The Tempest: Act 3
Please answer these questions with specific reference to the text. Be prepared to submit and discuss these next class.
Move beyond the WHAT and address the SO? WHY? HOW? What does each of the answers to the below questions
reveal about THEME and CHARACTER?
1. How do you know that Prospero approves of the growing love between Ferdinand and Miranda? Theme?
Character? (3.1)
2. In his “music” speech, Caliban speaks of sleep and dreaming in one of the most eloquent passages of the play.
What other moments in this act stress dream or illusion? What character struggles with this blurring between
illusion and reality? (Act 3.2; lines 134-142)
3. How does Caliban reveal himself to be more eloquent than Stephano or Trinculo? What does this quality suggest
about his character? Theme? Character?
4. When does the disguised Ariel appears, how does each of the men of sin react? (3.3) Theme? Character?
5. A feast usually suggests celebration and welcome. Why is an interrupted feast especially suitable for Prospero’s
purposes? (3.3) What theme might the opulent and lavish feast reinforce?
6. Gonzalo says that Sebastian, Antonio and Alonso are affected by the “poison” of their guilt. How does guilt act
like a poison? What character is also affected by this poison?
7. How does Prospero haunt this act? What does his reveal about his character? Character?
8. If Caliban and Miranda had the same upbringing, why are they so different? What does this difference suggest
about the relative importance of nature versus nurture? Theme?
The Tempest Act IV
Read Act IV of Tempest and complete the following.
1. Which goddesses join in the masque? What kinds of blessings do they bestow on the couple?
Who else joins the masque?
2. What causes Caliban and the others to turn aside from their plot?
3. What are Prospero’s motives in creating the masque for Ferdinand and Miranda?
4. How does this broken off “show” resemble and differ from the “show” of the disrupted feast in
Act III?
5. How does the final part of the act contrast with the masque? Why do yo think Prospero is
especially angry with Caliban?
6. In Prospero’s famous soliloquy, the “great globe” refers to the world but may refer as well to
the Globe Theatre, in which the play was acted. How might the comment about the “globe”
affect the audience?
7. To whom is Prospero referring when he says, “We are such stuff/As dreams are made on”?