Throughout of Act 1 Scene Shakespeare keeps the audiences attention in many ways. Prospero is the main character in the Tempest and throughout the play he changes his mood a lot. This keeps the audience interested a

The first scene is very important because it introduces the characters and the themes. The first scene starts with a storm with thunder and lightning this would have immediately caught the audience’s attention.

The storm shows a disorder in the play. The boatswain demonstrates this because he loses his temper with Gonzola who is trying to help but is only getting in way. The audience would be surprised to see this and would realise the severity. The audience at that time would have talked to a royal councillor like that.

The opening scene poses a lot of questions for the audience like where are they going? Who are they? Will they live? Where will they end up? Shakespeare has only given names to some of the people on the boat the other are called by their trades. He has done this to tell us that only the people with names will appear later on in the play.

    The audience is also able to get an impression of the characters on board. Antonio and Sebastian are rude “A pox o' your throat…” They are inconsiderate and selfish. Gonzalo on the other hand appears as the peacemaker. Alonzo is worried but still courteous “good boatswain have care”

Scene two introduces the inhabitants of the island. It also gives us the background to the play. We also learn about the people in the first scene about who they are and what have done to prospero in the past. It also answers some of the questions raised in scene one. We are also told about his brother Antonio and how he betrayed him to become duke of Milan.

The long speech in which Prospero talks about his past; he risks boring the audience. However several times during the speech he demands Miranda’s attention even though she is already listening. Prospero is actually demanding the attention of the audience. When Prospero is talking about his past he uses very short sentences, he has waited 12 years to resolve the situation. He shows his emotions to the audience by using visual language and making images in our heads “The ivy which had hid my princely trunk”. Re-living the memory makes him angry and upset, this causes the words to tumble out of his mouth “out o’th substitution”. This shows he is very much in a hurry to tell his story, for which he has waited such a long time.

After Prospero’s long, informative, speech; Ariel enters the play in a light and happy mood. Immediately you are aware that Ariel is of the Supernatural world because he can fly and dive into fire. Another thing that is made aware to the audience is that Ariel is Prospero’s servant and enters at his call “Approach, my Ariel come”.

Prospero is pleased to see Ariel for having carried out his task. He praises Ariel for his work “My brave spirit”. However Prospero’s mood soon changes when Ariel asks for his freedom; Prospero begins to curse him “Malignant thing” and remind him of the past when he was under the control of Sycorax.The audience now see a frightened Ariel who replies in one line answers “ay sir… I thank thee”. Shakespeare does this to give the audience some more background knowledge.

 After Ariel exits the stage. Prospero and Miranda call on Caliban. The first words that Prospero says to Caliban are “dull thing”. The exchange of words between Prospero and Caliban enables the audience to sort out its feelings for Prospero.

After Prospero’ story a little earlier in the scene, we immediately felt sorry for him. However after the entrance of Caliban we are made aware of a viscous side of Prospero’s nature that we had not been introduced to yet. At this point the audiences opinion of Prospero would have changed. Caliban wants the audience’s sympathy especially when he is begins telling his very moving account of his own story “this island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother    

 One view of Caliban is that he reflects what happened to the natives of a country colonized by Europeans. Prospero can be seen as the colonist who arrives on the island and declares himself master of all who live there, in this case Caliban.  

Nearing the end of Act 1 of the scene 2 we are introduced to Ferdinand who is placed on the island and lead to Miranda and Prospero by Ariel. Even though Prospero wants Ferdinand and Miranda to fall in love. He does not want Ferdinand to think that Miranda can be won over that easily.

Prospero accuses Ferdinand of being a spy. At this point we meet a side of Miranda that we had not met before. She is no longer the obedient daughter, but she is willing to defy her father to protect Ferdinand “beseech you father”. Then Prospero says to Miranda that he will hate her if she does not listen.

Throughout of Act 1 Scene Shakespeare keeps the audiences attention in many ways. Prospero is the main character in the Tempest and throughout the play he changes his mood a lot. This keeps the audience interested and not knowing what is going to happen next. Another way he keeps the audiences attention is the use of magical creatures like Ariel.