Tempest Blog #2

Ross Schonberg

Ms. Gubanich

English

November 24, 2015

Servitude vs loyalty

In The Tempest, there are several characters who are either slaves, servants, or just people who are a higher class than others. In the story, they all are on the island that the wizard Prospero “brought” them to, and many of them are separated, but some of them are still together. In some scenes, this proves the loyalty of characters, whether they are truly loyal to their superior, or if they could be deceitful and are just serving their superior because they are forced to. These qualities are shown between many characters and it is interesting to see how they act.

After the shipwreck in the first act, we learn that all of the characters have survived. We are told this information, not through some narration telling us, but from a character named Ariel, who is basically a magical spirit who lives on the island. Ariel also works for Prospero sort of like an indentured servant, because Prospero saved Ariel after he was trapped in a tree earlier by an evil which, so Ariel has to work for Prospero until it gains its freedom back. Ariel is very grateful for Prospero saving it, so Ariel has become very loyal towards Prospero, as he says in the quote “All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure, be ’t to fly,To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curled clouds. To thy strong bidding, task Ariel and all his quality”(1.2.224-228). It is clear that Ariel is a trusted servant to Prospero. There are two other characters that are not servants, in fact, they have very high positions, but are still below a superior. They are Sebastian, who is the King Alonso’s brother, and Antonio, who is Prospero’s brother and also had Prospero taken out of being the duke. Both of these characters work right below King Alonso. Antonio is hungry for power, so he basically just servers underneath Alonso because he has to. But really Antonio and Sebastian both want more power, so they try to kill King Alonso, but that doesn’t work out. Basically, Antonio and Sebastian are really just doing things when King Alonso tells them to, rather than them actually showing some loyalty towards the king. 
Lastly, one of the most prominent characters that demonstrates these characteristics is Caliban. Caliban is a native of the island, and is actually the son of the evil which that trapped Ariel, so when Prospero defeated the which, he took Caliban in as his slave. Prospero doesn’t mistreat Caliban horribly, but Caliban hates being his slave because, unlike Ariel, Caliban is not able to get freedom. Even though Prospero has provided Caliban with fresh food and water, Caliban only serves Prospero because he has to, rather than out of loyalty, since he always says how much he hates Caliban. Caliban does become loyal to Stephano though, but only because he thinks that he has been freed from Prospero’s tyranny.

In conclusion, there are many characters in this story that can and cannot be trusted, depending on their loyalty. I think that it is very intriguing to see what these characters will do since some of them don’t care about the others, and also see how characters act that do care about the others. The difference between servitude and loyalty is really defined in the story, which makes for some interesting character choices.