William Shakespeare 's Romeo And Juliet

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.

In Act 1 Prospero begins the play consumed by vengeance and fuelled by the need for revenge. In contrast, Shakespeare portrays Miranda as a symbol of purity and naivety; “Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock. Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished”.

Magic gives Prospero incredible power which he uses to his advantage, even though Ariel is one of Prospero’s most trusted and loyal friends, Prospero does not fil to mention the time Sycorax deceived Ariel by locking him the tree and freeing him, therefore Ariel has been in Prospero’s debt for a long time, which is similar to Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, in which Faustus is in the devil’s debt in return for power as he soons has to give away his soul, therefore the theme of trickery is common as Prospero blackmails Ariel into being his servant, “Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain a dozen years”.

In Act V Scene 2, Prospero finally confronts all of the visitors of the island, from the King of Naples to the boatswain and his crewmates. The two most important interactions that outline his change in character are the ones between his brother Antonio, and the King of Naples, Alonso. Prospero takes the initiative and forgives his brother, twice. He confronts Antonio, “I do forgive thee, / Unnatural though thou art” (V.i.88-89) and, “I do forgive / Thy rankest fault, all of them” (V.i.151-152). Lines like these show an overview of Prospero's new character at the end of the play. The first of change is admitting the wrongs and moving on from the past, both of which Prospero does. Prospero’s opinions about Alonso is also decidedly different from the beginning of the play. When talking to Miranda, Prospero refers to the Kind as “being an enemy” (I.ii.145) as well as Antonio composing “A treacherous army” (I.ii.152) of both the forces of Milan and Naples. It is clear that Prospero initially had strong feelings against the Naples family tree and kingdom. However, alongside the marriage of Ferdinand, the prince of Naples, and Prospero’s own daughter, relations between the two seem to have bettered by the end. Prospero only treats Alonso with respect saying, “I embrace thy body” (V.i.120) and, “Let me embrace thine age, whose honor cannot / Be measured or confined” (V.i.135-136). Prospero already begins to deal with the politics of Milan has he ensures that the relationship between the two countries is strong. These attempts show that Prosper is more disposed to his people and no longer just

This is evident in, “The Tempest”, where Prospero is a victim of an unjust act by his brother due to his discovery of magic and power. We see this explored through the ongoing theme of Prospero’s inner debate between revenge and reconciliation. His summoning of supernatural spirits (Ariel) for his vengeance and his magic symbolises his power and desire for revenge. This later subsides through a duologue with Ariel, “The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance” which depicts his rediscovery of morality within reconciliation and the irrationality in revenge. Consequently he forgives his brother, “you brother mine….i do forgive thee”, and by releasing Ariel and Caliban, he is able to realise and reassess himself and others through his transformed

After that Prospero told her a story about betrayal, a story about him being the Duke of Milan and how he was betrayed by his own brother Antonio and his friend Alonso and how he and Miranda were exiled unjustly. After that Prospero as a learned and powerful man was able to take direct control of the island, he freed a trapped and tortured spirit known as Ariel and befriended the inhabitants such as Caliban. Prospero 'helped' Caliban, by trying to educate him and teaching him to communicate, in exchange Caliban helped Prospero to survive on the Island. But by taking over the island, Prospero was doing the same thing that happened to him as Duke of Milan, now Prospero himself had become the usurper. In this act of goodness Prospero had unknowingly shown his evil side.

Magical powers play a tremendous role in supporting Prospero’s ambitions. Once again, Prospero abuses his magical powers and imbalances the natural elements. The opening scene of Act I begins with a tempest. In this scene, Shakespeare demonstrates that abusing elements, such as water, only creates trouble. When Miranda first speaks to Prospero about the ship wreck, she says “If by your art…you have/Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them/The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,” (1.2.1-3). This creates

From when Prospero first “raised the tempest (Shakespeare 71),” and conjured the storm to helping him hold Alonso and his companions captive, we can clearly see in Ariel’s case that he adores Prospero for freeing him and holds a very loving son-father relationship with Prospero. These caring attributes are very scarce in the other majority of the characters such as Antonio, Stephano and Caliban (who only wish to murder and rob Prospero of his power) and Ariel's attitude which he has for Prospero only makes that case even more evidently obvious. When Ariel gives the word on Alonso and his partners in crime, he states that “our (his and Prospero’s) charm so strongly works 'em that if you now beheld them, your affections would become tender” (Shakespeare 71). He states that Prospero’s effect on the three were so ominous that if he saw them, even he, in all of his power and malice, would be compelled to sympathetic tears. We are duly noted that Ariel is a spirit who is able to possess a very human and fatherly concern for others despite being of nonhuman

The play The Tempest centres on Prospero’s thirst for revenge and the actions he takes to achieve it. Some may argue that Prospero’s actions are morally justified because of the wrongs done to him in the past, or that he is a good man at heart, however the way he goes about his actions are unnecessary. I believe that until his final decisions he is a bitter, revenge thirsty man who manipulates others to get what he wants. From the very beginning of the play he is shown as cruel and power-hungry; he abandons his duty as Duke of Milan (which is the cause of all his problems), manipulates the other inhabitants of the island and his only goal is to regain the authority he lost. Prospero manipulates Ariel and Caliban into being his slaves by using threats and his superiority to control them.

However, after being highly controlling and scheming for the majority of the play, Prospero begins to forgive and recognize his actions of trying to “play god” (especially in setting up his daughter for marriage) are wrong, relinquishing his power in the final scene—“Now my charms are all o'erthrown/ And what strength I have’s mine own/ Which is

In the context of this paper I intend to argue that within the setting of the play Prospero does possess magic and uses it much throughout

Prospero experiences sea change at the end of the play when he states that “my charms are all o’erthrown, And what strength I have mine’s own, Which is most faint” (V.i.1-3). Prospero realizes that his powers are weak and that it is time to pass his dukedom to Ferdinand and Miranda. He goes through sea change when he forgives his enemies, releases Ariel, and relinquishes his magic

He sets his traitor brother up for a big face off, yet in the end he decides “the rarer action is in virtue than on vengeance” (5.1.27), and doesn’t complete his plans. At this point, it can be thought that the story of this man who gives up his “art” is highly relevant with Shakespeare’s own life as a playwright, especially when the fact that The Tempest is the last play he wrote without someone else’s collaboration is taken into account. He holds the power of changing his characters’ fate in his hands as a writer, but that doesn’t change the fact that he may lose control of his art (be it magic or rhetoric) from time to time. For instance, during the “wedding” scene of Miranda and Ferdinand (4.1.140), which is another remarkable example for Prospero/playwright theory with all the spirit actors, Prospero is seen to lose his focus and forget about the “threat” to his life. This incident can be interpreted as a similar

This is best seen in act four, when Prospero gave Ferdinand his blessing to have Miranda’s hand in marriage while then going on to have the spirits perform for them. In the midst of this performance done by Iris, Juno, and Ceres, Prospero remembers that Caliban is still out there leading a conspiracy against his life and banishes them away. He startles Ferdinand and Miranda, to which he replies with, “You do look, my son, in a moved sort, as if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir.”, in an attempt to calm down from what Ferdinand called “some passion”. In this portion, Prospero seems to be redirecting the situation onto Ferdinand, saying something like that he was the one who seemed most troubled and should now just be happy. This marks Prospero turning point into an attempt at a peaceful and philosophical discussion on the nature of this existence. He continues on by stating that “Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were

Throughout the play, Prospero is a powerful man and controller. Before Prospero landed on the island, his devotion to the study of magic got him into trouble. While Prospero's nose was buried into his studies, his brother Antonio managed to steal the title as "Duke of Milan" and get him thrown out of Italy. In (1.2.150-156), Prospero explains to Miranda that one night his brother Antonio and an army got rid of Prospero by kidnapping him. Even before Prospero was physically isolated