Throughout the play we are able to see the duality in Prospero’s character. Shakespeare shows us two distinct sides to Prospero, one being the tyrant and the other being the protector. If we look at him as the tyrant we can firstly look at the main reason of the play; the shipwreck. Even though Prospero didn’t harm anyone onboard the ship, he still caused the shipwreck, at first it appears that this is an abuse of his power, but the thing that strikes me most is that it was actually Ariel who caused the storm but Prospero doesn't reveal this to Miranda and even puts her to sleep before summoning Ariel. (This again could be seen as the role of a protecting father.) A key implement in Prospero’s strive for power is his cloak, when wearing it he is in complete control and then once removed he returns to being the loving father. Shakespeare takes care to ensure that the elements of his loving father side are still apparent, e.g. when he tells Miranda of how her smile helped to sustain him through the journey from Milan to the island,
“Thou wast that did preserve me.
Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,”
The biggest debate, in my opinion, is whether Prospero caused Miranda and Ferdinand to fall in love or whether it was natural. We can look at it from both the tyrant and the protector side. It appears that Prospero has set everything up down to the very last detail to guarantee that his plan will work and hence Miranda and Ferdinand will marry...but does that mean that he made them fall in love? Yes and no, you could argue yes because if it weren’t for his plotting they would never have met in the first place, but no in the sense that he pretended to be against the idea so as to test that Ferdinand’s love was real.
Throughout the play there is a continuing sense that Prospero is like a god. He is in control of his domain, has caused everything that has happened to take place, and has power over every situation. He is omnipresent in the sense that he sends Ariel to keep watch over everything that’s going on and to goad and generally cause havoc, Ariel then reports back to Prospero so that he is kept up to date and can begin to plot his next plan of action. Again, here Shakespeare seems to provoke a domineering image of Prospero and this also highlights his treatment of Ariel. Any time Ariel asks Prospero about when he will finally be released, Prospero reminds him of the treacherous life he rescued him from. As readers we can see that this is quite hypocritical as Prospero rescued Ariel from one life of slavery and plunged him straight into another,
“Dost thou forget
From what torment I did free thee?”
Prospero’s treatment of Ariel varies as one minute he’s referring to him as “malignant thing” and then the next, “My quaint Ariel,” so again Prospero could be perceived as being contradictory.
In Act II Scene I the idea of Prospero as a god is further progressed, when he tests Sebastian and Antonio through Ariel by providing them with the chance to kill Alonso and Gonzalo, here we see Shakespeare using similar temptation as in Macbeth. When Prospero commands Ariel to awaken the victims Shakespeare lightens the mood by putting in a witty song, written in rhyme. Although it may appear that Sebastian and Antonio are in control, we as the audience know that Prospero is the real force behind it all, testing them to a certain extent and then stopping.
If we look now to Prospero’s treatment of Caliban, we see that even though he is in the same position as Ariel, Caliban reacts very differently to his situation. Caliban believes that every bad thing that happens to him is down to Prospero. As an audience we can justify that Prospero is in fact innocent with regards to the pinching, scaring, annoying, misleading, chattering, biting and hissing, and we may begin to see how Shakespeare uses Caliban to show us that Prospero isn’t to blame all the time. We also begin to understand why Prospero refers to him in such a rude manner, e.g. “freckled whelp”, “lying slave”, and “filth”. In Act III Scene II we are again shown how differently the two creatures react to their treatment when Caliban tells Trinculo and Stephano that Prospero stole the island from his possession,
“As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a
sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the
island.”
Ariel, although again invisible, responds in opposition with “Thou liest.” This, from the view of the audience, again reinforces our perception that Prospero may be loving after all as Ariel has a tendency to exaggerate as well as Caliban but yet he supports Prospero on this account.
Another godlike trait of Prospero is his tendency to test people, we continually see him do this throughout the play and one of the most important times we see this, when Shakespeare has him positioned above the scene in full view of the audience is in Act III Scene III when he commands the spirits to enter with a banquet and then when they approach to feast Ariel stops them with a speech, rather like a sermon, educating rather than punishing, summing up the play with,
“You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of Fate”
Here Shakespeare imposes the idea of heaven and hell by having Ariel dressed as a Harpy (creature of hell) and the good and bad divide with the god watching over. But in some cases it may be perceived that Prospero is actually and evil god as he is teasing them with food.
Even though Alonso thinks he has been punished for abandoning Prospero in his hour of need, we as the audience know that he hasn’t truly been punished but in fact that his son is alive and so here we may realise that Prospero isn’t really out for revenge. This scene shows us Prospero in control, as a magician, and also as a godlike figure. The language Shakespeare chooses to use in Ariel's speech is very strong, the use of “you” may even make members of the audience feel as though he is talking to them.
This play has a continuing theme of denouement, i.e. the untying of knots, and this is the structure of all of Shakespeare’s plays.
In Act IV Scene I we see both the tyrant and the loving father side as Prospero addresses Ferdinand on the matter of sex before marriage, even though he is still being very formal and in some ways quite aggressive it is due to his love for Miranda, by handing her over to marriage with Ferdinand Prospero describes the process as giving away,
“A third of mine own life”
And therefore Shakespeare encourages members of the audience to empathise with Prospero. At the same time people may see this as his possessive nature, treating Miranda like his property, and quite chauvinistic but we must remember that this is what father’s did in that period.
Throughout Act IV the image of Prospero as a playwright/director is built up increasingly, he makes it clear that the fun and games are over now, it was just like a game of chess to him with the King being cornered. In line 184, Prospero again is quite contradictory when he calls Ariel, “my bird” as the “my” could either be taken as possessive again or affectionate but then birds are closely associated with freedom but also captivity.
When Prospero enters in magic robes in Act V Scene I, he is carrying a staff which of course is commonly used in the bible, both to symbolise power but also to smite things. In line 52 he requests heavenly music, Gonzalo is also described as religious similar to Banquo and King Duncan, i.e. Shakespeare’s “good” characters are all religious.
At the end when we see Prospero set Ariel free, we see Prospero being presented as loving again, as he kept his promise and we can see that he was being truthful all along about trying to resolve everything. The common theme of Prospero as a god is more definite as he decides what is to be done and has the final words as they leave his domain, his epilogue is quite powerful in the sense that he has had victory over the situation, everything is as he had planned and now he can resume normal life.
