The Tempest Long Essay

Magic was a notion firmly embedded in the Elizabethan culture. It explained many things. Discuss the importance of magic in the play The Tempest.

“The Isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet ones, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears: and sometimes voices…” states Caliban (Act III, pg 109)

Within Shakespeare’s text, The Tempest, set in Elizabethan times, magic is indeed of great importance. Shakespeare gives Prospero the ability to perform magic which allows him to carry out alterations to the world around him. His magic will eventually lead to the restoration of order following the disruption caused, or symbolized, by the tempest; the most obvious and important magical achievement in the play. From the start of the play, Shakespeare uses magic to captivate his Elizabethan audience and move his characters from one scene to another, for example, we are introduced to our first characters during the tempest itself, and it is through this created event that they are transferred to the safety of the island. Magic is frequently used by the main character Prospero, sometimes for compassionate reasons to prevent the suffering of his daughter, but often to make others remorseful and change their ways. Initially, one must examine the importance of magic, which was firmly embedded in the Elizabethan culture.

Written in 1611, magic within The Tempest would have presented itself to the Elizabethan culture as a most controversial topic. It had been the persecutions of those believed to perform ‘black magic,’ Witches were still persecuted and witch-hunts did not actually stop until the end of the seventeenth century.  Therefore, Shakespeare's use of magic was controversial, bound by the fact that Prospero was presented in mainly a good light, a move probably made to make a bold statement; that magic can be used for good not just the stereotypical ‘evil’. Magic may have influenced King James that ‘good’ magic was indeed possible. This may have lead to a wider knowledge of magic within the Elizabethan culture and perhaps more widely accepted. Obviously, magic could also grab audiences of Shakespeare's time perhaps being used as a controversial marketing tool. Magic still continues to seize audiences even today, who also delve further into the importance of magic within The Tempest, which certainly does explain many aspects of the play.

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Magic plays an important part in The Tempest for Prospero to bring back Ariel, whom he releases from the imprisonment of “foul witch Sycorax” under his control. However, the authority that Prospero possesses over Ariel is liable to abuse as there would be a very human temptation for him to use Ariel as his puppet to take his revenge on the shipwrecked characters that are effectively at his mercy. This is due to a feeling of resentment, anger and revenge due to the injustice towards him of banishing him to the island. This allows the important theme of magic to be ...

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