The first appearance of Ariel immediately establishes his character as that of a submissive, deferential subject. His language is that of a slave who binds himself to his master without question:
"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.”
One must also notice that this is an iambic pentameter. By the start of Shakespeare’s career one particular verse metre had come to dominate the language of plays. This was based on a line of ten syllables, arranged so that the beats, or stresses, fell on every second syllable. This was made very common practice in Shakespearian times.
Ariel’s modest willingness to serve Prospero contrasts strongly with Caliban’s attitude of scornful rebelliousness exhibited in the same scene, shortly after this extract. Whereas Ariel greets Prospero with an affirmation of his greatness, Caliban greets him with a curse:
"As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! A south-west blow on ye
And blister you all o’er!
It is all within the human psychology to know that if one does his work as a slave, he will be freed earlier because of credit. Caliban definitely doesn’t take notice of this, whereas Ariel does, obeying his master at all times, portraying to the audience the strong relationship Ariel likes to preserve with Prospero.
Prospero continues to ask Ariel if he has carried out his work by saying
“Hast thou, spirit,
Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee?”
This is also the first point at which we are made aware that Prospero had given the task to Ariel to afflict the boat, on which the robbers of his dukedom, sailed. The word ‘tempest’ here is also the first case of it in the play, which is somewhat outstanding to an audience, because this word is also the title of the play.
In the following speech, Ariel informs Prospero that he was totally successful at the task he was set, and it is very noticeable that the references to fire are made here frequently:
“I boarded the Kings' ship; now in the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement; sometime I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly
Then meet and join.”
It is widely known that this speech of Ariel’s is a striking evocation of St Elmo’s Fire, hence the reference to flames, and burning. St. Elmo's Fire is a beautiful, eerie form of atmospheric electricity that usually appears in stormy weather around church spires, sailing masts, and airplane wings. St. Elmo is actually a derivative of , an early Christian martyr and the patron saint of sailors. During rough weather, frightened seamen interpreted the blue glow around the tops of the masts as a sign of his protection. This is therefore an appropriate explanation for the frequent reference to fire in this short speech.
The next thing to notice is that way that Prospero refers to Ariel as
“My brave spirit” and on line 29 as “that’s my spirit!”
We can see here that Prospero addresses Ariel benevolently but also stresses his power over him with the word ‘my.’ It seems clear that Prospero has learn the lesson of his past and is now ready to rule again. The morality and rightness of the fact he is holding Ariel as a slave, is a different matter to this.
In this extract, Ariel finishes off by saying
“Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
in an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
his arms in this sad knot.”
These words propose a lightness about Ariel’s speech, and with this floaty speech, one can imagine him physically waving his arms in a godly and mystical way. This is the way in which Ariel is introduced to the entire play, and Shakespeare did so correctly, by making a significant contrast between Prospero’s two servants. Especially in the relationship between Prospero and Caliban, one sees the destructive force that exerts itself when a human being takes it upon himself to control another. Shakespeare's word play in naming his characters emphasizes this idea. In the same way that Caliban’s name can be rearranged as "Canibal," the letters in Prospero's name are a metathesis for "Oppresor." This can hardly be seen as coincidence, for in the relationship between the two, one is able to distinguish that Prospero wields his intelligence and modernity as oppressive forces.
