With the semester coming to an end, many students are excited. This especially includes those who will be graduating soon. However, graduation can be seen as a bittersweet moment. On one hand, the graduates enter into a new chapter in their lives. On the other hand, they may lose communication with some of their friends. Unfortunately, this is a natural aspect of each person’s life. Everyone will experience some kind of loss in their life, whether it is person or an object. In The Tempest, Shakespeare discusses the topic of loss. While this theme is not talked about much compared to other themes in the play, it is very important since it is a theme that is included in the 1956 movie adaptation Forbidden Planet. While both works illustrate the ways people deals a loss, the later work demonstrates how the advancement in the world have affected the way modern society
Shakespeare's play, The Tempest tells the story of a father, Prospero, who must let go of his daughter; who brings his enemies under his power only to release them; and who in turn finally relinquishes his sway over his world - including his power over nature itself. The Tempest contains elements ripe for tragedy: Prospero is a controlling figure bent on taking revenge for the wrongs done to him, and in his fury he has the potential to destroy not only his enemies, but his own humanity and his daughter's future.
...nowledge on The Tempest, both that it is Shakespeare’s final play and believed to be his farewell to theater Mendes unifies Shakespeare and Prospero. Prospero’s actions can be unified to Shakespeare himself, specifically in the final scenes of the play when Prospero relinquishes his magical abilities.
There is a unimpeded progression of maturity that Prospero is subjected to. Instead of taking vengeance on those who wronged him he ultimately decides to function with his “...nobler reason...” (5.1.26). He understands that the way he has composed himself and treated others is no better than the lack of benevolence he has been subjected to. In William Shakespeare's the Tempest, Prospero projects the oppressive demeanour that initially made him a prisoner onto Caliban and Ariel which ultimately leads to his shift from ignorance to knowledge. The relationship between servant and master is beautifully articulated and exemplifies enticing altruistic values that one should strive for.
First, look at Prospero's final decision in the play. He is capable of returning to Milan and ruling it while keeping his magical power - he does not have to choose between the two - and he abandons his power. Just as Shakespeare was not forced to quit writing, Prospero is not forced to abandon his magic. In addition, Shakespeare specifically has Prospero tell us : "My charms crack not, my spirits obey, ..." ( V.i 2 ). Shakespeare means to tell the audience he is not quitting because his ability as a writer is lessening at all, but specifically tells us through Prospero that he is at his peak and is completely in command of his art. There is no other obvious thematic or plot-development reason why Prospero should specifically ...
Many believe that Shakespeare, personified his character into Prospero, because Prospero ultimately created the entire plot of the play with his magic, which he obtained shortly after being marooned on the island. Because The Tempest was one of only two of Shakespeare’s works that were entirely original, one could see why this would be the easiest position to take; after all, Prospero basically writes the play himself, by creating a complicated plot to regain his dukedom from which he was usurped. He also controls every character in the play, some with loving relationships, some with just the opposite. “Watching” Prospero create and work through the play, is almost like watching the playwright write the play, from start to finish. His extremely manipulative control over all characters in the play, and his delicate and sometimes hard to understand strategy in “capturing” the king is symbolized in the end in which Miranda and Ferdinand are revealed playing chess. Because of this, his dukedom is surrendered back to him, for which matter he also surrenders his magic in order to fit in with the world which he is about to rejoin after twelve years. This play very much does show the magic and ability to create anything in the world of theatre, even a barren theatre like the Globe, before the wonders of technology could create special effects and realistic scenery. This is ironic because the vivid descriptions that the characters give of the island, whether good or bad, are not achievable through primitive scenery as there was in Shakespeare’s day, so therefore are left up to the audience for interpretation. For instance:
...parallel and reflective storylines. Shakespeare had to have been among the most voracious and intelligent readers ever to have opened a book. Aspects of many of the most scholarly works available in his day can be found in his works. Throughout my research for this paper, several sources mentioned a series of pamphlets concerning the survival of some mariners in the Bermuda Islands after a tempest in 1609. Until then the Bermudas were popularly thought to be inhabited by demons and fairies. Many believe that the idea of survival on a lush, remote and magical island first influenced his conception of The Tempest. That storm certainly turned into a blessing for all of us who so greatly enjoy and appreciate Shakespeare’s works.
The "Reflections of The Tempest" A few summers ago, we hosted two Japanese students for 11 days. One afternoon a violent storm came up; we unplugged appliances and from our living room watched the lightning and listened to the loud, almost instantaneous thunder. One of the students, unaccustomed to thunder storms, was terrified; he clapped his hands against his head and appeared ready to dive under the table in spite of our attempts to reassure him. The proud members of a wedding party on their way home to Naples are also terrified at the opening scene of The Tempest. During these first chaotic moments when the mariners tell their noble passengers to get back under deck so that they can keep at work, we realize that things are out of control--that the usual order of society doesn't mean much when one is in the process of being shipwrecked.
No man is an island. It takes a strong, mature man to forgive those who hand him misfortune. It takes a real man to drop to his knees and repent. The character of Prospero in Shakespeare's Tempest is a man who has suffered much. Prospero is a puppet master throughout the play, but releases everything to save himself from his own self. The enemies in the play are not those whom he shipwrecked, they are of little consequence, and he plays them easily.
The character Prospero in The Tempest is similar to the witches in Macbeth. Just as the witches in Macbeth are a shiny influence of wickedness and mayhem in the play, Prospero uses his wizardry for bad and not for good. Macbeth is haunted by the witches
Prospero is purified intellect. He is a "white" magician; he practices theurgy, not goety. (Curry 137). By the practice of white rather than black magic we mean that Prospero's magic is always turned to good ends, and that he seeks only good. At the end of the play Prospero seems somewhat to abdicate his role as the embodiment of pure intellect, as he returns to Milan to resume his role as an active chief magistrate, or Duke.
The Genre of The Tempest The Tempest is customarily identified as the William Shakespeare's last piece. These marginal issues aside, The Tempest is the forth, final and finest of Shakespeare's great and/or late romances. Along with Pericles, Cymbeline and The Winters Tale, The Tempest belongs t the genre of Elizabethan romance plays. It combines elements of Tragedy (Prospero's revenge/Loss of a royal son) with those of romantic comedy (the young lover Ferdinand and Miranda) and, like one of Shakespeare's problem plays, Measure for measure, it poses deeper questions that are not completely resolved at the end. The romantic gesture is distinguished by the inclusion (and synthesis) of these tragic, comic, and problematic ingredients, and further marked by a happy ending(usually concluding in a masque or dance) in which all, or most, of the characters are brought into harmony.
Ostensibly, The Tempest is a play based around Prospero: his power to punish versus his power to forgive. ?Many scholars believe that this is a semi-autobiographical work, written towards the end of Shakespeare's literary career?(Davidson 241). This idea is reinforced throughout the play, especially towards the end and in the epilogue:
... teaching him. However later realize his intentions are good and that he did want Caliban to be taught. Having said the power of his love over his daughter helps him develop as a better father and allow his daughter freedom in marriage that she deserves. Ending of Prospero retiring from his magical powers represents his development in becoming the ideal ruler. In order for him to do this, he must give up his rights to magic and allow his power to come the loyalty of his people. The power over Caliban teaches him to be less self-indulgent and him not wanting to help Caliban after his actions says that he is not completely vain. When Prospero drops his stick that is like Shakespeare dropping his pen when he was done with this play. He knew that The Tempest would be his last one before he retired and Prospero knew he was done being controlling and forgave his enemies.
Throughout The Tempest Prosperos character portrays an image of a nearly Nietzchean superhuman capable of disclaiming authority, killing God. He is in control of every situation and event as if the chain of causes and effects would be a conductible melody waiting for an artists touch. On the other hand he is very human: a wronged duke and a father, a symbiosis which Shakespeare displayed with the use of Prosperos garment as a theatrical tool. An artist is the creator, the maker of realities yet he remains human, an animal with feelings and urges, ties only waiting to be cut. The view implied is not far from the ideologies that emerged from the great suffering of the second world war: a man is capable of constructing himself a framework of personal and social meaning, but his true animal nature remains unchanged. In the heart of existence, life has no predefined meaning, it is a mere passage of survival from necessary birth to necessary death. Prospero's and his daughter's situation on the island was hopeless, however Prospero had chosen a function for his life - revenge.