Explore Shakespeare's presentation of the theme of power in the "The Tempest"

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Thomas Shannon

Explore Shakespeare’s presentation

of the theme of power in the “The Tempest”

Shakespeare shows the theme of power throughout the play “The Tempest”. Prospero has power over his daughter, his enslaved servants Ariel and Caliban. Alonso has power as king of Naples, but there is irony in the fact he has no power on the island, and in a weakened emotional state is vulnerable to the loose of power that remains. Shakespeare presents a comedic attempt to gain power through the figure of Stephano. Shakespeare then presents us with a parody of the situation of Stephano using Sebastian, where he tries to take over the island with the aid of Caliban. The power that Prospero has throughout the play is let go of at the end of the play because of forgiveness.

Throughout the play Prospero continuously has control of the people that land on the island, with the help of his servant Ariel. This is because he has planned how he was going to get what he wants which is his old position as the rightful Duke of Milan. The reason why Prospero lost his powerful position was because he spent too much time over his magic and his books, this then lead to him handing over to much power to his brother. This left him in a very vulnerable state to loosing all his power. This I feel is very much like how King Alonso is portrayed while he is on the island, and thus being one of the reasons why Prospero forgives him. He was then exiled and left to die, however Gonzalo saved his life by bringing them water and food this is the reason why throughout the play no harm comes to him. They then landed on the island and met Caliban. Prospero treated Caliban well up until he had shown them all the secrets of the island such as fresh water. Prospero then enslaved him and made him do all the hard labour for them. One of the reasons why Prospero does this is because he says that Caliban sexually assaulted Miranda.  

This is one of the first people we see Prospero take control of. We can see that throughout the years Caliban has come to resent the power that Prospero has over him but is still scared of his magic. We can see this because of when Caliban says things like, “A south-west blow on ye/ and blister you all o’er.” This shows that he hates them because he has told Prospero and Miranda that he wants them to have blisters all over their skin. He felt that Prospero had betrayed him because he was lead into a false sense of security, because Prospero took the island off him. This is only made worse by the fact that Caliban says that at first he loved Prospero, but felt betrayed after the island was taken away just like his freedom. However he will never stand up to Prospero because of his magic.

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Another person that we meet that is under the control of Prospero is Miranda. Miranda is Prospero’s daughter. The relationship between them can be seen in two ways. The first being is to see Prospero as loving father doing what he can to keep her safe. Indeed at times though he has had to rely on Miranda throughout the play when he wanted her to fall in love with Ferdinand, “O, a cherubin, / Thou that did preserve me. Thou did smile/ Infused with a fortitude of heaven.” This tells of how Miranda was the only thing that kept ...

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