Subjects:
Plan: Uses violence through the tempest,
he wants revenge against his perfidious brother and his enemies,
he controls Ariel and Caliban, mortal, and
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Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a story of a powerful man of many roles and he is named Prospero. We are introduced into the play with a ship out on the ocean that has come across a tempest which, unbeknown to crew of the ship was created by Prospero. The reason Prospero started the tempest on the ship was because aboard the ship was Alonso the King of Naples, Alonso’s son, Ferdinand and Prospero’s brother Antonio, the usurping Duke of Milan. Antonio stole this title from Prospero, this is the reason for the tempest.
Prospero does not feature in the first scene with the ship however he is represented in the tempest. The tempest nevertheless was not actually created by Prospero, it is in fact created by Ariel, an airy spirit that was freed from an evil witch called Sycorax. Therefore to return the favour Ariel is now controlled
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All in all in Act 1 Prospero is presented as a very powerful man that wants revenge on his brother.
Slightly after this Caliban tells Prospero “you taught me language, and my profit on’t/ is, I know how to curse. Prospero also knows that Miranda marrying Ferdinand would be great for him because this will ensure that Miranda is the Queen of Naples and therefore Prospero would resume his rightful spot as the Duke of Naples. When Prospero knows this he is happy because he knows eventually the group will separate and this will be the torture he planned on. Prospero is furious with him because he knows that the reason that he was enslaved was because he “seek to violate/ The honour of” Miranda and rape her. When this happens he knows that he can have more than a normal life back in Naples as his daughter, Miranda will soon become the Queen of Naples so this means he can become the rightful Duke of Naples and see his daughter become happily married. Prospero shows his strong and powerful side here as both Prospero and Ariel know that it is up to Prospero when Ariel is released. ” Here he is saying that once you enable me to do something, I can abuse that knowledge to harm others. Prospero wants to gain revenge and return back to Naples. However the fact that Prospero did teach Caliban to talk does show that Prospero was very resourceful.
Shortly Caliban enters which forces Prospero to show his power again as Caliban is Prospero’s slave. He reassures his daughter and says “there’s no harm done” which means that the reason he created was the tempest was not to harm or kill his brother and the crew, he just wanted revenge by causing their ship to run aground and therefore make them believe they were on their own on this foreign “cell”.
Scene two shows very different sides to Prospero as he reacts differently with the different character that appear in scene. Prospero is constantly told by Ariel that “I have done thee a worthy service” but Prospero just reminds him of Sycorax and how he released him from the tree that Sycorax imprisoned Ariel in.
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