The Tempest
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detailed explanation:
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1. Characters
5. Climax
2. Dramatic
Structure
6. Falling Action
7. Denouement
3. Exposition
8. Themes
4. Rising Action
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Characters
 Prospero: The protagonist, the
overthrown Duke of Milan who is now
a sorcerer on a deserted island.
 Miranda: Daughter of Prospero.
 Ariel: A mischievous spirit who does
Prospero’s bidding and is visible only
to him.
 Alonso: King of Naples.
 Sebastian: Alonso’s brother, who is
attempting to kill his brother and
nephew to steal the throne.
 Antonio: Prospero’s brother, new
Duke of Milan, who sent Prospero to
the island.
 Ferdinand: Alonso’s son, next in line
for the thrown.
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Dramatic Structure
• Exposition: The beginning of the
story which gives information that
is necessary for the reader’s full
understanding.
• Rising Action: Any action or
actions that lead up to the climax
of the story.
• Climax: The moment of pure
conflict in the story, something
huge is changing or happening to
the Protagonist.
• Falling Action: All conflict is being
settled, things are slowly falling
back into place.
• Denouement: The story is
finished, and the audience is
usually left with a sense of finality.
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Exposition
Prospero, the rightful
Duke of Milan has just
been overthrown and
banished to an
abandoned island by
his own brother,
Antonio, who has
allied himself with
Milan’s enemy,
Naples.
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Rising
Action
Prospero uses
his sorcery
and his spirit, Ariel, to
create a storm which
wrecks the ship which
carries Antonio (his
brother), Alonso (King of
Naples), Sebastian
(Alonso’s brother), and
Ferdinand (Alonso’s son),
causing them to all be
cast on to the island.
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Climax
Miranda
(Prospero’s
daughter) and
Ferdinand
(Alonso’s son) fall
in love, Prospero
creates a series of
magical
interventions
which cause
Alonso to regret
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Falling Action
Antonio and
Sebastian’s
plan to
overthrow
Alonso is
revealed.
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Denouement
Prospero’s dukedom
is restored, Antonio
and Sebastian are
forgiven, and the
betrothal between
Miranda and
Ferdinand ensures
peace between
Milan and Naples.
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Themes
• Revenge: Throughout the
entire play, Prospero puts all
of his energy into getting
revenge on his brother.
• Jealousy: Jealousy plays a
huge role in the story. There is
jealousy between Prospero
and Antonio and Alonso and
Sebastian.
• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is
the theme most commonly
associated with Shakespeare’s
The Tempest. In the end of
the play, everyone is forgiven,
and all is well.
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The Tempest
Problem: To avoid making
Prospero seem paternal, Miranda
insipid.
Method: Understand their quirks
and problems, including their
relationship to Caliban.
Solution
The Tempest is about freedom.
Prospero promises to set Ariel free,
asks the audience to free him by
applauding, frees himself from need for
vengeance, his enemies from their
crimes by pardons, but cannot free
Caliban (scapegoat, his own dark side,
unfortunate dependent child).
Pursuit of illusions, an ordeal,
and symbolic vision
 Ferdinand led by Ariel’s music, trial at the
woodpile, and vision of wedding masque
 Stephano and Trinculo: hunt for Prospero,
ordeal of the horse-pond; symbolic vision of
“trumpery”
 The Naples court party: hunt for Ferdinand,
ordeal of meandering, banquet of symbolic
desires
 (from Northrop Frye, intro to Pelican edition)
Romance as myth of
renewal
 life of discipline represented by Miranda’s
chastity, contrast Alonso’s despair
 Gonzalo’s speech comes from Montaigne’s
essay on cannibal (anagram of Caliban): how
can Europeans who murder each other in the
name of religion condemn savages for merely
eating each other?
 Fourth and fifth acts give a “renewed and
ennobled vision of nature.”
 Play combines comedy, tragedy and history,
both “primitive and sophisticated, childlike and
profound.”
Biblical echoes
 Iris’s rainbow like rainbow God uts in heaven
after Noah’s flood as a promise or covenant
that he will not again destroy the world again
 St. Paul’s shipwreck (“Not a hair perished,”
Acts 27:34)
 Ariel from Isaiah 29:1.
 Contest of magic: Prospero v. Sycorax =
Moses v. Pharaoh
 Virgil was considered a Christian based on
Fourth Eclogue about the birth of a son; his
Aeneid about personal costd of founding
agreat civilization.
Masks and Visions
Ariel’s shipwreck
The Banquet destroyed by Harpies
(Alonso and others “worse than devils”
3.3.35)
Prospero’s Vision of Ceres (bountiful
wedding, his “present fancy” 4.1.122)
Hounds chasing the would be murderers
4.1.252.
Songs of Freedom
Ariel’s invitation to Ferdinand
1.2.375 and song about
Ferdinand’s dead father, 1.2.398.
Stephano drunk, 2.2.45
Caliban going to work for
Stephano, 2.2.177.
Ariel dressing Prospero, 5.1.87
Comic bits
Antonio and Sebastian make aside
comments, mocking Gonzalo’s attempts
to cheer up Alonso, 2.1
Drunken Stephano finds a four-legged
monster 2.2
Invisible Ariel does voice imitations to
sow dissension between Trinculo and
Stephano, 3.2
Magic bits
Ariel controls the weather.
Prospero puts Mirando to sleep, 1.2.
Prospero controls goblins the pinch
Caliban; Ariel conjures up music.
Ariel puts Alonso to sleep, 2.1
Prospero contains the court party inside
his magic circle, 5.1.55, before
releasing them.
Prospero abandons his art.
Colonialism
We should be aware of the brutalities of
history and how they can be hidden.
The play takes hierarchical power as a
premise but reminds us of its
unsteadiness.
It uses the language of firm obedience
and also alerts us to its costs.
Colonialism
 You need to be aware of the horrors of
European settlement: George Washington
burned the Indian settlement at Vincennes.
 But that does not make Shakespeare a dead
white man, but one who unflinchingly recorded
and imaginatively resolved the contradiction
between English ideals and practice.
 Romance finds an imaginative way (via magic)
to resolve contradictions.
Rules for Action
Statements
 Only one character can perform the key action
of the scene.
 Decisions do not count.
 Anything planned before the scene starts does
not count.
 The action is something the character does in
thoughtful response to some cause or causes.
 Talking to the audience can be an action.
 When writing a full statement, put the main
action in the main clause of the sentence.
“Moral Action”
“The origin of action is choice
[proairesis], and the cause of choice is
desire and reasoning with a view to an
end. This is why choice cannot exist
either without reason . . . or without a
moral state; for good action and its
opposite cannot exist without a
combination of intellect and character
[ethos].”
 (McKeon trans. 1024;Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
1139a30-35).
Action
1.1 Gonzalo recommends himself to the
will of “the gods.”
1.2 Prospero orders Miranda not to
intercede in his dealings with Ferdinand.
Tempest 1.2 (Ross)
Having arranged at length for Miranda to ready
herself for a socially conditioned marriage and
sent Ariel to bring Ferdinand to her presence, and
then ordering Caliban to carry in more wood even
though it’s not normally need since he wants
enough for Ferdinand to labor on (we can’t figure
this out till later), Prospero orders Miranda not to
intercede in his dealings with Ferdinand when he
orders Ferdinand to follow him (to a job on the
wood pile—no free ride from dad-in-law),
presumably since he doesn’t explain things to her,
or us.
1.2 Paul Brown
 “Prospero interpellates the various listeners--calls to
them, as it were, and invites them to recognize
themselves as subjects of his discourse, as beneficiaries
of his civil largess. Thus for Miranda he is a strong
father who educates and protects her; for Ariel he is a
rescuer and taskmaster; for Caliban he is a colonizer
whose refused offer of civilization forces him to strict
discipline; for the shipwrecked he is a surrogate
providence who corrects errant aristocrats and punishes
plebeian revolt. Each of these subject positions confirms
Prospero as master.”

From Paul Brown, “This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine”: The Tempest
and the Discourse of Colonialism,” in Political Shakespeare, ed. Jonathan
Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester UP, 1985), 229-246.
Problems with Brown
Does Miranda think Prospero is strong?
(Dad!)
Does Ariel object to his tasks? (flying
around)
Does Prospero colonize Caliban’s island
(or leave it as soon as he can)?
Do the shipwrecked know how Prospero
pardons his enemies?
Orgel, p. 15
Prospero calms Miranda’s fears for the
victims of the shipwreck, then narrates
his and her history in order to control it,
blaming himself and others.
(His point is to show the characters are
complex, the play open to
interpretation, not to focus on the scene
as a structural unit.)
Action Statement Pattern







1.1: Gonzalo commits himself to the will of God.
1.2: Prospero hides from Miranda why his mistreats Ferdinand.
2.1: Gonzalo prays for Ferdinand’s protection.
2.2: Caliban sings a song of (mistaken) freedom.
3.1: Miranda asks Ferdinand to marry her, wthout consulting Prospero
3.2: Caliban leads Stefano and Trinculo in pursuit of Ariel’s music.
3.3: Gonzalo sends others, younger than he, to protect the those with
guilty consciences (Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio).
 4.1: Prospero keeps Ariel loyal by promising him that his moment of
freedom is nearing now that all his enemies are at his mercy.
 5.1: Prospero charges Ariel to provide calm seas for everyone’s return
to Italy, which if Ariel does, he will be free