The play is seen by some critics as a summing up and working out of themes underlying the entire body of Shakespeare's work; by some it is considered a serene, mature, optimistic work, and by others as bitter, cynical and unforgiving. Prospero's speech abjuring his magical powers is often interpreted as Shakespeare's retirement speech:
But this rough magic
I here abjure; . . . I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms deep in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book. (V, i, 50-55)
These various critics are frequently at odds with one another, but most would agree that in structure, character, and theme it is certainly one of the best of Shakespeare's plays.
produced, however, to indicate that Shakespeare was familiar with this play (Craig 1002).
Certain passages of the play seem to have been inspired by, or to be reinterpretations of, other works. Montaigne's Of Cannibals (1603) parallels Gonzalo~s speech describing his vision of Utopia, and Ovid's Metamorphoses contains a passage strongly reminiscent of Prospero's invocation:
Ye Elves of hill, brooks, standing lakes, and groves And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, ~ Whereof the ewe not bites; . . . (V, i, 33-38) As Hirst says, to the Renaissance mind this reshaping of A familiar material 1'did not appear derivative but creative" (13)
0 ho, 0 ho! Would't had been done! Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl'd else this isle with Calibans. (I, ii, 349-51)
Caliban's character is so richly drawn that he is sometimes proposed a candidate for main character of the play. Ariel may be described as a type of indentured servant; his term of service is limited and is repayment for Prospero's releasing him from imprisonment. Caliban is a slave whose menial labor frees Prospero to study, to tutor Miranda, and to enjoy a leisured life. Caliban, offspring of the union between a witch and a demon, is a deformed savage, "Legg'd like a man . . [with) fins like arms" (II, ii, 33). He might be seen as a noble savage, but there is no nobility in him. He is a creature of nature in the sense that he has not been corrupted by civilization and has no civilized vices. He also lacks a sense of right and wrong, and beyond a certain facility with language, Prospero finds him uneducable;
[He is] a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost; (IV, i, 188-190) The only use he can see for his acquired language is "how to curse. The red plague rid you for learning me your language!" (I, ii, 363-64) The relationship of Prospero and Caliban is a mirror of the colonization of new lands. The native loses his land, his language, his customs, his dignity; the conqueror gains land and power and enslaves the native population. At the end, Caliban seems to have learned to value Prospero, especially in comparison with Stephano and Trinculo, just as he finally achieves his heart's desire; the ship's party, now including Prospero and Miranda, sails away, leaving him in possession of his island.
Just as Caliban seems totally a creature of the earth, Ariel is a creature of the air. He is called a bird, a chick, and a cherubim; he controls the wind and the waves, carries out Prospero's commands in the wink of an eye, and has no human emotions, though he seems to understand them. When he sees how Alonso mourns the supposed death of his son.
Ferdinand, he intercedes with Prospero to relent.
Ariel: Your charm so strongly wbrks 'em That if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender.
Dost thou think so, spirit? Mine would, sir, were I human. And mine shall.
Prospero:
Ariel:
(V, i, 17-20)
Because he is a spirit, he has to be reminded repeatedly of what he owes Prospero, who freed him from the tree in which Caliban's mother had imprisoned him, but he serves Prospero with as much enthusiasm as he receives his freedom. Caliban and Ariel together may be seen as representing the dual nature of humans--the spiritual and physical, imagination and the power of brute force. They also seem to represent the elements of earth, wind, water, and fire, which Prospero controls through them.
Miranda, Prospero's daughter, and Ferdinand, Alonso's son, are less developed than Prospero, since their love story serves mainly to reinforce the reconciliation of their fathers.
Miranda's opening dialogue with her father shows us her innocence, her sympathy for others, and her sense of love and duty to her father. When Ferdinand first catches sight of her, he calls her a goddess and a wonder (I, ii, 422-26). Since he is a prince and therefore presumably knowledgeable of feminine beauty at court, we accept her at his valuation. She is no less impressed with him, calling him divine and noble. Her valuation of him is less impressive to us than his of her though since, as Prospero points out, she has seen only him and Caliban. However, his patience and courteous forbearance with Prospero's demands and his love and respect for Miranda earn our respect. Even when Prospero warns him repeatedly and even harshly to preserve Miranda's virginity, he remains steadfastly composed. Prospero knows to his sorrow the anguish and suffering caused by uncontrolled passion and perhaps needs reassurance that Ferdinand has more self-control than Alonso and Antonio.
Alonso, who conspired with Antonio to oust Prospero, is deep in mourning for Ferdinand who he supposes drowned, and now regrets allowing his daughter to marry and move so far away. This grief seems to work on his conscience, softening him and preparing him for penitence and reconciliation with Prospero. Gonzalo, though somewhat foolish in his speech about a Utopia with no government (which he will rule), is sincerely concerned with the welfare of the group. His character is pure but impractical in contrast with the practical but impure villains, Sebastian and Antonio. They are boldly drawn villains; we do not see gradual development of evil, or evolution from normalcy to insanity. When Antonio appears on stage, his evil propensities are as obvious as a fool's cockscomb. His malignity is as motiveless as lago's. When he urges Sebastian to murder Alonso, it is to no purpose. They are stranded on a desert island, with no hope of rescue, but Antonio would nevertheless pursue his wicked ways, if Prospero did not restrain him through Ariel's unseen influence. Even when Prospero offers forgiveness, Antonio remains silent, sullen, unrepentant and unreconciled.
Ferdinand replaces Caliban as woodgatherer, but with none of Caliban's resentment. Ferdinand sees the task as an opportunity to prove his love for Miranda, by performing a task too lowly for a Prince. Caliban's defiant cursing of Prospero foreshadows his joining Stephano and Trinculo in their plot to take over the island. His acceptance of their leadership is a parallel of Sebastian's acceptance of Antonio's. These characters are motivated mainly by desires for power, titles and wealth, but Miranda achieves all of those things through her natural virtue and beauty when Ferdinand promises to make her queen of Naples. The striving and deceit which are hallmarks of Sebastian and Antonio's relationship are parodied by the slapstick dissent among Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano, and transformed into love-play when Ferdinand and Miranda pretend to wrangle over their game of chess (Brown 245).
Clothing is a motif which runs through the play. Stage directions in I, i following 1. 45 read, "Enter Mariners wet"--a surprising spectacle on the Jacobean stage and the set-up for Ariel's comment, "on their sustaining garments not a blemish, but fresher than before " (I, i, 218). But Gonzalo confirms Ariel: "our garments, being . . drenched in the sea, . . their freshness and glosses, being rather new-dy'd . . " (II, i1 60-62). Trinculo and Stephano are distracted by frippery garments, just when their plot seems most likely to succeed. Prospero's mantle is an adjunct of his magical powers; he calls it his "magic garment" and his "art." He lays it by to talk with Miranda, and abandons it to resume his ducal robes.
It is difficult to briefly sum up the diverse interpretations of The Tempest which have accumulated over the years. As Bradbrook says,
The Tempest has received such diversity of interpretation that it remains deliberately enigmatic. The play is susceptible of almost any interpretation that the audience chooses to put on it; it is a new myth . . . . Its simplicity is deceptive . . (Muir 155)
As previously mentioned, several critics feel that The Tempest works out themes that run throughout Shakespeare's work. Neilson says that it resolves questions of wrath, chaos, and evil raised in Timon (McManaway 74) as Prospero controls the storm that threatened to destroy Lear, and learns to forgive even an enemy who remains unrepentant. Hirst agrees that The Tempest reshapes Lear's themes of storm and pilgrimage (14), turning despair to hope through renewed life, and restoration of a loved one thought dead. In Pericles the ending is fairy-tale; in Cymbeline clumsy, even absurd; The Winter's Tale is resolved by a miracle. The Tempest ends realistically. Alonso can repent and Prospero forgive 1even though Trinculo and Stephano remain worthless and Antonio and Sebastian unchanged (Hirst 15).
Phillips sees Caliban as representative of instinct and passion, and Ariel as Imagination. Prospero, who controls both, embodies noble Reason, the Renaissance idea of Man (Phillips 147). Ellis-Fermor maintains that the four romances play out Shakespeare' 5 "mood of solution" (26), succeeding the tragic period in which he was "immersed as deeply as Webster, Tourner, Marston or Chapman in the dismay and foreboding of the Jacobean age, and he arrives at serenity by resolving, not discarding the earlier experience" (26). The doubts of his contemporaries are transformed into a positive optimistic view of the Christian concept of ethical morality, "a beautiful sunset after the storms of the tragic period" (Parrott 178).