Prospero's Sacrifice

When Macbeth plots to kill Duncan, his cowardice and self-doubt takes over and he nearly aborts the plan. Bevington describes Macbeth in an interesting way when he states “Macbeth is portrayed throughout the play as an antihero.” However, when Lady Macbeth finds out she insists on doing the deed herself, as she thinks her husband is too soft to finish Duncan off. After the murder, Macbeth feels the need to secure his throne, thus plotting several more murders to ensure his power; however, a sense of guilt consumes him. Prospero, in The Tempest, is much different than Macbeth. The pursuit of knowledge is what gets him in trouble in the first place. By neglecting everyday matters when he was ruler, he gave his brother an opportunity to rise up and challenge him. “I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated

For Prospero, being exiled may have had some benefits. It seems as though he’s had A LOT of time to study and focus all his energy into his most “prized possessions”. The books, which are the source of his “art”, have now helped him master and perfect his magic. The reasons behind Prospero’s exile could be narrowed down to two categories: bureaucratic/political and metaphysical/mystical. When Prospero narrates the story of his brother’s betrayal to Miranda, it is abundant with political conspiracy. On the one hand, Prospero is the victim of a treacherous betrayal, on the other, he made himself vulnerable by completely immersing himself in his books. He made it possible -too easy- for Antonio to seize his brother’s position.

Prospero is the most central character in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. The play revolves around his personal task to regain his dukedom, which his brother Antonio usurped from him. Throughout the play it is shown how Prospero develops and changes as a character and seems a different person to the character we first meet in Act One Scene Two. How Prospero’s character develops happens in a variety of ways, one of the most potent ways appearing to be the treatment of the other characters within the play.

The nucleus of the plot in Shakespeare's The Tempest revolves around Prospero enacting his revenge on various characters who have wronged him in different ways. Interestingly enough, he uses the spirit of Ariel to deliver the punishments while Prospero delegates the action. Prospero is such a character that can concoct methods of revenge but hesitates to have direct involvement with disillusioning his foes. In essence, Prospero sends Ariel to do his dirty work while hiding his involvement in shipwrecking his brother, Antonio, from his daughter, Miranda.

     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.

    In William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Prospero lives with his daughter Miranda on a deserted island.  On the surface, he appears to be a benevolent leader doing his best to protect and care for the inhabitants of the island, especially for Miranda.  On closer inspection, however, Prospero plays God, controlling and creating each individual to fit the mold he desires.  He takes advantage of his authority over the people and situations he encounters while wearing a facade of integrity and compassion to disguise his wily intentions and to retain love and respect.

Prospero, the male lead of the Tempest, starts out as the victim of the play, but as the story goes on, it becomes apparent that he is actually the cause of all the problems and plots within the play. Prospero is important because he is the puppeteer that leads all of the characters to complete his orders. He strings all of the characters along to do his bidding, and by the end of the play, he is the only one who wins. Prospero is interesting because, without him, there would be no plot. He is the one who stirs up the Tempest and brings his usurpers to the island. Despite the original belief that Prospero is the victim of his brother’s commandeering of his throne, it becomes obvious that Prospero does not have good intentions, and is

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).

After breaking his staff and throwing his books into the sea, Prospero is left with little to no power of his own. It is in his last speech in the play, in the epilogue, that he realizes that his magic is nothing without outside help. He no longer has the outside power of his books and staffs to make his magic work so he is weak and vulnerable. Prospero realizes he will never get off

   A production of The Tempest should emphasize the idealized methods in which Prospero uses magic to solve the problem of revenge which is so prevalent throughout his tragedies, perhaps the production might be a direct allegory for the magic of the theatre itself.   In this conception of the play, the scattering and bringing together of the characters in the script is significant in that theatre also could be said to bring people together and allow them to share in an experience of emotion, magic, and finally, of resolution. In this way the production could be used as a vehicle for conveying the idealistic virtues of forgiveness, compassion, and of course knowledge. In his book, A

Specifically, Prospero uses his love for Miranda to hide under the shroud of patriarchy. “The Tempest” opens with a storm in the first act and by scene two, the reader learns that it is Prospero who has commissioned the storm. First, one must examine why Prospero summoned the storm. When Miranda presses her father as to why the people in the ship are in the tempest, he says that “I have done nothing but in care of thee” (Act 1, Scene 2). In some aspects, Prospero is acting against patriarchal ideals because he summons the storm. Directly after Prospero declares the tempest in the name of Miranda, he debases himself. Prospero draws attention to his fall from grace and says "your humble father who lives in a poor little shack" (Act 1, Scene 2). Within these scenes, Prospero is reinforcing his patriarchal role. Furthermore, Prospero is constructing his salvation through Miranda's desires. The tempest has been summoned to maroon Ferdinand and Alonso and ensure Prospero's prosperity off the island. Prospero’s love for Miranda serves only towards his assimilation back into a position of

Ariel is Prospero's servant, yet he is also his assisting companion. Ariel voluntarily does Prospero's work. He is loyal and yet Prospero sees him as a means to an end and manipulates Ariel's willingness. His manipulation is seen where he affirms: "Dost thou forget, from what a torment I did free thee? (1.2. 383-383) Prospero’s actions are contradictory. This exemplifies the idea that justice in the Tempest is primarily depicted as what is best for Prospero.

During the course of the play, Prospero is always scheming on his plan to get his justice back from what the nobles did to him. I believe that Prospero is justified towards the others during the play, as there is lots of evidence to support this statement. A good example is when Caliban tries to rape Miranda; Prospero is justified in how he treats Caliban in the play. He treats Caliban like dirt and does not regard him as a very humane being, and this is shown when he says, “Thy poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth”. Before the play, Prospero and Caliban had a good relationship but what Caliban did to Miranda changed their

Shakespeare's Use of Language, Imagery and Setting to Illuminate Prospero's Journey from Revenge to Reconciliation

Family is one of, if not the biggest theme in Shakespeare 's The Tempest and this theme is of course shown in Taymor 's adaptation of the play. But the fact that Prospero is a woman in the film shows the audience a deeper relationship between Prospera and Miranda – the mother-daughter relationship. In the original play, we see Prospero as owning his daughter rather than having a 'normal ' father-daughter relationship with her. It is as though Miranda is an object to be given as a prize to another man – Ferdinand. In