CSEC Edition The Tempest

The Alexander Shakespeare

The Tempest CSEC ® EDITION

A GUIDE TO THE PLAY'S THEMES

Power and authority

Earthly power

Key scenes: Act I Scenes I and II; Act II Scene I; Act III Scene I; Act V Scene I

By the end of Act I (the exposition), it is clear that much power and authority is in the wrong hands. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan but his brother Antonio has usurped him. Alonso, King of Naples, has power over previously ‘unbow’d’ Milan.

From the point of view of the inhabitants, Prospero’s magic power over them is without authority. He has enslaved Caliban and made an at-times reluctant servant of Ariel.

At the end of Act I, Prospero enslaves Prince Ferdinand, who begins Act III slaving in Caliban’s place. Again, it is his magical ‘art’ which allows this.

The ship and the society on board it lack all proper authority and order. The Boatswain rudely tells Gonzalo to ‘use your authority’ over the sea (Act I Scene I line 22) instead of over him. The King tries to direct the sailors’ work and is promptly put in his place: ‘You mar our labour’ (line 13). The storm itself misplaces power in that Prospero has used magic to cause it. (However, this magic power is the means by which all proper authority will be restored.)

Gonzalo is loyal and protects the King’s authority against the Boatswain (Act I Scene I line 18) and against Sebastian and Antonio (Act II Scene I lines 133–4) but he is also too old and mild to do so effectively against the ‘vigour of [young] vice’ – Sebastian and Antonio – without magic help (Act II Scene I lines 291–302).

Magical power

Key scenes: Act I; Act III Scene II; Act V Scene I

Prospero has power over the spirits of the island (including Ariel) and uses it for good, for example freeing Ariel from the spell of the dead witch Sycorax. He is forgiving and his magical punishments are meant to teach moral lessons. He works in Time and with Nature throughout the play. However, his audience

would have been worried, as he is, that the exciting power of his ‘potent art’ is meddling beyond where mortals should go. Caliban resists Prospero’s mastery but instead of being ‘mine own King’, he invites unworthy power and authority over himself. He worships and serves a drunken butler (Stephano) and encourages him in a plot to kill Caliban’s master (Prospero) in order to be King of the island (Act III Scene II).

Power and freedom

Key scene: Act V Scene I

By the end of the play, a much happier pattern of power and authority has been achieved – by magic, but also by human qualities like love, respect and forgiveness.

•Prospero has his dukedom back. He gives up his magic powers and reclaims the human power of his dukedom.

•Milan is free of Naples – Ferdinand and Miranda unite Milan and Naples in marriage, she as his ‘mistress’ (wife) and with the power of love over him (Act III Scene I) and he as her husband/lord (Act V Scene I).

•Ariel is free, and Caliban will ‘be wise hereafter’ (Act V Scene I).

•Alonso asks forgiveness of Prospero and is forgiven.

•Stephano is (more or less) back in his social place, a (wisecracking) butler not a plotter to be King.

•Antonio is deposed as duke and Sebastian no longer threatens to take Alonso’s place.

Activity 37

In pairs, find examples in the play where people are not happy with their place in society. (Don’t forget the shipwreck scene where this recurring theme is set up and foreshadows later examples.) Give an oral presentation arguing one character’s case. Then discuss what social situations of his time Shakespeare might be presenting through this theme. (See Contexts section starting on page 7.)

Love and parenting

Parental love

Key scenes: Act I Scene II; Act V Scene I

Prospero and Alonso – both fathers – are the two more obvious parents in the play. However, the deceased and absent mothers

(Prospero’s wife and the witch Sycorax) get significant mentions:

•Prospero to Miranda: ‘Thy mother was a piece of virtue’ (Act I Scene II line 56)

•Prospero to Caliban: ‘Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself / Upon thy wicked dam’ (Act I Scene II lines 319–20)

•Caliban: ‘As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’d / With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen’ (Act I Scene II lines 321–2)

Shakespeare could be suggesting that both Miranda’s virtuous nature and Caliban’s vicious one are inherited from their mothers. Or perhaps he is emphasising the early influence of the virtuous duchess on Miranda and the wicked witch on Caliban. Shakespeare is asking the question about whether Nature or Nurture makes us who we are.

Foster parenting

Key scenes: Act I Scene II; Act IV Scene I; Act V Scene I

Prospero is Miranda’s real father and has acted as a father to Caliban. Both ‘children’ have been motherless for at least 12 years. Shakespeare shows that a child (a female, Miranda) raised by a single father can still turn out well but that another (a male, Caliban) can turn out very badly. However, would the fine verse-speaking Caliban have turned out any better if brought up by Sycorax?

Shakespeare shows us that at first Prospero treated both children with equal love. Caliban remembers this with a moving sense of loss: ‘When thou cam’st first / Thou strok’st me, and made much of me … and then I lov’d thee’ (Act I Scene II lines 332–6). But now Caliban complains: ‘you sty me / In this hard rock’ (lines 342–3). Prospero angrily reminds him why: ‘Thou most lying slave, / Whom stripes may move, not kindness! … thou didst seek to violate / The honour of my child’.

Caliban shows no remorse for this and Prospero’s harsh punishment is a natural fatherly response: many fathers of the time, equipped with such power, would have taken fiercer revenge. But the punishment is severe, and endless. He insults Caliban constantly and uses him as a slave.

Shakespeare shows that Prospero is equally harsh to Ferdinand, but Ferdinand (though sorely tried by it) responds very differently. At the start of Act IV Scene I, Prospero says, ‘If I have too austerely punish’d you, / Your compensation makes amends, for I / Have given you here a third of mine own life (Miranda)’ (Act IV Scene I lines 1–3). Though she is clearly dear to him, Prospero does not try to stop Ferdinand taking his daughter. He gladly suffers what he calls ‘the like (irreparable) loss’ to Alonso when Alonso thinks his son is dead. (Act V Scene I lines 140–4). Unlike so many fathers in Shakespeare’s plays, Prospero does not oppose his daughter’s chosen spouse; he only tests that spouse to ensure he deserves her.

Ferdinand’s most significant parenting experience on the island comes from Prospero, in Alonso’s absence.

Romantic love

Key scenes: Act I Scene II; Act III Scene I; Act V Scene I

In Act I Scene II, Shakespeare shows Ferdinand being led to Miranda by Ariel’s enchanting music about the supposed death of his father (lines 406–8). He is growing up, has a life beyond his father now. ‘O you wonder!’ he calls her (line 427), while she calls him ‘A thing divine’ (line 421). Neither can tell if the other is human or spirit. The good characters trust the holy magic of the island and here it becomes the real human magic of love.

Love makes a freedom of slavery. Because he loves her, Ferdinand is Miranda’s willing slave. She in turn would offer her loving self to him as a servant. In Act III Scene I he calls her his ‘dear mistress’ (line 21) and endures the slavery Prospero has given him as ‘pleasures’ (line 7), for her sake. Obedient loving daughter though she is, she cannot help breaking several of Prospero’s commands, in her love for Ferdinand. She, too, is growing beyond her father now (as Prospero secretly wishes).

The ‘discovery’ of the two playing chess is a ‘vision’ to Alonso (who thought his son dead) and even the hard-hearted Sebastian is moved: ‘A most high miracle!’ (Act V Scene I line 177.) Their love is so deeply respectful of each other that it manages to unite their parents, obey Prospero’s command to be chaste and yet take their lives into their own hands, outgrowing their fathers, all at once.

Activity 38

What other kinds of love, apart from romantic, does Shakespeare present in the play through the main characters (for example, Gonzalo's love for Prospero)? In pairs, see how many different kinds you can find, using direct evidence from the play to support your ideas.

Compassion and forgiveness

The judgement

Key scene: Act III Scene III

Ariel’s terrifying speech as a harpy, after thunder and lightning and a disappearing banquet, accuses Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian of being ‘three men of sin’ (Act III Scene III line 3). Ariel judges them for their sin and mixes ideas of Fate (line 61) and Destiny (line 53) with Christian ideas of hell (‘Ling’ring perdition’, line 77) and atonement (‘heart’s sorrow, / And a clear life ensuing’, lines 81–2). Prospero is acting as the agent of higher power, not simply pursuing personal revenge. Ariel is more like an angel than a magical creature – an agent of Christian compassion and forgiveness.

The effort required to forgive

Key scenes: Act I Scene II; Act III Scene II; Act IV Scene I; Act V Scene I

In the three hours covered by the play, Prospero captures, accuses, punishes, forgives and finally re-orders the lives and status of the ‘three men of sin’. He is playing God with all their lives and from a position of God-like power (unlike 12 years previously, when he was unworldly). Nevertheless, the all-powerful God he plays is a

forgiving Renaissance Christian one and his punishments in Act V are reasonable, not vengeful. His magic is moral and merciful and the audience now realises he always meant to forgive. This is not achieved without a struggle. After the Masque collapses, he is in a passion, ‘touch’d with anger’ and ‘distemper’d’ (Act IV Scene I line 144), and has to still his ‘beating mind’ (line 162) to regain control of himself. This is because he remembers the ‘foul conspiracy’ of ‘the beast Caliban and his confederates’ (line 139). He is so exhausted with the Masque and the work he is doing there to bring his child and Alonso’s together in marriage that the reminder of further magical effort overcomes him. But he recovers himself and his ‘charms crack not’ (Act V Scene I line 2). All this is a reminder of what an achievement Prospero’s project is. Forgiveness for everyone?

Key scenes: Act IV Scene I; Act V Scene I

Does his forgiveness and compassion extend to Caliban and his confederates, for their plot to kill him? Shakespeare shows how much trouble this causes Prospero at a critical time. The work required to foil their plot seems considerable, even if Stephano and Trinculo never seem to be the serious murder threat that Antonio and Sebastian are towards Alonso on the island, and that Antonio has been towards Prospero in the past. Apart from a few terrors (leading them through filthy pools and chasing them off with spirit-dogs), Prospero does not punish them further except with a rebuke: ‘You’d be king o’ the isle, sirrah?’ (Act V Scene I line 287) is all he says to Stephano, who responds with a joke. To the overawed Caliban, he says, perhaps dismissively but not vengefully, ‘Go to; away!’ (line 297) and, with a touch of compassion and perhaps even some acceptance of responsibility for what Caliban has become, ‘this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine’ (lines 275–6).

Alonso accepts his punishment on the island and gladly consents to his son’s marriage to Miranda. Even Sebastian acknowledges the miracle of the reconciliation. Stephano accepts Prospero’s rebuke cheerfully and neither he nor Caliban seem to resent the terrors Prospero has put him

through. Caliban calls him ‘my master’ without any apparent resentment. Ariel looks forward to his freedom and does not seem to resent the hard service given. (See ‘A benevolent dictatorship’ below, for a different view of this.) The only character who blatantly does not embrace the forgiveness and compassion of the happy ending is Antonio.

Activity 39

As a whole class, create a courtroom scene with judge, jury, defending and prosecuting counsels, witnesses, etc. Put the ‘three men of sin’ and also Caliban and his confederates on trial. Find evidence for or against their guilt. If you find them guilty, what punishment do they deserve? Will the judge show compassion and forgiveness, like Prospero? After reading the next section, you could expand on this to put Prospero himself on trial.

Ownership of the island

Rulers of the island

Key scenes: Act I Scene II; Act II

Prospero becomes the ruler of the island by the power his ‘secret studies’ have given him. But is he its rightful ruler? Not according to Caliban: ‘This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother, / Which thou tak’st from me’ (Act I Scene II lines 331–2). Caliban forgets Prospero’s other subjects – Ariel and the spirits – but his point stands. Sycorax was the ruler of the island and Caliban is her son and heir.

Sycorax is also not originally from the island. She was banished there from North Africa (Algiers) for ‘mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible’ (Act I Scene II line 264) and her life was spared only because she was pregnant with Caliban. She parallels with Prospero in several ways – banished with a child, banished because absorbed in magic, and a colonial ruler. She is also his opposite, ‘with age and envy / ... grown into a hoop’; with a child by the devil not with ‘a piece of virtue’; and in league with Setebos rather than ‘Providence divine’. A simple comparison would be that Prospero is good and Sycorax is evil.

However, this could be seen as European cultural bias, given the other key contrast, which is that Prospero is European and Sycorax is African.

Caliban is certainly worse off under Prospero. He is kept in a ‘sty’ and abused verbally and physically. Caliban lives in terror of being tortured by things that would ‘hiss’ him ‘into madness’ (Act II Scene II line 14). The audience does not witness these tortures, only Prospero’s threats and Caliban’s great fear of them. Nevertheless, this is how a tyrant rules.

The audience has previously seen how concerned Prospero is for the safety of the shipwrecked characters who have wronged him, so his unforgiving punishments of Caliban are in marked contrast. Does Prospero’s Renaissance humanity and Christian forgiveness exclude non-Europeans (creatures like Caliban apparently ‘not honour’d with / A human shape, Act I Scene II lines 283–4)? Is this any better than Trinculo and Stephano’s view of Caliban as a monster, a creature to enslave or show at a fair? This suggests that Prospero’s aim to be a civilised Christian ruler is contradicted by his tyranny over the island.

Caliban furiously resents and resists every order Prospero gives him. He is also deeply hurt that he has lost Prospero’s original friendship and regard. His original service to Prospero was given freely and happily. (Caliban’s moving description of this service and their lost early friendship is at Act I Scene II lines 332–8.) The only reason he obeys now is because Prospero’s art is so powerful. In other words, it seems that Prospero’s right to rule the island is based on might, just as European might colonised the Americas after first depending on the tracking and food-finding skills of its indigenous peoples.

A benevolent dictatorship

Key scenes: Act I Scene II; Act II Scene I; Act IV Scene I

Ariel is better off under Prospero than Sycorax. In this respect, he might represent those aspects (and classes) of the indigenous population which thrive under colonial rule. Under Sycorax, Ariel was imprisoned in a ‘cloven pine’ for 12 years because he could not carry out her ‘grand hests’ (Act I Scene II lines 274–7).

Under Prospero he is able to express his free and airy nature

in the service Prospero asks him to do. But this is not really freedom and he has not really been made ‘free’ as described by Prospero at line 251 in the same scene. Serving under Prospero’s confinement makes him ‘moody’ (line 244) and he reminds Prospero of the promise of liberty (line 245) ‘once a month’ (line 262); he describes his service as ‘slavery’.

Prospero’s more benevolent regime over Ariel is reinforced partly by promises of freedom after a good deal of toil; partly by flashes of the same kind of bad temper shown to Caliban; but mostly by commanding reminders of his power and how preferable it is to Sycorax’s: ‘Dost thou forget / From what a torment I did free thee?’. In this way, Prospero could be seen as the enlightened despot type of colonial ruler, bringing some benefits but the loss of self-rule. Ariel can represent certain classes of indigenous population who could benefit from colonial rule. Or Caliban and Ariel could represent two different aspects of that same population: part seething with fury under dominion, part divided between a wish for freedom and an appreciation of some of the advantages.

Does Prospero’s rule ‘civilise’ the island? Was he the gracious Renaissance Prince there that he later seeks to be in Milan? He is perhaps the most powerful and absolute ruler Shakespeare ever created. His first speech in the play consists of three commands to Miranda (Act I Scene II lines 14–15) and he spends most of that scene telling her what to do or handing down information previously withheld from her. In fact, his rule is as absolute with Miranda and Ferdinand as it is with the indigenous population, although not as severe.

Prospero’s mastery of Ariel (who calls him ‘master’ throughout the play) is even stricter than his rule of his daughter in Act I, and his mastery of Caliban (whom he calls ‘slave’) is even more merciless and menacing. Prospero’s language throughout is that of absolute power – orders, threats, definitive answers and versions of events. He is often weary and irritable with the effort of so much total power. Everyone has to endure this irritation, even – if only in his final three hours of ruling the island – Miranda.

Prospero clearly exploits Ariel’s magic powers for his own ends. He also exploits Caliban’s knowledge of the island –

where the fresh water is, where food may be found – and his physical strength to bear logs and other such toil. How does Shakespeare represent other European influences on the island? Gonzalo describes the island (not very seriously) as a Paradise and brings his own good nature, but also his sad experience of human corruption, to it. He appreciates and is in harmony with the island but never expects it to be a Paradise if it were inhabited by people like the ‘three men of sin’. His ‘golden age’ daydream of it (Act II Scene I lines 154–63) was never meant to convince anyone, least of all them.

A colonial tragedy?

Key scenes: Act IV Scene I; Act V Scene I Stephano demeans Caliban by getting him drunk and exploits his naïvety in taking him for a god or a king. Caliban sees at the end how foolish he has been when he notices how Trinculo and Stephano are beguiled by ‘trash’ (Act IV Scene I line 224) and says ‘What do you mean / To dote thus on such luggage?’. Caliban’s natural dignity contrasts with the European Stephano’s so-called civilisation. Modern productions of The Tempest often turn it towards a colonial tragedy, as in Sam Mendes’ Royal Shakespeare Company version (1993), where Ariel in Act V spits both in Prospero’s face and at the play’s happy ending. The colonial context of Prospero’s rule of the island is being emphasised more than Shakespeare might have originally intended – or, indeed, his original audience might have understood. Jonathan Miller’s 1988 production presented Prospero as a white colonist and Caliban sympathetically as a black slave. Like all Shakespeare’s plays, the text is astonishingly open to different interpretations.

Activity 40

Derek Walcott’s version of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra – A Branch of the Blue Nile (1986) – combines Shakespeare’s language with Creole to turn a tragedy into a comedy. Shakespeare himself often mixed tragedy and comedy (Antony’s tragic end is rather comic) but Walcott is making fun of a traditionally serious European (and colonial) view of life. Caliban says to Prospero (Act I Scene II lines 363–4): ‘You taught me language, and my profit on’t / Is, I know how to curse.’ Imagine you are Caliban cursing Prospero at the start of Act II Scene II (lines 1–14). How might he express these curses using Creole or dialect? How different would this make him?