand. Prospero calls upon Iris, the messenger of the gods and also the goddess of the rainbow, to perform a betrothal masque for Ferdinand and Miranda. A betrothal masque also appears in As You Like It that is presided over by Hymen; but otherwise, the spectacle was mostly reserved for weddings of state and
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almost exclusively for court functions. In this respect, the masque does confirm that the wedding is an important oneeleven were actually performed at the court of King James, and some of these for occasions of the marriage of rich and important people. Masques were special ritual-type plays in which the monarch was always the protagonist, and the subject was how royalty made things harmonious and resolved tensions between people. Although Shakespeare's masque took some inspiration from earlier ones, thematically it is entirely innovative. Royal power is displayed as power over nature, and the idea of the masque as the projection of a royal vision first appeared in this masque in The Tempest, and were to appear again in Jonson's court masques of later years. Once again, Prospero almost loses control because he is absorbed by his art; but here, he is able to shake himself from his reverie, and becomes conscious of time again. The moment is important because Prospero is in real danger of losing control, and almost gives up his chance to act because of the pull of his magic. The moment is a humanizing one for Prospero, as he realizes his mortality and his forgetfulness, as well as the limits of his magic. The masque, which he created from his own power, disappears in an instant; and finally, Prospero realizes that his works of magic are all in vain, as they are made of baseless fabric and will not last. He sees that we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and at last realizes that his mind has aged and his powers are fragile and faltering (IV.i.166-167). It is a sobering moment for Prospero, to admit his weakness and infirmity; and this marks the beginning of his surrender of his magic. It is not Caliban and his drunken friends, whom Ariel describes in a simile as being like unbacked colts, that Prospero has to worry about (l. 176). Indeed, the thought of Caliban upsets Prospero more than the plot, as Prospero again curses the one on whose nature nurture can never stick (188-89). Prospero thinks that Caliban is bad because he has not adopted the civilized ways of thinking that Prospero has, and must be bad natured because of this; but Prospero fails to realize that Caliban's relative goodness has been more spoiled by the way Prospero treats him than by any refusal to adopt foreign ways of thinking. Prospero, for all his learning, still espouses a haughty, colonial point of view when it comes to Caliban, and lets this prejudiced treatment corrupt a potentially good man's nature. Analysis of Act V Prospero's first words suggest an alchemic metaphor; the words gather to a head denote things coming to a climax, but also liquid coming to a boil, and Prospero's project is a kind of scientific experiment as well. Prospero, with his
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somewhat sinister studies in magic and strange powers, is a figure reminiscent of an alchemist as well, though his experiments are more involved with human nature than metallurgy. There are also a few interesting allusions to English folk beliefs in Prospero's speeches, one of them with the green sour ringlets that he mentions (V.i.37). These ringlets that he is referring to are fairy rings, or small circles of sour grass caused by the roots of toadstools; according to folk tales, these rings were made by fairies dancing. Suddenly-appearing midnight mushrooms, as Prospero calls them, were thought to be another sign of fairies' overnight activities. The curfew that Prospero mentions in the same speech marked the beginning of the time of night when spirits were believed to walk abroad, and fairies and other creatures were believed to cause their mischief then. When Prospero at last confronts Alonso and his brothers, he uses another ocean metaphor to describe the gradual process of Prospero's spell falling from them, and their minds returning to reason. Understanding, in Prospero's estimation, is the sea, and confusion is the shore at low tide, waiting to be cleared of its foul and muddy covering. Though they are still charmed as Prospero speaks like this, gradually understanding will reach them, like the sea on an approaching tide (V.i.80). The surprise of Ferdinand alive on the island is nicely set up by one of Alonso's statements; upon being told that Prospero lost a daughter, in a manner of speaking, Alonso exclaims, o, that they were living both in Naples, the king and queen there! (149-50). The statement is perhaps too tidy a foreshadowing of the revelation that Ferdinand and Miranda are in fact alive, and will be united as king and queen; but, as in Act 1, an urgently expressed wish of one of the characters is fulfilled by the economical workings of the plot. Ferdinand and Miranda metaphorically reduce their parents' political wrangling over kingdoms into a game of chess. Allegorically, the game of chess often represented political conflict over a prize, and here, the stakes are the realm that Miranda and Ferdinand will inherit. Although Ferdinand and Miranda are a confirmed couple by the end of the play, their discussion over the game foreshadows some political movement looming in their own future. Miranda makes an accusation, at least partly in jest, that Ferdinand will play [her] false; the baseless charge recalls Prospero's false cry of treason against Ferdinand, in the first act (172). Yet, Miranda openly admits to complicity in any cheating that Ferdinand might commit: for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, and I would call it fair play, she assures him, her remark forecasting that the same ambition, deceit, and struggle that marked their parents' lives shall also be present in their own (174-5).

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As for Miranda, her famous exclamation of o brave new world that has such people in't can hardly be taken at its cheery face value, when Miranda's knowledge and the context around the statement are considered (183-4). The remark comes only ten lines after Miranda's half-joking, politically minded statements to Ferdinand; and, considering Miranda's typical tone and manner in the play, a wide-eyed expression of wonder would be out of character. The remark could have been spurred purely by the briefly worded reunion of Alonso and his son Ferdinand; however, coming so soon after Sebastian's lessthan-exuberant remark, and with so little build-up, it is unlikely that Miranda's remark can be construed in a purely positive way. Also, Prospero's reply, 'tis new to thee, sounds more like a remark correcting her assumption about the outside world, than a simple, rather unnecessary, and prosaic affirmation. The tone of Miranda's utterance is complicated by a great many factors, and its meaning is a great deal less straightforward than it suggests when taken out of context and character. As for the closure of this play, do not be misled by Gonzalo's typically optimistic appraisal of the situation. Gonzalo rejoices that Ferdinands found a wife, Prospero his dukedom, and all of us ourselves, conveniently omitting any mention of Caliban's fate, or Sebastian and Antonio's lack of salvation (2102). As with many of Shakespeare's comedies, with which this play is loosely grouped, the resolution is anything but cut and dry. There is a parallel lack of closure in Love's Labours Lost, in which the ladies of France swear at the end to leave off any discussion of marriage for an additional year; and in Twelfth Night, at the end of which Orsino and Viola's union is indefinitely postponed. Also, in Much Ado about Nothing, when Hero reveals herself to Claudio, he says no words of apology or love; a happy resolution can be read into the situation, but there is no reply at all from Claudio to such a major development, either in words or gestures in the stage directions. Shakespeare's comedies might be considered to have happy endings; but, the conclusions of these plays, even more so than with tragedies like Hamlet, are rarely simple in their implications, or harmonized in their meaning and tone. Prospero uses his magic for devious, selfish, and questionable purposes, and with him, it is difficult to separate the good-intentioned magic he uses from the bad. Prospero himself has a mixed view of his own magic; he recognizes how his fascination with magic lost him his dukedom, and almost caused his loss of control, and therefore cannot maintain his magical practices and his role as a man of action in the real world.

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He also chooses to give up his magic when he leaves the island, revealing a mixed view of magic in Prospero himself. Prospero's battle against his fabricated characterization of Sycorax is resolved when he finally accepts Caliban, her offspring, and the dark qualities that Caliban represents to him; this thing of darkness I / acknowledge mine, Prospero says, bringing closure to his struggles against Caliban and his allegedly evil mother (V.i.275-6). Prospero's relinquishing of his magic is coincident with the disclosure of his methods and devices; his magic is spoiled, just like any kind of magic, when the boatswain comes forth and tells of the strange fate of the ship, complete with some remarkably vivid sound imagery. Prospero's powers cannot survive the trial of being revealed, and his promise to tell Alonso of his devices and tricks is the final act of his resignation. As for Caliban, the wrongs done to him are not redressed, and the poetic, noble sentiments that he shows within the play, especially in his beautiful speech about the island, do not reappear. How fine my master is, Caliban exclaims; he fully proves himself a born servant, by apologizing to Prospero for taking the foolish, drunken Stephano for his master, and submitting himself to Prospero more wilfully than ever (261). Trinculo and Stephano's ill-conceived murder plot is simply laughed off by the party, and Prospero shows no signs of treating Caliban with anything other than veiled contempt. Although Prospero does finally accept Caliban, he also still regards Caliban as being as disproportioned in his manners as in his shape; Prospero upholds his civilized superiority over this native, though to acknowledge Caliban and to also dislike his ways of being are completely contradictory views. A major theme running through the entire work is forgiveness versus vengeance; Prospero causes the tempest out of a wish for revenge, but by the end of the work, he decides to forgive the crimes against him, fabricated or otherwise. He finally declares this intent, with his words alluding to the proverb to be able to do harm and not do it is noble. At last, Prospero renounces the anger and resentment that marked his tone throughout the play, especially in scene 2 of the first act. Prospero declares his brothers penitent, though they are not; Alonso expresses his regret, but Antonio, who has the most to be sorry for, expresses no remorse. In the end, the play's concern with political legitimacy is resolved by the disinheritance of the usurper, though it is unresolved in the case of Caliban. Prospero has again secured his dukedom, and also his daughter's power and marriage; and so, with Prospero's main goals achieved, the play ends.
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However, in an epilogue spoken by Prospero in rhymed couplets, Prospero steps outside the confines of the play to address the audience, as a character from within a fiction. The audience of the play, he says, are the ones who hold the power over his fate, and must finally forgive him for his deeds; a larger world surrounding the play is revealed, with the audience recreating the role of the author, which Prospero himself recreates, in turn, from within the play. No other Shakespeare play has quite this kind of un-ended ending to it; but, the sentiment is completely fitting, coming as it does after a play in which unfinished business is such a recurrent, pervasive theme

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Brief Character Analyses

Prospero: Possibly a surrogate for Shakespeare, Prospero is, like the Bard, a scholar who orchestrates his creative powers toward a purpose. He is also yet another example of what humanity is, for Prospero pronounces and shows in his actions that mercy is a hallmark of humankind. At start of Act V, Prospero reveals his plans for his treacherous brother Antonio, the King and those others who have so deeply wronged him: Though with their high wrongs I am strook to th' quick, Yet with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury Do I take part. The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further. (V, i., ll.26-30). Prospero, of course, is an extraordinary human being whose mastery over magic distinguishes him from the lot of mankind. Nevertheless, he displays his innate humanity by renouncing his supernatural powers and discarding his book. Anticipating the final pardon of the three evil menbeing chased by Ariel's hunting hounds, Prospero discloses, this rough magic/I ere abjureI'll break my staff,/Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,/And deeper than did ever plummer sound/I'll drown my book. (V, i., ll.54-57). In the end, Prospero is drawn back to human society and to his role within it as the rightful Duke of Milan. Caliban: Prospero was not the original ruler of the Island, nor was he the legitimate heir of Sycorax. The rightful sovereign of the Island is Caliban, and it is in the contrast between Prospero and his command over Art and Caliban, who is commanded by both his instincts and by Prospero, that Shakespeare discloses yet another route to the question of what is human. In the jester Trinculo's words, Caliban is a most ridiculous monster (II, ii., ll.165-166). A cross between a human being, a fish, and puppy, Caliban is natural, but he is also from the evil litter of Sycorax. Caliban has been taught language by Prospero, and he is remarkably articulate in framing his case against his enslavement by the magician. When thou cams't first, Thou strok'st me and made much of me, would'st give me Warer with berries in't, and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night, and then I lov'd thee, And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,

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The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile, Curs'd be that I did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subject that you have, Which first was mine own king, and her you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep me from The rest o' th' island. (I, ii.332-343). The Tempest from Caliban's side, so to speak, and interpreted it as an indictment of the European conquest and enslavement of the Natives of the New World. But to Caliban's complaint, Prosper calls the monster a lying slave and says thou did'st seek to violate/The honor of my child? (in other words, to rape Miranda). In response to this, the lusty, naturally fecund Caliban only rues that he was prevented from doing so, and thereby peopling the Island with a race of Calibans. Caliban represents the lower dimension of humanity, the libido unchecked by any internalized morals. Ariel: Ariel's last words in The Tempest come as an aside to Prospero, Was't well done? (V, i., l.239). Ariel is a sprite by nature. Unlike the shapes that attend Prospero's banquet, he has permanence, and unlike Caliban, it is in his nature to be free. Ariel, of course, is not human, but he performs human-like functions and is especially solicitous of earning his master's praise. He is a force playing a role that advances the story at hand; human or not, Ariel is an actor. Unlike Puck of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Ariel is not mischievous on his own accord; he is, instead, a benevolent sprite who honours his duty toward Prospero having refused to do the biding of Sycorax. Miranda: When we first see Miranda in the play's second scene, she defines her essential self as an empathetic character by crying out O! I have suffered/With those that I saw suffer I, ii., ll.5-6). Despite her upbringing on the Island by her magician father, Miranda is not a mirage; her character is, in fact, what it appears to be at first blush, that of an empathetic young woman. Ferdinand and other Characters: Not as remarkable as Miranda, Ferdinand is nevertheless a good young man, willing to accept life's hardships while keeping his hopes directed toward union with his beloved. As for the other secondary characters, it is King Alonso, not Prospero's brother Antonio, that the repentance process takes place; indeed, Prospero does not directly reconcile with his perfidious brother. As for Sebastian, we note that he is somewhat dense, being slowly to grasp Antonio's emerging plans kill the king and to install him new ruler of Naples. Trinculo and Stephano are also dense, falling for a rack of garments in their drunken, ludicrous plot to seize power from Prospero.

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Lastly, there is Gonzalo who is said by Prospero to be a noble Neapolitan. Like the average man, Gonzalo's intentions and actions are good even though his notion of the ideal commonwealth is deeply flawed. It is through him that Shakespeare provides a stance toward the plays storm and the tempest of life at large, as Gonzalo wishes for dry land and hopes to heaven in the face of likely doom.

MORE ABOUT CALIBAN & ARIEL

Prospero's dark, earthy slave, frequently referred to as a monster by the other characters, Caliban is the son of a witch-hag and the only real native of the island to appear in the play. He is an extremely complex figure, and he mirrors or parodies several other characters in the play. In his first speech to Prospero, Caliban insists that Prospero stole the island from him. Through this speech, Caliban suggests that his situation is much the same as Prospero's, whose brother usurped his dukedom. On the other hand, Caliban's desire for sovereignty of the island mirrors the lust for power that led Antonio to overthrow Prospero. Caliban's conspiracy with Stefano and Trinculo to murder Prospero mirrors Antonio and Sebastian's plot against Alonso, as well as Antonio and Alonso's original conspiracy against Prospero. Caliban both mirrors and contrasts with Prospero's other servant, Ariel. While Ariel is an airy spirit, Caliban is very much of the earth, his speeches turning to springs, brine pits (I.ii.341), bogs, fens, flats (II.ii.2), or crabapples and pignuts (II.ii.159160). While Ariel seems to maintain his dignity and his freedom by serving Prospero willingly, Caliban achieves a different kind of dignity by refusing, if only sporadically, to bow before Prospero's intimidation. Surprisingly, Caliban also mirrors and contrasts with Ferdinand in certain ways. In Act II, scene ii Caliban enters with a burden of wood, and Ferdinand enters in Act III, scene i bearing a log.

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Both Caliban and Ferdinand profess an interest in untying Miranda's virgin knot. Ferdinand plans to marry her, while Caliban has attempted to rape her. The glorified, romantic, almost ethereal love of Ferdinand for Miranda starkly contrasts with Caliban's desire to impregnate Miranda and people the island with Calibans. Finally, and most tragically, Caliban becomes a parody of himself. In his first speech to Prospero, he regretfully reminds the magician of how, when Prospero first arrived, he showed him all the ins and outs of the island. Only a few scenes later, however, we see Caliban drunk and fawning before a new magical being in his life: Stefano and his bottle of liquor. Soon, Caliban is begging to show Stefano the island and even asks to lick his shoe. Caliban repeats the mistakes he claims to curse. In his final act of rebellion, he is once more entirely subdued by Prospero in the most petty wayhe is dunked in a stinking bog and ordered to clean up Prospero's cell in preparation for dinner. Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and h urt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voice s That, if I then had waked after long sleep Will make me sleep again; and then in dreamin g The clouds methought would open and show ric hes Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again (III.ii.130138). Despite his savage demeanour and grotesque appearance, however, Caliban has a nobler, more sensitive side that the audience is only allowed to glimpse briefly, and which Prospero and Miranda do not acknowledge at all. His beautiful speeches about his island home provide some of the most affecting imagery in the play, reminding the audience that Caliban really did occupy the island before Prospero came, and that he may be right in thinking his enslavement to be monstrously unjust. Caliban's swarthy appearance, his forced servitude, and his native status on the island have led many readers to interpret him as a symbol of the native cultures occupied and suppressed by European colonial societies, which are represented by the power of Prospero. Whether or not one accepts this allegory, Caliban remains one of the most intriguing and ambiguous minor characters in all of

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Shakespeare, a sensitive monster who allows himself to be transformed into a fool.

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Compare and contrast Caliban and Ariel Prospero discovers two inhabitants on the island, Caliban and Ariel. They are both creatures of the spirit world and not human. Ariel is likened to a creature of the heavens, a creature of god. Prospero frees Ariel. He is a gentle spirit. In the Renaissance world God and heaven maintain order and justice on earth. Ariel acts only when commanded by Prospero. He is also an adept sailor and one with nature. Ariel is happy pleasing man, but also craves freedom. Caliban is the offspring of the devil and a witch. He represents a creature of earth, not the heavens. While Ariel acts from reason and rationality, Caliban acts from instinct, like an animal. Prospero makes Caliban his slave, but Caliban is not pleased being a servant. Prospero attempts to teach Caliban the etiquette of the European man, but Caliban loves the freedom of nature and shuns the way of God. The two represent the two states the philosophers Rousseau and Locke refer to in their treatises on government. Locke and Rousseau, who come to different conclusions, both discuss the State of Nature, and the State of Man. They say that man is truly free in the State of Nature. In the State of Nature--the state Caliban represents--man is free to do as he pleases like the animals. However, in order to rise above the animals, man must enter into a social contract with each other, this is when Man enters the State of Man. Ariel represents this state. Rousseau claims that by all men giving up their freedom willingly, they gain a free and just society. Locke claims man needs to leave the state of nature for protection against foreign enemies and to live in harmony. They both believe humans require other humans On this reading of the play, what would we make of Caliban, who stands in opposition to Prospero's power and who is its most immediate victim? This reading would probably stress (as many productions have always done) Caliban's dangerous, anarchic violence. He is an earth-animal (some intermediate form perhaps) who represents a clear and present danger, because he is not capable of being educated out of the state he was born into. Prospero's civilizing arts keep him in control, though with difficulty. Caliban is at times quite sensitive to the emotional qualities of Prospero's magic, especially the wonderful music he hears, but is too much in the grip of his raw instincts for rape and rebellion to respond with anything other than anger to his condition. Caliban might well be considered in some sense a natural slave (as D. H. Lawrence pointed out) because his idea of freedom from Prospero seems to involve becoming the slave of someone else, someone who
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will kill Prospero. So Caliban throws in his lot with two drunken Europeans, not having the wit to see them for what they are. Caliban is thus not so much interested in freedom as he is in rebellion; his violence is natural to him and is not an outgrowth of the way he is treated. Hence, Prospero's control of him through his magic is not only justified but necessary. Does Caliban undergo any sort of significant change at the ending of the play? There's a suggestion that he has learned something from the mistakes he has made, and his final comment (I'll be wise hereafter,/ And seek for grace) may be a cryptic acknowledgment of some restraint. But he doesn't go with the Europeans and remains on his island. Caliban's future life has always sparked interest among certain writers, for there is a tradition of sequels to the Tempest in which Caliban is the central character (notably Browning's long dramatic monologue Caliban on Setebos). Caliban is a somewhat puzzling character: he is the conquered savage who has rejected the education of his master and is punished for that rejection. In many ways, he is the forerunner of Frankenstein's monster. For example, Miranda tells him: I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known. But thy vile race, Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore was thou Deserv'dly confined into this rock, who hadst Deserv'd more than a prison. To which Caliban replies: You taught me language, and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse. Yet the island was Caliban's, and Prospero took it from him by force. In the Elizabethan view, Prospero--as the superior order of being--would have the right to dominate the inferior, so Shakespeare does not seem to be posing an ethical problem here, yet some elements of the play do call this into question. Caliban is not the sort of monster the Jacobeans would consider an invented or fantastic figure: travellers' tales of wild men were widespread even as late as the 18th century.

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Caliban is the savage son of a witch, the denier of civilization, who refuses to fit into Prospero's scheme of things and is punished for his refusal. In a strange way, he is both evil and innocent:

He is a child of nature, he loves music, he is incredulous, and he is easily fooled by humans.

Caliban has become a by-word as the strange creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of gnome and savage, half demon, half brute, in his behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native disposition, and the influence of Prospero's education. The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, in the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity. It is as if the use of reason and human speech were communicated to an ape. In inclination Caliban is malicious, cowardly, false and base; and yet he is essentially different from the vulgar knaves of a civilized world, as portrayed occasionally by Shakespeare. He is rude, but not vulgar; he never falls into the prosaic and low familiarity of his drunken associates, for he is, in his way, a poetical being; he always speaks in verse. He has picked up everything dissonant and thorny in language to compose out of it a vocabulary of his own; and of the whole variety of nature, the hateful, repulsive and deformed have alone been impressed on his imagination. The magical world of spirits, which the staff of Prospero has assembled on the island, casts merely a faint reflection into his mind, as a ray of light which falls into a dark cave, incapable of communicating to it either heat or illumination, serves merely to set in motion the poisonous vapours. The delineation of this monster is throughout consistent and profound, and, notwithstanding its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, as the honour of human nature is left untouched. In the zephyr-like Ariel the image of air is not to be mistaken, his name even bears an allusion to it; as, on the other hand, Caliban signifies the heavy element of earth. Yet they are neither of them simple, allegorical personifications, but beings individually determined. In general we find in A Midsummer Night's Dream, in The Tempest, in the magical part of Macbeth, and wherever Shakespeare avails himself of the popular belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the possibility of coming in contact with them, a profound view of the inward life of nature and her mysterious springs, which, it is true, can never be altogether unknown to the genuine poet, as

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poetry is altogether incompatible with mechanical physics, but which few have possessed in an equal degree with Dante and himself. Caliban is a character of the most powerful poetic fancy; and the more the character is investigated the more is our attention rewarded. He is the son of a witch, Sycorax, who, though long since dead, continues to work even from the grave. In her offspring there is a curious mixture of devil, man and beast, descending even to the fish species. He desires evil, not for the sake of evil or from mere wickedness, but because it is piquant, and because he feels himself oppressed. He is convinced that gross injustice has been done him, and thus he does not rightly feel that what he desire may be wicked. He knows perfectly well how powerful Prospero is, whose art may perhaps even subdue his maternal god Setebos, and that he himself is nothing but a slave. Nevertheless, he cannot cease to curse, and he curses with the gusto of a virtuoso in this more than liberal art. Whatever he can find most base and disgusting he surrounds almost artistically with the most inharmonious and hissing words, and then wishes them to fall upon Prospero and his lovely daughter. He knows very well that all this will help him nothing, but that at night he will have cramps and side-stitches, and be pinched by urchins; but still he continues to pour out new curses. He has acquired one fixed idea--that the island belonged to his mother, and, consequently, now to himself, the crown prince. The greatest horrors are pleasant to him, for he feels them only as jests which break the monotony of his slavery. He laments that he had been prevented from completing a frightful sin, and the thought of murder gives him a real enjoyment, perhaps chiefly on account of the noise and confusion that it would produce. An eminent critic has aptly remarked: We find him only laughably horrible, and as a marvellous, though at bottom a feeble monster, highly interesting; for we foresee from the first that none of his threats will be fulfilled. Opposed to him stands Ariel, by no means an ethereal, featureless angel, but a real airy and frolicsome spirit, agreeable and open, but also capricious, roguish, and, with his other qualities, somewhat mischievous. When we hear Prospero recite his epilogue, after laying down his enchanted wand, we may feel that the magic we have experienced was too charming and mighty not to be enduring.

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Ariel in the The Tempest

Frank Kermode, in his introduction to the Arden edition, criticises the tendency to allegorical interpretation, and seems to have imbibed something of the late Shakespeare's insistence on the importance of Chastity. 'It is not surprising that The Tempest has sent people whoring after strange gods of allegory' (p.lxxx) and most modern attitudes to the play are largely the product of romantic criticism with its dangerous and licentious enthusiasms.' (p. lxxxi). In his valuable discussion of Ariel (Appendix B, pp. 142-145), Kermode opines 'These traces are no doubt due to the element of popular demonology in the play, and it would be foolish to expect absolute lucidity and consistency in the treatment of these ideas. It is surely remarkable that, in all that concerns Ariel the underpinning of 'natural philosophy' should be as thorough as in fact it is.' (p. 143). This suggests to me a certain reluctance on Kermode's behalf to acknowledge Shakespeare's expertise in 'popular demonology', perhaps considering such knowledge to be beneath the immortal bard. Why? Is not Shakespeare's possession of such knowledge rather to be assumed than taken as a matter for surprise? He shows the fairly expert knowledge of other now unfashionable disciplines such as astrology and the semi-magical Paracelsan medicine which would be natural for an inquisitive and informed member of his culture. In Cornelius Agrippa's Occult Philosophy (translated by 'J.F.' in 1651) Ariel is a 'daemon', 'the presiding spirit of the element of earth' (Kermode, p. 142), but the resemblance is more nominal than essential. Ariel moves comfortably in all elements, and also controls lesser spirits (with which Prospero has no direct contact) to accomplish Prospero's design. Ariel it is who performs the action of the play, the motor that powers the plot, the animating force which accomplishes Prospero's design. To enumerate all Ariel does would take some time, but his chief actions are in creating and managing the storm which opens the play (although we are not told this until 1:2:195-206), in charming to sleep (often through the use of music), in changing shape to represent a Harpy, an electrical storm, a firebrand, a marsh-light, and possibly either Ceres or Juno (Kermode, p. 105 n. 167), in becoming invisible, in dressing up like a water-nymph (of which more later), in becoming invisible, in leading the enchanted from place to place, and in controlling and setting on lesser spirits.

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Ariel is reported as flying, flaming, entering the veins o'th'earth, and going beneath the sea. In the negative, Ariel has told no lies, made no mistakings, and obeyed Prospero without grudge or grumble, and Prospero states that ariel is 'a spirit too delicate to act her [Sycorax's] earthy and abhorred commands' and was therefore imprisoned 'by help of her more potent ministers'. Prospero's relationship with Ariel is close and affectionate. Although at our introduction to Ariel (1:2) they are arguing, and Prospero threatens and bullies Ariel, saying 'thou liest, malignant thing', (Ariel later repeats 'thou liest' several times to Caliban), once the action of the play begins on the island their relationship is shown in a better light. Prospero calls Ariel 'my bird', 'my industrious servant', 'my chick', 'My tricksy spirit', 'my diligence', 'fine Ariel'. Ariel asks Prospero 'Do you love me, master, no?', and Prospero replies 'Dearly, my delicate Ariel' (4:1:48-49). Some of this is a sort of shared aesthetic appreciation: 'Bravely the figure of this Harpy hast thou performed, my Ariel: a grace it had devouring' (3:3:83-84), and some of Ariel's eagerness to please Prospero can be attributed to the promise of imminent release, but there seems to be a genuine affection between the two which adds resonance to a crucial moment in the play, when Ariel seems to convince Prospero of the need for forgiveness and reconciliation. Ariel: if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. Pros.: Dost thou think so, spirit? Ariel: Mine would, sir, were I human. Pros.: And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself One of their kind, that relish all as sharply Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art? Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th'quick Yet with my nobler reason gainst my fury Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance. (5:1:18-28) This affection is only reinforced when Prospero expresses his regret at losing Ariel: 'Why that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee; But yet thou shalt have freedom, so, so, so.' (5:1:95-96). For Nora Johnson, in her subtle analysis of The Tempest, which sees it as a commentary on theatrical representation, takes the closeness of Prospero and Ariel's relationship to imply something further. She describes Ariel as 'the delicate theatrical spirit', noting that 'it is Ariel who performs the real theatre in the play, who stages tempests and provides musical interludes' (p.278). In connection with Ariel's being instructed to appear as a water-nymph (1:2:30131

305) she remarks 'Prospero's possession of Ariel is itself an occasion for erotic display', since there is no apparent motive for this costume change: 'there is no reason except pleasure for an invisible nymph to dress up.' (p.283). This does seem gratuitous (although Kermode remarks that water-nymphs had previously appeared on the London stage, and were recognisable to the public), and I think Nora has a point. Ariel must have been played by a particularly attractive boy to warrant such an extravagant use of costumes. Whether Shakespeare 'intended' that Prospero should be seen to gain erotic pleasure from Ariel's display is uncertain: elsewhere Ariel is 'but air', and no suggestion of a mutual sexual relation is likely. It is perhaps the audience which is being titillated by this voyeurism. As a spirit, Ariel is asexual, but nevertheless adopts female forms: the Harpy and either Ceres or Juno are female. At no point does Ariel impersonate a male figure. If Ariel had a sex, on this evidence it would be female. Nora Johnson perceives one more transformation; in the Epilogue, Prospero 'seems to be Ariel, longing to be freed.' (p.285). To return to Ariel, the star performer, shape-changer and musician, Prospero and Ariel share an excitement in performance which, after their initial contractual wranglings, binds them close together in a common purpose and mutual pleasure. Although Ariel is 'but air' there are signs of sympathy with human suffering. Humanity seems to leach across the barrier. If The Tempest is an allegory, then Nora Johnson is probably closest in describing Ariel as 'a delicate theatrical spirit' a figure representing the essence of theatre. If performing Ariel must have presented great technical challenges on the Jacobean stage, the problem for a modern production is to encourage the suspension of disbelief in the audience whilst avoiding comparison with the fairies and principal boys of Pantomime.

NOTES 1.NoraJohnson,'BodyandSpirit,StageandSexualityinTheTempest'(in) PoliticalShakespeare,(eds)StephenOrgelandSeanKeilen,Volume9of Shakespeare,theCriticalComplex,GarlandPublishing,NewYorkandLondon, (1999),pp.271290. 2.HoraceHowardFurness(ed.),TheTempest,ANewVaroriumEdition,J.P. Lippincott,Philadelphia,(1895).

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Caliban: A Character Study

Caliban is the only authentic native of what is often called 'Prospero's Island'. However, he is not an indigenous islander, his mother Sycorax was from Argier, and his father Setebos seems to have been a Patagonian deity. Sycorax was exiled from Argier for witch-craft, much like Prospero himself, and Caliban was born on the island. Caliban's own understanding of his position is made eloquently plain when we first meet him: I must eat my dinner. This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first, Thou strok'st me, and made much of me, would'st give me Water with berries in't, and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night. And then I loved thee, And showed thee all the qualities o'th'isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile. Cursed be I that did so! All the charms Of Sycorax toads, beetles, bats light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o'th'island. (1.2.330-344) We can clearly sense Caliban's resentment of what he sees as a colonial occupation of his island. The story of his upbringing is not so simple, however. It seems that when Prospero and his infant daughter arrived on the island twelve years before, Caliban was an orphan, his mother having died. This is not entirely clear: in conversation with Ariel (formerly Sycorax's spirit) Prospero recalls the 'blue eyed hag', 'The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy, Was grown into a hoop' (1.2.258-259), but it is not clear whether he ever met her. What we do know, as it agreed by Miranda, Prospero and Caliban himself, is that Prospero brought up Miranda and Caliban together, and that they had a close relationship, although perhaps not as close as Caliban might have wished. Prospero and Miranda were both involved in Caliban's education, and the three lived as a family until Caliban overstepped a boundary clear to the two Milanese.

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Prospero: Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee, Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate The honour of my child. Caliban: O ho, O ho! Would't that it had been done! Thou didst prevent me. I had peopled else This isle with Calibans. Miranda: Abhorred slave, Which any print of goodness will not take, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes With words that made them known. (1.2.344-358) Miranda is frankly snobbish here, but is excused by the fact that Caliban has attempted to rape her. Caliban is not at all ashamed of the incident. For Miranda, this justifies his current treatment, proving his natural inferiority: But thy vile race, Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures Could not abide to be with. Therefore wast thou Deservedly confined into this rock, who hadst Deserved more than a prison. (1.2.358-362) Miranda's mention of 'race' (although Caliban is almost certainly unique) introduces the question of whether it is Caliban's parentage (his genetic inheritance) which has caused him to act disgracefully, or whether his action was merely natural and understandable, except to the civilised invaders. Prospero and Miranda clearly adhere to a theory of genetic determinism, as Prospero will later reconfirm: A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost; And as with age his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers. (4.1.188-192) The nature/nurture dichotomy remains a central figure in discussions of genetic inheritance versus education as influences on behaviour. There is some suspicion that Prospero's view of Caliban is coloured by his disappointment as

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a teacher, and also that Prospero is rather impatient in this role (as might be inferred from his conversation with Miranda in 1.2.). Caliban's response to this abuse is understandable: You taught me language, and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! Caliban rejects his education, although he cannot escape the need to express his rejection in the form he rejects. What he can do is turn his education to his own purposes; he can curse those who criticise him. This is not truly all that Caliban can do with language, however, as we shall see. Caliban's account of his interaction with Prospero and Miranda indicates a resentment occasioned by what seems to him a betrayal (1.2.332-337, above). This is a mistake which Caliban repeats all too readily when he meets Stephano and Trinculo, two shipwrecked court functionaries (Butler and Jester), who ply him with alcohol (a typical means of enslaving the 'natives'). They describe Caliban as a 'fish', a 'mooncalf', a 'shallow', 'weak' and 'most poor credulous monster' (2.2). Caliban, drunk, declares 'I'll show thee every fertile inch o'th'island, and I will kiss thy foot. I prithee be my god'. (2.2.144-145). Caliban persuades Stephano and Trinculo to overthrow Prospero and gain control of the island. That he imagines they would be capable of it shows his credulity. When Ariel provokes an argument between the three, and then plays a tune, Caliban comforts his allies with his finest speech: Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices That, if I had then waked after long sleep, Will make me dream again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again. (3.2.136-144) But Ariel leads them through thorns and dirty pools, and the two Neapolitans are distracted by the simple device of hanging out fancy cloths, which they gather, despite Caliban's protests. I will have none on't. We shall lose our time, And all be turned to barnacles, or to apes With foreheads villainous low. (4.1.247-249)

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The three are then hunted by spirit-dogs set on by Prospero and Ariel. When they are released from the charm, Caliban is impressed by Prospero's appearance, as he is now dressed for court. Prospero describes Caliban as a 'demi-devil' (5.1.272) and declares 'This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine' (5.1.275-276). Caliban is chastened, and seeks Prospero's pardon. I'll be wise hereafter, And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass Was I to take this drunkard for a god, And worship this dull fool! (5.1.295-298) In Caliban, Shakespeare combines something of the traditional Elizabethan figure of the 'salvage' or wild man with reports of the native peoples of the New World. From Prospero and Miranda's perspective, Caliban is genetically inferior, irredeemably savage and uneducable. They feel their care and kindness have been betrayed. Caliban also feels betrayed: he has lost his island to the foreigners, who have taken advantage of him, and now treat him as a slave, held in check by cramps and pinches. Both cases are understandable. For Prospero, Caliban seems to represent a personal failure and disappointment; the persistence of evil in the face of humane treatment. In this, he is like Antonio, who had betrayed Prospero in Milan. Caliban is certainly nave; his reaction to Stephano and Trinculo demonstrates this. The question remains open as to whether at the end of the play he has learned from his mistakes. When Stephano and Trinculo are deflected from their plot by Prospero's trick, Caliban is angry, calling the booty 'luggage', but he is nevertheless impressed by Prospero's change of costume, so his credulity may not have been entirely overcome. While he does say that he will 'seek for grace hereafter', which would indicate a religious impulse for selfimprovement, Prospero's judgement remains negative; he is a 'thing of darkness' still. Prospero, however, has reacted excessively to Caliban's actions throughout the play; Caliban's rebellion never posed any real threat, but causes Prospero to abandon the Masque he has arranged for Ferdinand and Miranda's betrothal in some confusion. Caliban remains the focus of much critical interest, he is an intriguing figure with many resonances in a post-colonial age, and one whom Shakespeare treats with typical balance, allowing expression to both sides of the question, and leaving much to the interpretation.

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CALIBAN: Semi-human brute or oppressed native person?

For over a century, and particularly in the past twenty years, a number of interpreters have taken a very different approach to this play, seeing in it the exploration of some particularly relevant political issues. The English critic, William Hazlitt, was the first to point out (in 1818) that Prospero had usurped Caliban from his rule of the island and was thus an agent of imperialism. Since then such an approach to the play (with various modifications) has remained more or less current, although only in recent decades has it become widespread in North America. Some of these arguments are quite simple and reductive; others are a good deal more sophisticated. I cannot do full justice to these interpretations here, but I would like to consider some of the main points in order to raise a few questions in your minds. This approach to The Tempest also begins with some obvious features of the play. Prospero is a European who has taken charge of a remote island. He has been able to do this because he brings with him special powers. With these he organizes a life for himself, gets the local inhabitants (Ariel and Caliban) to work for him, and maintains his control by a combination of painful force or threats of force, wonderful spells, and promises of freedom some day. In taking charge of a place which is not his and in exerting his European authority over the strange non-European creatures, compelling them to serve him and his values, Prospero, so the argument runs, is obviously a symbol for European colonial power, with which England was growing increasingly familiar during Shakespeare's lifetime (not just in the New World but also in Ireland). The key figure in this treatment of the play naturally is Caliban, the island native who regards himself as the rightful owner of the place, who is forced against his will to serve Prospero and Miranda, and who constantly proclaims his unwillingness to do so. Initially, Prospero extends to Caliban his European hospitality, teaches him language, and, in return, is shown all the natural resources of the island by Caliban, in an act of love. But Caliban refuses to live by Prospero's rules, tries to rape Miranda (he still wants to), and their relationship changes to one of master and slave. The gift of language,

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Caliban now says, is good only because it enables him to curse. Prospero may control Caliban (with painful torments), but he has not vanquished his resistance. For Prospero, the main problem with Caliban is that he is incapable of being educated (although Caliban's command of beautiful poetry might make us wonder about that). He is thus (for Prospero) some lower life form (like a native of Ireland, for example, many of whom were in Shakespeare's day not considered fully human): deformed, evil smelling, treacherous, rapacious, and violent. Unlike Ferdinand, who is a suitable lover for Miranda because he can discipline himself to work to earn her, Caliban has no restraint. Hence, Prospero feels himself morally entitled to exercise his control over him; indeed, the safety and security of his and Miranda's life depend upon such enforced obedience (as Prospero says, they need Caliban's labour to survive). There is obviously much here one might point to as an allegory on European colonial or capitalist practices. One might well argue that the presentation of Caliban is itself a very European perception of alien New World cultures, and thus Prospero's moral authority rests on a complete inability to see the natives as fully cultured human beings, in other words, on his European mind set, which automatically labels those different from Europeans as ugly, uncivilized, and threatening others. The gift of language is not a gift but an imposition, a common means of enforcing colonial rule on recalcitrant subjects. [In a well known production of this play in 1974 (in the National Theatre in London), the actor playing Caliban had the two halves of his face made up in different ways: one side was that of a noblelooking Native American; the other side was that of a grotesque apelike man. Depending upon which way the actor turned, the audience's perception of the character changed entirely. This theatrical device obviously invited the audience to consider the importance of cultural perceptions in our evaluative judgments in dealing with people from primitive non-Europeanized societies]. If we pursue such a political basis for the allegory, can we come to any conclusions about Shakespeare's vision of colonial practices? What, if anything, is the play offering as a vision of European imperialism? For me, the emotional logic of the action suggests that Shakespeare is offering a defence of colonial practices which he then undermines.

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Caliban may, indeed, offend every European moral principle, but in some ways he is more intelligent and more open than some of the Europeans (like the drunken idiots Stephano and Trinculo and the deceitful murderous conspirators). He may resist Prospero's authority, but that authority is something we can call into question,
especially by looking closely at the way it is enforced.

In his renunciation of magic and return to Europe, Prospero would appear to be finally conceding that continuing on the island is wrong. Significantly, among his last words is the potentially pregnant comment (about Caliban) This thing of darkness I/ Acknowledge mine. If this means, as it might, some recognition of a bond between Prospero and Caliban, then Prospero's leaving the island to Caliban and renouncing his magic (the source of his power) would seem to be a tacit apology for the master-slave basis for their earlier relationship which Prospero enforced. That said, however, there are one or two interesting problems which such a political interpretation of the play (which I have not had time to present fairly) generally has some trouble with. In the first place, it requires us to see Caliban as representative of an oppressed culture or class (either a Native American Indian or an Irish peasant or a member of the proletariat). Yet he is the only one of his kind (that is made very clear to us), and is a relatively recent arrival there. He has no culture matrix, no family, and no cultural history. So I'm not sure that the image of cultural oppression is particularly clear. Consider, for example, the key issue of language. In this play, it's not the case that the Europeans forced Caliban to forget his language and learn theirs. Before they came Caliban had no language at all. This is surely a key point. One can imagine how very different the impact of this play would be if Caliban had some other island natives with him and if they shared their own language and customs, which Prospero then forcibly suppressed. Then the issues of cultural oppression would be irresistibly there. As it stands, making Caliban the representative of a native culture would seem to require putting in the play something that not only is not there but which is expressly excluded. Significantly some of the earliest attempts to see The Tempest as a colonialist allegory identified Caliban, not with the original inhabitants of the New World, but with the European bosses left behind by the original explorers. This view was especially pronounced in South American countries which had a long and
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brutal history of oppression by American capitalist companies, and Caliban, in some critics' eyes, looked far more like a Yankee managing director than a noble savage. This is an interesting possibility, but it does leave one wondering then about the native inhabitants on the island, since they would not be present at all. [In viewing Caliban as an oppressed person, one might mention a recent view that he is a reluctant student in a play about education. I don't take this view particularly seriously, but it does remind us that ideological approaches to the Prospero-Caliban interaction can often quite easily fit into the play a number of different views of various kinds of authority, just or otherwise] The second problem the political interpretation faces is Ariel. What are we to make of him? One production based on a colonialist theme (directed by Jonathan Miller) made Ariel the good native, the intelligent servant of the European masters (in contrast to Caliban the bad native). The contrast was heightened by making Ariel an East Indian and Caliban an African (thus duplicating some of the racial realities in post-colonial African states). At the end of this production Ariel picked up Prospero's abandoned instruments of magic and the curtain closed with a sense of him now as the oppressing power over Caliban. But such political approaches to the play all have trouble with the most obvious element in Ariel's character, his non-human nature and his magical powers, which contribute so massively to the play's action and its theatrical effects. After all, if we are going to apply some allegory of colonialism to the play, then we need to be able to account for such an important part of it (and for Prospero's release of Ariel from imprisonment in nature). We cannot simply ignore such points because they don't fit. For that reason, it may be significant that political treatments of the Tempest tend to give Caliban far more space than Ariel (who often hardly gets mentioned).

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KEY THEMES In THE TEMPEST

The Difficulty of Distinguishing Men from Monsters - Upon seeing Ferdinand for the first time, Miranda says that he is the third man that e'er I saw (I.ii.449). The other two are, presumably, Prospero and Caliban. In their first conversation with Caliban, however, Miranda and Prospero say very little that shows they consider him to be human. Miranda reminds Caliban that before she taught him language, he gabbled like / A thing most brutish (I.ii.5960) and Prospero says that he gave Caliban human care (I.ii.349), implying that this was something Caliban ultimately did not deserve. Caliban's exact nature continues to be slightly ambiguous later. In Act IV, scene i, reminded of Caliban's plot, Prospero refers to him as a devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick (IV.i.188189).

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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 originally brutish status. On the other hand, they seem to see him as inherently brutish. His devilish nature can never be overcome by nurture, according to Prospero; Miranda expresses a similar sentiment in Act I, scene ii: thy vile race, / Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures / Could not abide to be with (I.ii.361363). 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 (see I.ii.347). In contrast, Prospero claims that he stopped being kind to Caliban once Caliban had tried to rape Miranda (I.ii.347 351). 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. Caliban balances all of his eloquent speeches, such as his curses in Act I, scene ii and his speech about the isle's noises in Act III, scene ii, with the most degrading kind of drunken, servile behaviour. But Trinculo's speech upon first seeing Caliban (II.ii.1838), the longest speech in the play, reproaches too harsh a view of Caliban and blurs the distinction between men and monsters. In England, which he visited once, Trinculo says, Caliban could be shown off for money: There would this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian (II.ii.2831). What seems most monstrous in these sentences is not the dead Indian, or any strange beast, but the cruel voyeurism of those who capture and gape at them. The Allure of Ruling a Colony - The nearly uninhabited island presents the sense of infinite possibility to almost 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 had been exiled from Algeria. Caliban, once alone on the island, now Prospero's slave, laments that he was once his own king (I.ii.344345). As he attempts to comfort Alonso, Gonzalo imagines a utopian society on the island, over which he would be the ruler (II.i.148156). In Act III, scene ii, Caliban suggests that Stefano kill Prospero, and Stefano immediately begins to envision his own reign: Monster, I will kill this man. His daughter and I will be King and Queensave our graces!and Trinculo and thyself shall be my viceroys (III.ii.101103). Stefano particularly looks forward to taking advantage of the spirits that make noises on the isle; they

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will provide music for his kingdom for free. All of 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. When Gonzalo says that there would be no commerce or work or sovereignty in his society, Sebastian replies, yet he would be king on't, and Antonio adds, The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning (II.i.156157). Gonzalo's 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 colonized have only one representative: Caliban. We might develop sympathy for him at first, when Prospero seeks him out merely to abuse him, and when we see him tormented by spirits. However, this sympathy is made more difficult by his willingness to abase himself before Stefano in Act II, scene ii. Even as Caliban plots to kill one colonial master (Prospero) in Act III, scene ii, he sets up another (Stefano). The urge to rule and the urge to be ruled seem inextricably intertwined. Masters and Servants - Master-Servant relationships, such as the following, dominate the play: Prospero and Caliban; Prospero and Ariel; Alonso and his nobles; the nobles and Gonzalo; Stefano, Trinculo, and Caliban; and so forth. The play explores the psychological and social dynamics of power relationships from a number of contrasting angles, such as the generally positive relationship between Prospero and Ariel, the generally negative relationship between Prospero and Caliban, and the treachery attending on Alonso's relationship to his nobles.

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Further Consideration of Themes in The Tempest

Witnessing a banquet complete with sprites and the shapes of unicorns, Gonzalo says: If in Naples, I should report this now, would they believe me? (III, ii., ll.27-28). His sentiments are echoed by reformed King Alonso in his final word on Prospero's island and magical art: This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod,/And there is in this business more than nature/Was ever conduct of. Some oracle/Must rectify our knowledge (V, i., ll.241-244). In The Tempest illusion competes with reality and wins despite what our minds, and those of its characters, might say. Not only does magic play an instrumental role in the play, the atmosphere of Prospero's Island is in itself magical. The audience cannot trust its senses in the conventional sense of the word trust; it must surrender to its sense and suspend all disbelief. Consistent with the theme of illusion, the mechanics of The Tempest often turn on mistaken beliefs about what is real: Ferdinand and Miranda mistake each other for super-natural beings; Stephano mistakes Caliban and Jester Trinculo for a two-headed creature; Caliban mistakes Stephano as god. Antonio and his party are mistaken about the death of Ferdinand; Ferdinand is mistaken about his father's death and his sad elevation to being Naples new king. When Prospero reveals himself to Alonso, Behold, sir King,/The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero, a humbled Alonso can only reply Whe'er thou beest he or no,/Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me/(As late I have been), I know not (V, i., ll.111-113). At the same time, the theme of illusion as falsehood also has a normative aspect to it, as when Prospero recounts her uncle Antonio's wrongs to Miranda and asks rhetorically, then tell me/If this might be a brother (I, ii., ll.118-119). The Tempest is above all theatre, a show in which Prospero presents the audience with a series of shows. In the midst of the proceedings, Prospero says to his actor Ariel, Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou/Perform'd, my Ariel, a grace it had(III, iii.ll.81-82). Shakespeare's last play is selfconsciously theatrical, and as its internal author tells us, it is evidently about the theatre itself. In the sole scene of Act IV, unable to discern what Prospero's grand plan might be, Ferdinand and Miranda ask about his passion. Prospero addresses his prospective son-in-law: be cheerful sir, Our revels are now ended. These our actors (As I foretold you) were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air
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And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this insubstantial pageant faded Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. (ll.148-158). This speech can be read as Shakespeare's own theatrical epitaph, signalling the end of his career as a playwright, director, and occasional actor on the Elizabethan stage. Seen in this light, the vision to which Prospero alludes is the vision that the play itself has created, the characters are actors, and the great globe may well be particularized as Shakespeare's own Globe Theatre. But there is a broader light in which this passage can be read, for here, as elsewhere in Shakespeare's works, theatre can be taken as a metaphor for our little life as mortal human beings. Here we note a related opposition in the play between Art or civilization, on the one hand, and Nature, or anarchic instinct, on the other. Following out one line of analysis, many scholars have noted that a passage from the French philosopher Montaigne's essay On Cannibals is echoed in Gonzalo's ideal commonwealth speech (Act II, scene i. ll.143-164), in which he says that were he the ruler of an ideal society, he would excuse all things, with no trade, no law nor courts permitted, and furthermore, No occupation, all men idle, all;/And women too, but innocent and pure:/No sovereignty---(l1.155-157). What Gonzalo is espousing is a primitive state of humanity, such as Montaigne wrote about and Elizabethans were familiar with from the reports of New World explorers. Largely through that arch-primitive Caliban, Shakespeare distances himself from Gonzalo's vision of a pre-civil society. Indeed, Gonzalo later reinforces part of his argument on this count, when he says of the spirits that Prospero summons to the illusory banquet of Act III, scene iii., If I should say I saw such (islanders), (For, certes, these are people of the island),. Who though they are of monstrous shape, yet note Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of Our human generation you shall find May, not, almost any. (ll., 29-35).

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As epitomized by Ariel, the original inhabitants of Prospero's island generally exist without need for labour, without standing law, and without customary restraint, for they are good by nature. But there is a two-fold problem here: first, there is the matter of Caliban; second, the people to whom Gonzalo refers are not people for they are not even human. The overarching thematic issue that Shakespeare presents to us in The Tempest is the question of what is human. The subject surfaces prominently in the text. When Miranda first sees Ferdinand being led to Prospero's cell by the enchantments of Ariel she exclaims: What, is't a spirit?/Lord, how it looks about! Be me ,sir,/It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit. (I, ii.ll.410-412). Immediately thereafter, Ferdinand responds to Prospero's false charge that he is a spy by saying, No, as I am a man (l.457). Shortly thereafter, while Ferdinand is charmed motionless after trying to resist the magician's plans to manacle him, Prospero says to his daughter: Thou thinks't there is no more shapes as he, Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench, To th' most of men this is a Caliban, And they to him are angels. (I, ii., ll.479-482). Reflecting the richness of the text, there is a parody of Miranda's encounter with Ferdinand in Caliban meeting with Trinculo and Stephano, with Caliban saying in an aside, These be fine things, and if they be not sprites/That's a brave god; and bears celestial liquor (II, ii.ll.116-117). In addition to its exploration through the language of the play, the question of what is human takes places through the characters of The Tempest . Ariel, of course, while he is able to converse with and to serve Prospero, is by no means human. Caliban, on the other hand, is half-human, the primitive, instinctual half of naturally unbounded lusts. Moreover, humanity in The Tempest encompasses three evil characters (Antonio, Sebastian, and King Alonso) and two ridiculous ones (Trinculo and Stephano) along with the positive examples of the good councillor Gonzalo, the king's unspoiled son, Ferdinand, and Miranda, the pure example of humanity's empathetic nature. It is through Miranda's eyes that Shakespeare pronounces his own blessing upon mankind. Never the very end of the play, after King Alonso blesses her marriage to Ferdinand, Miranda proclaims, O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here!

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How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world That has such people in't (V, i., ll.181-184).

The Tempest A Critique of European Colonialism?

On June 2, 1609, five hundred colonists set out in nine ships from Plymouth in association with the imperial Virginia Company. It was the aim of this expedition to fortify John Smith's colony in Virginia. While eight of the party's vessels securely arrived at Jamestown, the flagship, aptly christened the Sea Adventure , was conspicuously absent. This ship--which carried the fleet's most valuable cargo, the admiral Sir John Somers and the future governor of Virginia Sir George Somers--was separated from the other eight during a fierce storm off the coast of Bermuda, the legendary Isle of Devils, dreaded by superstitious sixteenthcentury sailors. William Strachey describes the tempest which precipitated the ship's wracke in a letter dated July 15, 1610: a dreadfull storme and hideous began to blow from out the North-east, which swelling, and roaring as it were by fits, some houres with more violence than others, at length did beate all light from heaven; which like an hell of darkenesse turned blacke upon us, so much the more fuller of horror. The island, upon whose coast the ship ran aground, however, did not appear as menacing as the tumultuous storm that so terrorized Strachey and the crew. Rather, it proved a haven, like the isle of Caliban's dream, full of sounds and sweet airs, that g[a]ve delight, and hurt not [III. ii. 134], and provided the colonists with shelter, food and wood enough to repair the Sea Adventure 's wounded pinnacles.

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The flagship's late arrival at Jamestown, roughly a year after the Virginia Company fleet had originally set sail, was regarded as a miracle and prompted several written accounts, of which Strachey's letter (circulated in manuscript form until its publication in 1625) was one. Shakespearean scholars suggest that this nautical sensation and three of the pamphlets that detailed the adventure influenced Shakespeare's final play, written in 1613. It is this imperialist context, in addition to Strachey's comments on the impossibility of reforming the isle's indigenous Savage Indian, that has given rise to copious recent discussions of The Tempest as a colonial text. While this play has proved as mercurial as Ariel over the last four centuries (its production history revealing a myriad of varied interpretations ranging from allegorical studies of Prospero as the aging Shakespeare embroiled in the complicated business of relinquishing his dramatic/theatrical Art to symbolic renderings of the Prospero-asImagination/Ariel-as-Fancy/Caliban-as-brute force triad), late twentieth-century post-colonial and new historicist scholars and theatre artists have lately fixed upon Shakespeare's closing drama as a piece more about Caliban than about its seeming protagonist. As Ben Ross Schneider, Jr. explains, most critiques proceed in much the same fashion to dismantle a presumed 'authorized version' of the play that idealizes and romanticizes Prospero as a noble regenerator of fallen humanity . When we have deconstructed the play, we find ourselves standing in the presence of naked power. Colonialists argue that Shakespeare's play is essentially a tract about disenfranchisement: Prospero represents the colonizer and Caliban embodies the enslaved native. Caliban is arguably sympathetic, according to post-colonial critics; he is treated cruelly by Prospero and Stephano, his grotesque master; he is referred to as monster, thing of darkness, mooncalf, and poisonous slave; he is forced to learn the language of the colonizer and is then subsequently robbed of his voice. Even his attempted rape of Miranda (whose principal function in the play, some feminist scholars maintain, is to serve as a walking emblem of chastity) is somewhat exonerated by scholars who argue that Prospero repeatedly invokes this incident only as a way to divert Caliban from his rightful claim to the island. While this colonial narrative is in many ways compelling and is in several respects convincing, Schneider argues that such a framework

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precludes alternative readings and necessitates an erasure of the climax of the play: Prospero's decision to champion virtue over vengeance and to abjure his magic. This play is indeed a political allegory which foregrounds the themes of power and usurpation. Antonio usurps Prospero; Sebastian is persuaded by Antonio to usurp Alonso; Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo plot to usurp Prospero; and Prospero--if read as a colonial figure--usurps Caliban. Yet, as Schneider would argue, The Tempest also engages the subject
of freedom through forgiveness and reconciliation.

Perhaps this play charts Prospero's education in tandem with his subjection; perhaps the sagely Magus--who begins the play by trying to enlighten Miranda--learns the most significant lesson; perhaps when he acknowledges this thing of darkness, he refers not to Caliban but to his own divided soul--his inner tempest. (To interpret Prospero as angry and conflicted allows the concept of the tempest to operate on three separate levels: the storm=discord in nature, the usurped Dukedom=discord within the body politic, and the Magician=discord within the mind of the protagonist.) While colonial discourses have dominated critical discussions of the play, recent productions of The Tempest (although some are quite political) seem less interested in questions of oppression and more concerned with Prospero's climatic anagnorisis. Yet, it is possible that Shakespeare, in all of his wisdom, touches on both interpretations. Certainly, the play comments on the misuses of power and occasionally--if not often--shows Prospero in an unfortunate light. Furthermore, Shakespeare ennobles Caliban, who is given some of the play's most moving poetry to recite, in addition to describing him as a deformed slave, and moves us to sympathy with his longings for a dream life, an end to his waking nightmare full of physical torment and frightening urchin-shows. Perhaps, Shakespeare foregrounds the abuses of power only to suggest an alternative: not the Old World of corrupt European politics or the New World of colonization but a brave new world devoid of problematic sovereignty, where, as the wise Gonzalo hopes, [t]reason, felony, [s]word, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine would yield to bounteous nature, which should bring forth, [of] it own kind, all foison, all abundance [t]o feed my innocent people [II. i. 156-160].

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Further Consideration Since the 1960s, several critics have found a critique of colonialism in their respective readings of Shakespeare's The Tempest. The most radical of these analyses takes Prospero to be a European invader of the magical but primitive land that he comes to rule, using his superior knowledge to enslave its original inhabitants, most notably Caliban, and forcing them to do his bidding. While the textual clues concerning the geographic location of Prospero's island are ambiguous and vague, there is a prominent references to the Bermoothes. We know that shortly before he wrote his final play, Shakespeare read a contemporary travel account of the Virginia Company's 1609 expedition to the New World and its experience after being run aground on the island of Bermuda. Enslavement does surface in Prospero's realm. The grand magician/scholar inflicts pinches and cramps upon Caliban to keep him in line and he manacles the young prince Ferdinand's neck and feet together. The servile state in which he keeps Caliban is plainly and understandably a cause of the ridiculous monster's deep resentment toward his overlord, and it is with some justification that the spawn of Sycorax invokes nature's wrath upon his tormentor, as in his curse, all the infections that the sun sucks up/From bogs, fens, flats on Prospero fall (II, ii., ll.1-2). Caliban himself embodies many of the characteristics that civilized Europeans came to associate with the primitive natives of the New World. As in the Elizabethan stereotype, Caliban is without moral restraint, and, more specifically, he is lustful in the same way that Native Americans were viewed in the early seventeenth century as dangerous despoilers of innocent white women like Miranda. And, akin to the drunken Indian, Caliban's introduction to wine causes his spirits to soar as he exclaims, Freedom, highday (II, ii..l.186) after encountering his new masters and gods, the comic characters of Stephano and Trinculo. Just as Native American tribes would come to distinguish between colonizers from different nations, e.g., favoring the French over the British or vice versa, Caliban becomes disenchanted with Trinculo as a master and proclaims that he will only serve Stephano. For his part, like some great father protecting his children from a European rival, Stephano rebukes Trinculo for his mistreatment of Caliban, saying that the poor monster's my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity (III, ii., ll.36-37). All of this closely resembles some aspects of European colonialist stereotypes of the New World's peoples and of their historical subjugation of Indians for their own good.

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If Shakespeare's play does comment upon European exploration and colonization in the Western Hemisphere, however, The Tempest does not contain a critique of exploitation, but, instead, an apology for it. Caliban was initially treated as an ignorant child and only put under wraps after he attempted to force himself upon the completely innocent Miranda. The charge of rape is made more credible in having Miranda pass judgment upon Caliban whom she calls an Abhorr'd slave (I, ii., l.352). Unlike our current understanding of European colonialism, Prospero puts Caliban in chains because he has earned the status of slave. To highlight this point, the sprite Ariel's bondage to Prospero is a light yoke, akin to indentured servitude. In exchange for releasing him from his imprisonment in a tree stump, Ariel has agreed to serve his new, benevolent master Prospero. Indeed, in Act I, scene ii, Prospero and Ariel acknowledge that the latter's servitude is a deal between equals, and that Prospero has kept his word to reduce Ariel's term by a full year because the sprite has performed his assigned duties without grudge or grumblings (l.248). Prospero later promises Ariel that he will discharge him within two days time and does, in fact, make good on his word. Shakespeare's attitude toward European colonization of the New World amounts to a gentle rebuke of the benign, but misguided stance of Gonzalo toward the state of nature in a primitive commonwealth. Gonzalo's ideal commonwealth speech (Act II, scene i. ll.143-164), closely resembles the depiction of primitive society contained in the French philosopher Montaigne's essay On Cannibals with which Shakespeare was certainly familiar. In that piece, Montaigne described Native American society as being without traffic (i.e., commerce), without letters (i.e., literacy and knowledge) and without toil (i.e., vocational work). But when Gonzalo speaks in glowing terms of a society without sovereignty and, even more remarkable without sweat or endeavour, Prospero's brother Antonio asserts that under such conditions, the citizens would soon become idle whores and knaves (l.167). In Caliban's case at least, Antonio appears to have a point. Although Ariel provides a sterling example of a good native, we realize that such good natives are subject to enslavement and abuse by the Island's evil-minded denizens, including Sycorax and her heir-apparent in Caliban, and therefore require the protection of a learned and moral sovereign like Prospero. One can question whether Shakespeare had any intention of weighing in on the subject of European colonization at all. The shipwreck at the start of the play is plainly not intended as a dramatization of an actual occurrence such as that of the Virginia Company. The stranding of the ships European passengers is
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simply a standard narrative device that the Bard employed in other of his plays, in Twelfth Night for example. Moreover, unlike the Spanish, French, and English in the Age of Discovery, it is not Prospero's intention to establish a new society on the Island or to retain his sway over its inhabitants. Rather, Prospero is pushed by circumstances into the role of the Island's sovereign power, and once his aim of exacting justice and repentance from those who have wronged him is met, he quickly relinquishes his monarchy over the Island. This, of course, does not accord with the actual, historical pattern of European conquest. On the other hand, there is a political theme of sorts in The Tempest, that of the ideal king, for in the character of Prospero Shakespeare embeds the three characteristics of an ideal monarch: legitimacy, merit, and merciful justice. Prospero was (and remains) the legitimate Duke of Milan and Shakespeare underscores in Act II when the usurper of his realm, Antonio, schemes to overthrow King Alonso. In the end, however, both Antonio and Alonso are compelled by Prospero to recognize his status as the rightful ruler of Milan. Indeed, Prospero's legitimacy is bolstered by popular support: when Miranda asks why the conspirators did not simply kill her father and herself (rather than setting them adrift), Prospero tells her that they were deterred from such a heinous crime due to the love that the people of Milan had for him. Of greatest significance, once Prospero has extracted a confession from his transgressors, he imposes no punishment upon them. Prospero subordinates his personal desire for revenge to his appreciation of mercy and forgiveness, qualities that distinguish humanity from the beasts and that serve as hallmarks of the worthy sovereign.

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THE TEMPEST ORIGINS & HISTORY

The Tempest first appeared in print as the first play in the 1623 Folio of Shakespeare. Throughout the play's history, the play has been variously regarded as a highlight of Shakespeare's dramatic output, as a representation of the essence of human life, and as containing Shakespeare's most autobiographical character, in the form of Prospero the magician-ruler. The 1623 text appears to have few omissions or corruptions in the text, though the play does include stage directions that are unusually detailed when compared to Shakespeare's other plays. Some strange spellings and idiosyncrasies in format do appear in the text, with prose sometimes appearing as verse, and vice versa; for these reasons, the text of the play is believed to be a transcription of a later performance at court. However, this is indeterminate, and other critics believe that the Folio text was copied from either Shakespeare's original text, or a close replica of it. The first known performances of the play were at the court of James I, in 1611 and 1613; and the presence of the Jacobean-era masque further cements the play into this time frame. However, the first performances of the play may not have been at court at all; and, there is some remaining evidence that the play received some revision and perhaps some London performances between 1611 and 1613. The betrothal masque which appears in Act IV might have been added for the 1613 performance, since the play was staged as part of a celebration of the wedding of Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. The masque could have been added in order to make the play more occasion-appropriate, as some critics have theorized. Although a few of Shakespeare's plays were relatively well-known before 1650, The Tempest was not among these, as seen by the few allusions to it that have
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survived or been discovered. Actually, a Restoration retread of The Tempest, done by Davenant and Dryden, was actually more popular than Shakespeare's original for a time, despite its reduction of the original material to a near parody. A character named Hippolito was added, who was basically a male parallel to Miranda; and Miranda and Caliban were given sisters, Dorinda and Sycorax respectively. The work was a lighthearted comedy, unlike Shakespeare's text; and, until the nineteenth century, the characters Hippolito and Dorinda were often incorporated into Shakespeare's own version. The Davenant and Dryden version was even more successful when made into an opera in the late 17th century, and overshadowed Shakespeare's version for another hundred years or so. In 1838, the original version was finally performed, minus the added characters and musical spectacle. After the 17th century and until the 1930's, Ariel was also portrayed as a female character, despite evidence to the contrary within the text. Caliban was also changed, and beginning with Victorian productions, he became less diabolical, and more tragic and human in character. Wrapped up with Caliban was a great deal of anti-slavery sentiment, and then the part was marked with Darwinistic thought starting in the late part of the century. For many years, The Tempest was regarded as one of Shakespeare's comedies; however, the presence of tragedy, comedy, and a good deal of romance means that the play does not easily fit into any of these three genres exclusively. Of all of Shakespeare's plays, The Tempest is most often grouped with The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and Periclesthree other works that are also difficult to classify, because of their similar mix of comedy, drama, and romance. Inspiration for The Tempest is believed to have come from a letter written by William Strachey, detailing the experiences of a shipwreck survivor. The Virginia Company was newly formed in the years before the play; and, in 1609, a fleet was sent out from England, with four hundred colonists who were supposed to land in Virginia. However, a hurricane hit the ships as they neared the coast, and the governor's ship was separated from the others; luckily, they found themselves near Bermuda, and were able to land safely there and live quite comfortably on the island. The account that William Strachey wrote of this ordeal was first printed in 1625; however, the letter gained a wide audience starting in 1610, and manuscripts of it were circulated. Shakespeare also knew many others who were involved in the Virginia Company venture, like Southampton and Pembroke, to whom Shakespeare

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dedicated a few of his worksand there is even evidence that he may have known Strachey himself. There are clear parallels between Strachey's letter and the events described within The Tempest, so it is more than likely that Shakespeare was familiar with the text, and was inspired by it to write the play that appeared at court about a year after the letter was circulated in London.

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QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION Act I 1. Why is it significant that the play begins with a storm at sea? 2. Why does Miranda have such immediate empathy for the men in the ship? Since we learn that she has lived on a deserted island with her father since childhood, where would she have learned these ideas of pity and mercy? 3. Why is she so merciful towards the shipwreck victims but has only contempt and hatred for Caliban? Where and how would she have gotten her ideas? 4. What does it mean that Prospero has to take off his robe, his magic garment, before he can tell Miranda about her history? 5. Think about how you might tell your own child or a close friend the story of your past. How would you tend to characterize yourself and your actions in your story? What about Prospero's story? Does he take any responsibility for what happened to him? Should he? 6. What crimes does Antonio, Prospero's brother, commit? What motivates him? For which crimes is he most responsible? How do you judge him? 7. In Prospero's questioning of Ariel, we learn that the storm is part of Prospero's design. Does he want to punish the conspirators or lead them to repentance? 8. Ariel was imprisoned by Sycorax. Why? How does the physical description of Sycorax compare to your impressions of Ariel? 9. What connection does Shakespeare establish between outward appearance and inner spirit? Do you think this is true? Why or why not? 10. What is your reaction to Prospero's treatment of Caliban? Does Caliban have a legitimate complaint against Prospero? Why does Prospero keep Caliban as his servant even when he despises him? Why do you think Caliban attempted to violate the honour of Miranda? Did he or is this the way his acts were interpreted by Prospero and Miranda? 11. Prospero is happy that when Miranda first sees Ferdinand she is immediately captivated by his appearance? Why? What is his plan?

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12. Ferdinand and Miranda fall in love at first sight; Prospero says, They have changed eyes. Why does this seem feasible, given the emotional state of the two young people? Act II 1. What type of person is Gonzalo? What was his role in the plot against Prospero? Does his behaviour seem consistent with how he acts now? 2. Sebastian and Antonio ridicule Gonzalo. What does this tell us about their characters? 3. What is Gonzalo's idea of the type of government or life style that could be possible on this island? Why does he say this at this time? 4. Antonio incites Sebastian to kill his brother and take the crown of Naples. Why? What does this tell us about Antonio's motives? What does Sebastian's response tell us about him? What could Shakespeare be saying about human nature? 5. Is it surprising that Caliban willingly worships Stephano and desires to give him control of the island when he resents Prospero for usurping what he considers his rightful claim to the island? What does this show about Caliban? Act III 1. How has Ferdinand's and Miranda's love deepened from their first attraction? What is Shakespeare suggesting about the true nature of love? 2. What does Caliban hope to accomplish by his plot against Prospero? Why does Shakespeare include this subplot mirroring the conspiracy of the nobles? 3. How does the apparition of the banquet affect Alonso and his retinue? How is the banquet used as a symbol? Why aren't the men allowed to eat the food? Is this an effective moment for Ariel to accuse them of their sins? Act IV 1. How is Ferdinand different from Caliban in his relationship to Miranda? Why does he pledge to keep her honour safe? 2. Why is Miranda's virginity so important to Prospero?

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3. What is the overall impact of the Masque-like? How is it supposed to affect the two young lovers? What is its message about the sanctity of the marriage bond? 4. Why does the masque suddenly disappear when Prospero remembers the plot against him by Caliban and his crew? What is Shakespeare suggesting by contrasting these two events? 5. How are Stephano and Trinculo distracted from their plot? What does this show about their natures? What does Caliban think about their behaviour? Act V 1. Why does Prospero decide to show mercy to his enemies? Why is Ariel the first to speak of mercy? Do you think Prospero had planned to forgive them from the beginning? 2. Why does Prospero decide to give up magic? What does his choice show about what he thinks happened in the past? How does he plan to live in the future? What has Prospero learned? Has he changed in any fundamental way or had the change already occurred before the beginning of the action? 3. Are Caliban and Prospero reconciled? 4. Are Alonso, Antonio, and the other conspirators truly sorry for their plot against Prospero? Has their ordeal on the island changed them?

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Tempest Bibliography Brown, John Russell. Discovering Shakespeare: A New Guide to the Plays. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Bush, Geoffrey. Shakespeare and the Natural Condition Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956. Edwards, Philip. Shakespeare: A Writer's Progress French, Marilyn. Shakespeare's Division of Experience. New York: Summit Books, 1981. Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965/1978. Kermode, Frank. William Shakespeare: The Final Plays. London: Longmans, Green, 1963. Knight, George Wilson. The Shakesperian Tempest. London: Methuen, 1953. Muir, Kenneth. Fifty Years of Shakespeare Criticism: 1900-1950, Shakespeare Survey, 4 (1951), pp.1-25. Rhoades, Duane. Shakespeare's Defense of Poetry: A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986. Spencer, Theodore. Shakespeare and the Nature of Man. New York: MacMillan, 1942. Stoll, Elmer Edgar. Art and Artifice in Shakespeare. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963. Tillyard, E.M.W. Shakespeare's Last Play. London: Chatto and Windus, 1938. Travesi, Derek. Shakespeare: The Last Phase. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1955. Uphaus, Robert. Beyond Tragedy: Structure and Experience in Shakespeare's Romances. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1981. Van Doren, Mark. Shakespeare. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1939. Wells, Stanley. (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

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Suggestions for Further Reading Graff, Gerald and James Phelan, eds. The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. Murphy, Patrick M., ed. The Tempest: Critical Essays. New York: Garland, 2000. Palmer, D. J., ed. Shakespeare: The Tempest: A Casebook. Nashville: Aurora Publishers, 1970. Richards, Jennifer and James Knowles, eds. Shakespeare's Late Plays: New Readings. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. Smith, Hallett Darius, ed. The Tempest: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Vaughan, Virginia Mason and Alden T. Vaughan, eds. Critical Essays on Shakespeare's The Tempest. New York: G. K. Hall, 1998.

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