How Does Romeo Change Throughout The Tempest

Prospero, the "rightful" duke of Milan, primarily seeks revenge against two people, Antonio and Caliban. But, Prospero allows his

     In Shakespeare's The Tempest, Prospero's magic is the means that Prospero teaches his lessons to the plays various characters. Whether or not those lessons were learned or not is irrelevant. The main issue is that Prospero's character is indeed a complex one, and one that deserves much attention. Two essays that look at the complexity of Prospero and his magic are Stephen Miko's "Tempest," and Barbara Mowat's "Prospero, Agrippa, and Hocus Pocus." Both of these essays, in dealing with Prospero and his magic reveal things about Prospero that only enhance the mystery of his character.

"From the moment they arrive on the island to the time of their release and pardon, they are almost continually guided, prompted, and motivated by visions that Ariel, acting for Prospero, weaves before them and by the spells he casts upon them". Prospero's motivation behind all this manipulating is to provide the group of nobles, mainly Alonso and Antonio, to become of aware of their wrongdoings, repent for stripping away his dukedom and casting him out to isolation. The first illusion that Prospero casts is planting the idea that Ferdinand has drowned during the shipwreck firmly within the mind of his father Alonso. It doesn't take much for Alonso to be thoroughly convinced that his son is head, batting away any words that offer any hope. "No, no, he's gone" At this point in the play, Alonso has not associated the drowning and loss of his son with Prospero. He believes that this is the result of marrying off his daughter Claribel to an African prince. Losing both his children and heirs to the throne, he feels as though he cannot go on "O thou mine heir/Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish/Hath made his meal on thee?"

Prospero's intent throughout the course of The Tempest is neither to revenge himself upon his enemies, nor to reconcile himself with his estranged brother. It is, rather, to orchestrate the reclamation of his lost duchy, Milan, through both his magic and a shrewd manipulation of both the shipwrecked party and the islanders (Caliban and Miranda).

Shakespeare's "The Tempest" forms a world within itself. Within this world, many topics regarding government, power and colonization are addressed. Shakespeare tackles the discovery of new places and races, the relationship between the colonized and the colonist, old world ideologies on new soil, as well as theories on civilization and government. These aspects at the core reveal a very clear struggle for political power. Prospero's first major monologue creates the foundation of such a theme. In 1.2 lines 30-175 Prospero tell his story recounting the usurpation of the power he had as Duke of Milan, then quickly

The play, The Tempest, by William Shakespeare is a very cleverly thought out piece of work. Shakespeare very deliberately inter-relates several different forms of power during the course of the play. There is political power, shown through the plethora of political characters and their schemes, while at the same time parodied by the comic characters. The power of magic and love, and its ability to reunite and absolve also plays a major role in the play. Throughout the play, Prospero, the main character, takes great advantage of his power and authority, both properly and improperly. The epiphany of this however, is realized at the end of the play.

In Shakespeare's play, “The Tempest”, Prospero, the main character, is the rightful Duke of Milan. He found refuge on a distant island after his brother, Antonio, seized Prospero’s title and homeland. These events and experiences of being exiled advance character to become isolated and enriched at the same time. As a comic hero, Prospero start off as being frustrated and vengeful due to his separation from his title and homeland, but is later refined due to those experiences.

I feel that Romeo does not change very much in this play. He has many

The Tempest is involved in a discussion of 'nobility', seen here as a matter of inheritance, but in the opposition of Prospero and his brother Antonio we see that inheritance has two sides. Antonio betrayed Prospero and stole his inheritance (materially; his Dukedom), so virtue, 'nobility', is not entirely a matter of having noble parentage.

Romeo’s attitude changed from depressed and lovesick, to someone who is happy and lovestruck. The play portrays Romeo as someone who is unaware of what love really means. In Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet, Romeos views of love changes and matches the lyrics to “I’m a believer” when he meets Juliet. At the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is conflicted with his love for Rosaline.

Near the end of Act 4 Scene 1, we meet Prospero, Miranda and Ferdinand talking to each other again. In this part Prospero becomes almost like a different character, as we haven’t seen this side to him. He becomes mindful, courteous and wistful towards Miranda and Ferdinand’s relationship. This could be Prospero making a breakthrough with his and Miranda’s relationship, as he seems to have forgotten about his enemies, or he could have thought about the situation into more depth, and could be using Miranda’s naivety and innocents, to his advantage as a way to get back to his dukedom, or a direct placement to the throne.

When the natural order of society is somehow disrupted, whether it be through natural or supernatural means, there are often dire consequences. In “The Tempest” when Prospero first arrives on the island he uses he uses power to occupy the inhabited island, effectively colonizing the lone resident, Caliban. Going further than just living on the island, Prospero acknowledges his destructive behavior towards Caliban, saying he is “now ke[pt] in service” (Shakespeare 1.2.287). In this circumstance Prospero believes his power gives him an inherent right to rule the island and its residents. It is very ironic that Prospero is able to take over the island with no question of morality when Caliban has as much a right to rule the island as Prospero does to the Dukedom of Milan. He even goes as far to call Antonio “perfidious” (1.2.68) when he himself is doing the exact same thing to Caliban. Prospero interferes with the natural order of the island by controlling

Altogether, Prospero gave up his position as Duke of Milan because he chose to study black magic instead of taking care of his responsibilities to his people. The quest of knowledge of the black magic made Prospero become so studious that it seems that he completely forgot about his kingdom. In Act 1, Scene 2 Prospero acknowledged that he was caught up in his occult books, and as a result, he let his control of the government slip into Antonio’s hands. Prospero allowed his brother to help him run the government so he could get more involved in the occult. Antonio, Prospero’s brother, was able to take advantage of the situation by dethroning Prospero and becoming the new Duke of Milan. Antonio also decided that he would send Prospero and his daughter, Miranda, to live on an island. Magic had already become a major part of Prospero’s life, and being exiled to the island only helped him pursue it more. On the island, there was a witch, Sycorax, that ruled over it, and when Prospero defeated her, he gained the service of Ariel and Caliban.

Written from 1610 to 1611, The Tempest is believed to be the last play William Shakespeare single-handedly penned before his abrupt farewell to theater. While Shakespeare never directly alludes to his retirement in his play, he speaks through his main character Prospero and Prospero’s actions. Both the playwright and Prospero manipulate others with masterful plans. Eventually, both retire from their roles, establishing parallels between the creator and his character that support interpreting Prospero’s thoughts as the playwright’s. The Tempest functions as Shakespeare’s retirement letter, in which he emphasizes his disrespectful audience and the insignificance and impermanence of the theater and humankind.

In The Tempest, a major conflict is how Prospero and Antonio fight for power. Prospero was the Duke of Milan before his brother Antonio betrayed him and took his dukedom. In The Tempest you find out that brotherhood means almost nothing. Certain characters will be stomp more than one person to get higher power. The Tempest was one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays because of the unique epilogue . The epilogue is said to be Shakespeare's way of saying goodbye to the theater. Shakespeare was able to write an excellent ending to his play, while speaking through his characters about his own life and career. In the epilogue prospero says, "Now that my charms are all o'erthrown, and what strength I have's mine own". Shakespeare was not only being released for the performance of the play, he was being release from his career as a playwright. Shakespeare could not allow his final play to be bad, his project "was to please." In “The Tempest”, Prospero decided to go back to Milan because of his responsibilities to Milan, for Miranda's benefit, and to restore his bloodline.