Prospero’s relationships throughout William Shakespeare’s play the “Tempest”.

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Matthew Meaney 11GR English Coursework.  :  DRAFT. Prospero’s relationships throughout William Shakespeare’s play the “Tempest”.                   Since Prospero is the central character of the play, most of the relationships shown and developed in the play concern him. He has his main dealings and relationships with Miranda, Ferdinand, Alonso, Antonio and Caliban. Miranda is his daughter, and was exiled along with him to this island. Prospero has cared solely for her in the last sixteen years, and thus is very protective of her. Prospero is the only male that Miranda has seen. He helps Miranda and Ferdinand to become betrothed, and as a kind of test he makes Ferdinand do chores to establish whether in a sense he is “worthy” of Miranda. Prospero is uneasy about his daughter, Miranda and Ferdinand getting together. When he sees the true love between them, and that his little girl is not so little anymore, he consents to their marriage.                                          His relationship with Ferdinand is much shorter than his relationship with Miranda obviously.  In order for him to test Ferdinand Prospero accuses him of various things, such as being a spy, but the fact that Ferdinand repeatedly exclaims, “any burden is made, light if he can see the face of Miranda pleases Prospero”. It almost shows to him that Ferdinand is committed to his daughter and is prepared to do anything for her. Part of Miranda's new status as being grown up is shown in the long scene where Prospero finally tells her the truth about her background and how they came upon the island, and her exclamation of "Oh brave new
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world, that hath such people in't." when she sees the noblemen, more people than she has ever seen singly before, all at once. She had only ever seen her father and the half human monster Caliban before and was very intrigued and interested when these new beings appeared on the island. This is all part of Prospero’s plan.         Caliban is the monstrous son of the dark witch Sycorax, who was the ruler of the island previously. Caliban then took charge after his mother, of the island and Prosper actually usurped rule from him, a fact which is given very little ...

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