The Tempest

The Tempest King Alonso of Naples and his entourage sail home for Italy after attending his daughter's wedding in Tunis in Africa. They face a violent storm battering their ship. Everyone jumps overboard and is washed ashore unharmed on a strange island. This island is inhabited by Prospero and his daughter Miranda. Pispero is the rightful duke of Milan who had been betrayed by his brother Antonio. Prospero involved in reading his books had let his brother plot against him and take over the dukedom. Antonio banished Prospero and put him to sea to die with his threeyear-old daughter Miranda. By providence divine Prospero comes to this island safely. This island is also inhabited by two other figures, Ariel and Caliban. Both become as slaves for Prospero. Ariel is a sprite who carries out Prospero's orders. He isn't litreally a slave rather than obedient fellow. Ariel is like Prospero's informant on this island. Caliban (a primitive half human) is on a contrary, a disobedient and malcontent slave. There has been a hatred atmosphere between Caliban and Prospero. This conflict starts when Caliban (as a native of this island before Prospero's coming) believes that he is the rightful ruler of this isle and Prospero should become his slave or let us say share the island together with him equally. He resists Prospero's magic over himself but he fails. We do not know why Caliban has such an aggressive personality. Is it because of the suffering he had before or his bad upbringing or does it concern his mother's death and the way she died? It might be Prospero himself who is responsible for this by dealing with him harshly and unfriendly. Nobody knows. Caliban's behaviour could be viewed as a legitimate resistance if Prospero has been considered as an invader or occupier wants to dominate the island and exploit Caliban for his own purposes. On the other hand it could be seen as illegitimate one if Caliban has been considered as uneducated and savage person who wants to boss around knowledgeable and sophisticated person (Prospero) only because he lives on this isle firstly. Any way it depends on whom you are sympathizing with. So the relationship between Prospero and Caliban wasn't as good as with Ariel, especially after Caliban's attempt to rape Miranda. This attempt made the relation getting worst. This relationship (between Caliban and Prospero) presents the difference between civilized society exampled by Prospero and the primitive one by Caliban. Or you could say between art and nature. When these castaways make it ashore to this island many interesting events happens.

Fist of all, Prospero keeps Ferdinand (Alonso's son) and the king Alonso separately, and make the king thinks that he has lost his son as a punishment for the king. Then Miranda sees Ferdinand and they fall in love right away. They express their emotional feelings towards each other in a romantic way. It's obvious that there is so much passion in this relationship for example in their conersation when she offers to carry the logs instead of him but he refuses and prefers to break his back before seeing her does this. Also when Ferdinand says that his hard work gives him comfort when he thinks about her. There is a large amount of romance in this play refutes the allegation which says that Shakespeare focused on the politics more than literature. Then we see Caliban trying to temt Trinculo and Stephano to kill Prospero. Here we can see the savagery and criminality nature of Caliban. He guides them to Prospero's cell but their attempt fail thanks to his magic. And later on Prospero decides to forgive them all. On the other part of the island the king Alonso laments his bad fortune thinking that he has lost his son Ferdinand. It's kind of punishment for him for his involvement of Prospero's banishment. Sebastian (Alonso's brother) and Antonio try to kill Alonso whilsthe and the rest of the group are asleep. But fortunately Ariel was available at that moment and wake them up. The king and the rest become astonished seeing Sebstian and Antonio holding their swords in their hands, but they justify saying that they have heard strange voices and drew their swords to protect them. This persuasive justification makes the king believes them and shows also their cunning. Afterwards Ariel sends ghosts serving them a banquet and when they approach to eat from it Ariel Ariel shows up and starts rebuking them especially Alonso, antonio and Sebastian and label them (three men of the sin) for plotting against his master Prospero and evict him from Milan. Then the banquet disappears. Finally all of them are gathered in front of Prospero's cell and he scolds them again for their roles in this plot. He forgives all of them and announces that next day they all are going to sail home for Milan leaving Caliban in his own island alone.

Point of view in this play Prospero appears as a wise and forgiver man who has a magic and use it to reform the people and show them the right path. We saw bad relations between brothers. Antonio usurped Prospero's dukedom and planed to get rid of him, Sebastian wanted to kill Alonso when he was asleep. This reminds us of what happened between Adam's sons when God created the world and how Qabil killed his brother Habil. That means the human being have the seeds of evil inside them but by education and knowledge man can overcome this evilness and control it. Ariel wasn't a human being and had no greed in anything of this material world, he wanted only earn his freedom again. He saved the life of two persons. He could have let Caliban kills Prospero and get the freedom he seeks. Caliban (the slave) was a controversial figure in this play. May be some readers

find it difficult to determine whither he was right or wrong in his behaviour with Prospero. I think that Caliban was a grumy ungrateful person in general. Prospero made him a favor by coming to this island by accompanying him in this isolated island and by teaching him the language to make him speak. What did Caliban do in return? He attempted to rape his daughter, so I think that Prospero treated Caliban in the way he deserves to be treated. Moreover, Prospero didn't come to this island on purpose to say that he came to occupy the island, it was providence divine. It was like a gift from God to Caliban but he rejucted this gift. We have to understand that the fortune smiles once and you have to seize the opportunity and those who refuse to receive God's blesses they will end up like Caliban- restless, lonely, outcast and isolated from the rest of the world. I think it is very genius of Shakespeare to make the readership discuss and think about who is right and who is wrong in this play. It's not black and white in my point of view. There is no matter of politics in this play, and even if there was, I think that Shakespeare succeeded by implying a political issue in a literary form and motivate the people to read and think. The play discussed themes like forgivness, justice, knowledge, repentance and romace amongst other things.