Major themes of '' The Tempest "

Name :- Hetal D.  Dabhi

Paper name :- The  Postcolonial Literature

Sem:- 3

Years :- 2018-20

Submitted to :- Smt.  S. B Gardi Department of English, MKBU.

Major themes of the Tempest

The Tempest Themes

• The Supernatural. In The Tempest, magic is a dazzling art form that infuses the play with a sense of wonder and a whole lot of spectacle. ...

• Art and Culture. ...

• Contrasting Regions. ...

• Freedom and Confinement. ...

• Man and the Natural World. ...

• Betrayal. ...

• Compassion and Forgiveness. ...

• The Divine.

                                                     In The Tempest, magic is a dazzling art form that infuses the play with a sense of wonder and a whole lot of spectacle. (Think "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in Disney's Fantasia, but better.) This lends itself to a concept developed throughout The Tempest—magic is a craft not unlike that of the playwright. Although Prospero uses magic to control the natural and the supernatural worlds, the play also suggests his art is distinct from the kind of black magic practiced by the witch Sycorax.

Questions About The Supernatural

1. How did Prospero come to master his "art"? What were the consequences of his intense study of magic?

2. What difference, if any, is there between Prospero's magic and Sycorax's magic?

3. When and why does Prospero promise to give up his "rough magic"? Do we actually see him do this?

4. Are Miranda and Ferdinand under a spell when they fall in love, or is their love genuine?

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

Although Prospero uses magic to regain his place in Italy, magic is also the thing that got him into trouble in the first place—if Prospero hadn't isolated himself with his books, he never would have lost his dukedom.

Although the play goes out of its way to differentiate Prospero's studied art from Sycorax's black magic, at times, the play makes us wonder if Prospero and Sycorax don't share more in common.

                                                      "Now my charms are all o'erthrown, / And what strength I have's mine own" (Epilogue). So says the newly retired magician as he bids adieu to the audience. Since The Tempest is likely the last play Shakespeare wrote by himself, the epilogue has long been cited as Shakespeare's own fond farewell to the stage—sniffle.

                                            Regardless of whether or not we read Prospero the magician as a stand-in for Shakespeare the playwright, the similarities between Prospero's "art" and the "magic" of the theater are undeniable. Like Hamlet, The Tempest not only features a "play within the play" (Prospero's dazzling wedding masque) and blatant shout-outs to the theater, but it also features a protagonist who manipulates the play's action like a skillful director.

Questions About Art and Culture

1. What's the purpose of Prospero's wedding masque? How does it draw our attention to the workings of the theater?

2. In the epilogue, Prospero says the audience's applause is the only thing that can "set [him] free." Why is that?

3. Does Prospero share anything in common with master playwrights like Will Shakespeare?

4. Compare the theme of "Art and Culture" in The Tempest and Hamlet.

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.When Prospero uses his magic to produce a masque, or "some vanity of [his] art," the play makes it clear that the old magician is a lot like a master playwright.It doesn't make any sense to associate a grumpy, revenge-thirsty magician like Prospero with a playwright like Will Shakespeare.

                                            Although the play takes place entirely on an island, The Tempest dramatizes the divide between the courtly worlds and the wilderness. As the play opens, Prospero, a former Italian duke now living in exile, has already journeyed from the court to the remote island and is now trying to return. When Prospero causes his royal enemies to be shipwrecked on his isle, we learn that loyalty to the King is no longer sacred, and court members must abandon their traditions and expectations. The Tempest's foray into a kind of "pastoral" world also aligns this play with As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Questions About Contrasting Regions

• Does Prospero conform to the ideals of the court or the pastoral world? With which world would he most likely align himself?

• Where does Miranda fall in the pastoral/courtly divide? Is she prepared to be Queen of Naples?

• It's clear through the actions of the play that courtly laws aren't suited for the pastoral setting. Or can they be? How would the laws of the pastoral world hold up in the environment of court.

• Are there principles that differentiate courtly values from pastoral values, or are the norms.    that govern each just the same rules, interpreted differently.

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

While hierarchy still matters in the pastoral setting, the rules of the court lose authority once court members find themselves in the wilderness.

The rules of the court are abandoned by the shipwreck survivors because courtly rules have no place anywhere outside the court.

The Tempest is obsessed with the concept of imprisonment—both literal and figurative. Prospero and Miranda are forced to live in exile on a remote island, where Prospero enslaves the island's only native inhabitant (Caliban) and forces Ariel to do all of his bidding. The theme continues into the epilogue where Shakespeare suggests that, during the performance of a play, actors and playwrights are held captive by powerful audiences who may or may not approve of the artists' work.

Questions About Freedom and Confinement

• How did Ariel come to serve Prospero?

• Why has Prospero enslaved Caliban? Is Prospero justified in his treatment of Caliban?

• What is the nature of Prospero's relationship with Ariel? How does Prospero view the spirit? How is this different from how Prospero views Caliban?

• Analyze the play's epilogue and explain why Prospero insists the audience must "release [him] from [his] bonds."

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

Because Prospero forces Ariel to serve him, he is no better than the witch Sycorax, who imprisoned Ariel in a pine tree before Prospero came along and "rescued" the sprite.

Prospero is not free because he is subject to his own desire for justice; he is a slave to the past wrongs done to him.

                                  Is man more "noble" in a natural state than in a state of civilization?  The Tempest returns to this question over and over again—in its portrayal of the ambiguous "monster" Caliban and in Gonzalo's utopian speech about the ideal state of the island.  Throughout the play (which paraphrases a key passage from Montaigne's famous essay "Of Cannibals"), Shakespeare also asks whether man can be at one with nature, or whether (perhaps by virtue of the biblical Fall in Eden) he is destined to make whatever he touches unnatural.

Questions About Man and the Natural World

• Is the natural state morally superior to the state of civilization (at court)?

• Can the island be considered a natural or pristine place, untouched by man, when there is so much of Prospero's magic and enchantment all around it?

• Caliban is constantly referred to as evil or deformed by nature. How can nature produce things that are unfit to exist?

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

Gonzalo's utopian speech in Act 1, Scene 1 suggests that man is more noble living in a natural state.

Despite Gonzalo's utopian speech in Act 1, Scene 1, the play suggests that man is not more noble living in a natural state—Caliban, after all, is in no way a "noble savage."

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