Tempest By Shakespeare Essay Research Paper The — страница 2

with Miranda the first time he sees her. When Ferdinand is washed onto the island alone, Ferdinand and Miranda (the young, na?ve daughter of Prospero who has grown up on the island and has seen no other human being than her father for as long as she can remember.) meet and fall in love at first sight. This was Prospero’s secret goal all along, although he pretends to dislike Ferdinand at first. Meanwhile, Prospero lets the other noblemen-Alonso and Antonio, accompanied by Sebastian, Gonzalo and others wander around the island for a while, by the way of punishment. Alonso believes that his son Ferdinand has drowned, and he is suffering greatly over this. Antonio and Sebastian, Prosper and Alonso’s wicked brothers, plot together to murder Alonso in his sleep in order to seize

the crown of Naples, but Prospero sends his servant Ariel to prevent this. Meanwhile, another of Prospero’s servants-Caliban, a creature native to the island whom Prospero has made his slave-meets up with a couple of drunken servants from the ship, a jester named Trinculo. He is also part of the antagonists and is a clownish figure. He is Alonso’s jester, who washes up alone. Also a good friend of Stephano and very fond of wine, he gets involved in an incompetent "conspiracy" with Stephano and Caliban to kill Prospero and take over the island. But of course because he drinks his plans are not as efficient. Prospero at work with his magic again, casts an enchantment on Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian to make them immobile with madness, guilt and fear. Meanwhile,

Ferdinand and Miranda become engaged, and Prospero uses his magic to give them a beautiful wedding pageant, with spirits taking the form of classical deities. Finally, in the climatic concluding scene, all the characters are brought together once more. Prospero forgives the villains, but reclaims his dukedom from Antonio. Ferdinand and his father Alonso are reunited. Prospero and Miranda plan to set sail back to Naples with the rest, where Miranda will marry Ferdinand and become the future Queen of Naples. And Prosper, finally keeping the promise, which he has been making for ages, sets Ariel free from its servitude to him. Prospero is the main character of The Tempest, he is the most powerful and he manipulates everything. From the start of the play he engineers the tempest that

brings the other characters to his island, and after that he uses his magic to control where they go. He can send Ariel to make them fall asleep, freeze them in place, or lead them to wherever he wants them to be. He also seems to have guessed correctly what the psychological reaction of Alonso and the rest would be to Ariel’s terrifying accusation while in harpy form, and he seems to have known that Miranda and Ferdinand would fall in love. Caliban’s rebellion took him by surprise, though. I also think that Prospero is like a "stand-in" for Shakespeare, saying goodbye to his career in the theater using Prospero’s magic as a way to refer to the magic of the stage. There are passages in the play, which seem to make connections between Prospero’s magic and the

magic on the stage. Prospero’s power of illusion as being a metaphor for the illusion of theater, and his magic and power over other people may be linked to the power, which the playwright himself-Shakespeare-has in creating worlds and characters. Prospero’s final scene in which he stands alone and is powerless on the stage, is a moving farewell to a great playwright who is about to lay aside his magic by writing into his play "now my charms are all o’erthrown, and what strengths I have’s mine own." Prospero admits, "now I want, spirits to enforce, art to enchant" (1-2, 13-14). Even as Prospero pleads for the audience’s forgiveness and release and pleas, which is easy to interpret, as the usual formal pleas made in an epilogue that is actually

Shakespeare’s final words, but coming through Prospero. Shakespeare is stopping his writing and saying goodbye through Prospero, when he lays his magical arts forever down and says a final farewell to an audience whom loved him. It is as if these final lines are the final ones that Shakespeare ever wrote for the stage. Then Prospero’s renunciation of his magic, and his begging the audience to, at long last, set him free, are very moving and complex. These final words are a fitting end to a magical play and to an end of a great career in the theater.