The Tempest Research Paper

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare written, between 1610-1611, follows a man named Prospero whose dukedom is usurped by his own brother, Antonio. Prospero became stranded on an island and is responsible for a tempest, which was created to seek revenge on Italian nobles for being complicit and supportive of Antonio’s usurp of Prospero’s dukedom. With the fight to regain his title of the rightful Duke of Milan, Prospero ends up breaking his oak staff, drowning his books, and setting free all the power that he possesses on the island where the play is set. However, Prospero is not the only one who has power, his servant Ariel is a magical spirit. His slave, Caliban, also has power over his island. Many characters embody the role of colonizers

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 Tempest is about an ousted Duke of Milan ,Prospero, who has been living in exile on a remote island for the past twelve years with his daughter Miranda. He is a powerful magician, who happens to be the master of Ariel and Caliban, and a guy who really likes his books. When Prospero's enemies wash up on shore, he uses his black magic to seek revenge and restore himself to power. The Tempest belongs to the genre of Elizabethan romance plays. It combines elements of tragedy with those of romantic comedy, and like one of Shakespeare's plays previously, it asks deeper questions that are not completely resolved at the end. The tone that seeps into the play is one of wonder, amazement, and admiration. Mystery is still present , but the magic performed is not black and scary. The version that seems to grasp my attention more, would have to be the Utah Valley University interpretation because it takes Shakespeare’s main purpose and tone but shows it in its own unique way. Furthermore, with its silly drunkards, the play has a certain lightness to it and even the so called killers of the King tell hilarious jokes and are lighthearted. But there is also the tone of revenge and reconciliation in the play. We feel a revenge burning in Prospero while, at the same time, a wish for forgiveness and reconciliation with those who have wronged him.

The Tempest was Shakespeare’s last play that was written shortly after England colonized Virginia in 1609. Throughout the play, there are many different references to imperialism and colonialism within the characters. The Tempest analyzes the imperialistic relationships between England and America but applies it to personal human interaction between the central characters. The island gives newcomers a sense of endless possibilities like claiming the land for themselves because of the belief in the Great Chain of Being and the seventeenth century being an age of exploration. The idea of ruling a colony lured many people into the idea that having that kind of power over a large group of people is attainable. Master-servant relationships are

William Shakespeare, in his play, “The Tempest”, tells us the tale of the former Duke of Milan and sorcerer, Prospero. Here Prospero is shown on his island with his daughter, Miranda, as he lures his brother Antonio, King Alonso of Naples, and the other important players trapped on the island into his web of power. By the end of the work, Prospero has managed to reinstall himself as Duke of Milan; married his daughter to Ferdinand, the son of the king; and made amends with his brother. Throughout this time, Prospero connects to us as the larger audience through a role near that of a director, leading the conflicts on from behind the scenes while he foreshadows and points to important parts of the play like as though he were watching it from

Shakespeare’s retirement play ‘The Tempest’ mainly focuses on the used of power; the will to control over others. Power seems to be the main theme throughout the play as it is manifested by different characters either in a good way or as the case may be, bad. The protagonist Prospero is the main character that holds majority of the power, both magical and political. Tempest, which was written in the early 1600s, shows how characters like Prospero, Antonio and even Caliban plus others exert power over the weak and the willing. The significance of the different elements of power; Political power, Magical powers and most of all, the Power of Love is examined in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Harmonious Dissonance In The Tempest, William Shakespeare uses the Prospero and Caliban’s servant/master relationship and the motif of magic and power to portray that destruction and confliction will result when there is an external or internal imbalance between the disordered Dionysian intoxication and the disciplined Apollonian order. Caliban, who resentfully serves Prospero, represents the impulsive Dionysian servant whom the Apollonian master counteracts. Caliban is out of control, even stating that he wishes to have “violated the honor” of Miranda due to his hate of Prospero. The growing resentment for Prospero within Caliban leads him to plot Prospero’s demise with his newfound party of intoxicated drunkards, Stephano and Trinculo, whom Caliban ironically reveres as nobles.

In the “Tempest” by William Shakespeare there were many intriguing characters. Two notable characters were Ariel and Caliban. Ariel and Caliban were very different in most aspects but shared some similarities and common interest. Each character played avital role in the play independently of one another.

Everyone wants to be successful, but without facing the obstacles you will never achieve. In the play, "The Tempest", by William Shakespeare, it's based on a violent shipwreck causing an internal conflict, giving the theme struggle for power. In the play, each character sets an example for the struggle for power. In act one, when the shipwreck occurs, it becomes chaos. Throughout each act, each character has an urge for power, even the innocent, such as Caliban, giving the play a theme.

There are many scenes in the story that can match what happened during colonialism. It started in 1492 when Columbus began his voyage, and it is a practice of acquiring partial or full political control over another country. It also exploits it economically, and is occupied with settlers. In The Tempest, Prospero had arrived on the island and taken complete control, which is what would happen in real life colonialism. Not only that, but he changed the way of life on the people who had lived on the island.

In William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy play, The Tempest, we witness an endless amount of power struggles and scheming amongst characters, all in the hopes of achieving one thing: complete control over the remote island in which they’re stranded on. Throughout the play, characters choose their allies, set targets on their enemies, and manipulate situations and one another in an attempt to reach their end goals. Each character that strives to colonize the island has different motives based on their place in the social hierarchy and their relationships to fellow characters. However, each character seeking control over the island not only has their own motives, but also their own vision for what the island could be under their sole jurisdiction. The three main players seeking to colonize the island and make their own vision of what it could be into a reality are Prospero, Caliban, and Gonzalo. Between these three characters we see relationships between the colonizer, the colonized, and one character who envisions the island as an opportunity to create the perfect society. Power and control are prominent themes in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, as the audience is faced with severe questions of morality and who has rightful claim of the island.

The Tempest aims to be a catalyst for the audience to understand the power of knowledge and understanding. The play does this in many ways, but it most clearly seen when analyzing character relationship and employed language. To examine this, it is best to look at two key passages: Prospero’s introduction to the island and the epilogue.

“The Tempest” is a Shakespearean play that takes play on a desert island somewhere between Tunis and Naples. A hazardous storm appears impacting a ship of European nobles and mariners; on board are Alonso, King of Naples, Gonzalo, Boatswain, Trinculo, Stefano, Antonio, Sebastian, and Ferdinand. The nobles are leaving Tunis, Africa after the wedding of Claribel, daughter of the King of Naples to the prince. Prospero, the former Duke of Milan uses his sorcery to conjure the very storm that bombards the nobles in order to bring them to the island. Frey interjects, “In 1808, Edmond Malone argued that Shakespeare derived the title and some of the play’s incidents from accounts of a storm and shipwreck experienced by Sir Thomas Gates and other Jamestown colonists on the Bermuda islands in 1609” (Frey 29).The play entails the romance of Ferdinand, Alonso’s son and Miranda, Prospero’s daughter; while also detailing a twelve year power struggle that is resurfacing itself in a treacherous plot for power. In comparison to the New World’s politics, “The Tempest” can be read as a play that deals with these same political issues: rebellion of constituted authorities, colonization of a new land, dehumanizing of the natives, marriages and romances of royalty, masters and servants, Christian virtues, and visions of a utopia.

Power , the ability to control drives people to do horrible things to keep it. What would you do to keep it?, How long would it take to slide down the moral slope? This is the issue for the characters in The Tempest.After his brother betrays him and steals his throne,The protagonist, Prospero cause a storm bringing every one involved with the theft of his dukedom to the island he has been on since he was exiled .Prospero with the help of his spirt Ariel Reich and manipulate his enemies.The was a struggle between Prospero and his brother ,but also within the castaways there were plots to kill for power.Each of the scenes in The Tempest supports the main ideal?In Willam Shakespeare's play The Tempest he use conflict to further develop the theme of a struggle for power.

Written in England, around 1610-1611, William Shakespeare created the romance play titled “The Tempest.” This piece of literature is set entirely on an unnamed island in the Mediterranean Sea during the Renaissance time period; this type of setting is “far from the royal courts and civic concerns which typically dominate the Shakespearean corpus” (Louden 201). In the beginning, the main character Prospero, the duke of Milan, and his infant daughter were exiled from Milan, put on a ship, and left to fend for themselves in the dangerous waters of the sea. It was by the power and greediness of Alonso, the king of Naples, and Prospero’s usurping brother, Antonio, that he was banished. Soon, Prospero and his daughter, Miranda, land on this unnamed