Tempest Blog #5

Ross Schonberg

Ms. Gubanich

English

December 16, 2015

Power and control

In the Tempest, there are so many characters on the island, that all the characters are on, with different levels of social class, on and off of the island. These characters are not just peasants stranded on an island (well two of them are), but rather people of importance and high society back in their homeland. They either have power or control, while other characters have both power and control. Some examples would be Prospero, Ariel, and Even King Alonso.

In the beginning of the story, we see that there is a big storm and everyone on the ship is being tossed around, thinking that they are going to die out at sea. As the ship is being hit by “the storm” it turns out that Prospero, the smart wizard, who was forced to be sent out of Milan by the people who are on the boat, is the person behind the storm. So Prospero sees this as the perfect opportunity to get back at his former colleagues. So Prospero, over the years, has become a powerful wizard and was able to create the storm and controlled it so that everyone would land on the island safely. Prospero has basically taken control of the island, ever since he killed Caliban’s mother. With his magical powers, he is also able to hold to other characters as his servant/slave, like Ariel and Caliban, and has control over what they do and. Another character that has some power and control is Ariel, Prospero's servant. Ariel is a spirit who was cast into a tree, by Caliban’s evil mother, then saved by Prospero, so Ariel was thankful for saving him, and became his servant, hoping that if he does enough work for Prospero he will get his freedom. But Ariel isn’t just some little fairy, he is the one that Prospero sent out to create the storm, there is also a scene in which King Alonso and his men are wandering the island and all of the sudden Ariel comes towards them and puts Alonso and Gonzalo under a sleep spell, then when he needs to wake them he says “My master through his art foresees the danger that you, his friend, are in, and sends me forth for else his project dies--to keep them living.”(2.1.341-343). Another example is when King Alonso and his men are still wandering and they see this big table of great food, as they are about to eat it Ariel pops up and looks like a harpy. So in the grand scheme of things Ariel has a significant amount of power, but with all that power he really doesn't have that much control, other than will his spells.

Opposite to the previous characters with some great power is that of King Alonso. Even though he is a king and probably has a good amount of power back in Milan, on the island he is almost powerless. He is stranded on an island with his me, and even the men that he walks around with, Sebastian and Antonio, want to kill him because they want the power that he has as king. He is also powerless because this island is almost all controlled by Prospero, who messes with Alonso, scaring him when Prospero sends Ariel as the harpy. He is also giving away his daughter Claribel (who we don’t see in the play) to another king in some other country, which then leads to the tempest story. So it is fair to say that King Alonso has practically no power on the island whatsoever, other than letting his son marry Miranda at the end of the story.

In conclusion, there are a decent amount of characters with certain levels of power. It is intriguing to see how the characters with power use them, and how much of their power they use in the play. Also, it’s interesting to see who uses power on who and why are they using these powers on other people, and sometimes these powers mean that they now have control over another character, like with Prospero and Caliban. So in this story there are many different themes and power and control are certainly two of them.