Major Themes of Shakespeare's The Tempest
Forgiveness and the Desire for Freedom on Prospero's Island
Sep 3, 2009
The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's later plays, composed in 1610 or 1611, and has been adapted into many forms since its performance – the musical Return to the Forbidden Planet among them. The disparate themes in this, one of Shakespeare's most popular shows, include freedom, ambition, and forgiveness.
Desire for Freedom
Caliban wants to be free from slavery under Prospero. To this end, he brings Stephano and Trinculo into a plot to kill his master with the promise that he will make Stephano the king over the island and serve him gratefully.
Ariel desires the freedom Prospero swore he'd give to the spirit after freeing him from the split tree the witch Sycorax imprisoned him in. He eventually receives this freedom after helping Prospero with saving the ship from the tempest of the title, thwarting Caliban's plot to kill him, and bringing Ferdinand and Miranda together among other things.
Antonio and Sebastian plot to kill Alonso, the King of Naples, and set Sebastian on the throne after Ferdinand is believed dead. Antonio plays off Sebastian's ambition to be king in the wake of Alonso's loss of heirs. Or rather, his perceived loss of heirs, because Ferdinand is on another part of the island falling in love with Miranda.
Ambition
It's Antonio's own ambition, in fact, which brought the events of the play to fruition. After the audience sees Alonso's ship go down in the tempest, Prospero relates the story of his and Miranda's arrival on the island to his daughter. Through this, he reveals that it was partly his fault for being deposed as Duke of Milan by allowing his brother to take over more and more of the day-to-day operations of the duchy. " ... in my false brother, Awaked an evil nature; and my trust, Like a good parent, did beget of him A falsehood in its contrary as great As my trust was; which had indeed no limit," Prospero says in Act I, Scene II.
Caliban kowtows to Stephano, a drunken butler, who he convinces that he can take over the island simply by braining Prospero. When the audience meets Stephano, he's drunk enough that he takes Caliban up on the offer of becoming king of the island.
Prospero forgives his brother Antonio, and co-conspirator Alonso for forcing him from his duchy more than a decade ago. This he does after Ariel tells him of their penitence while imprisoned where Prospero told the spirit to take them, and the grief which "the good lord" Gonzalo experiences at appearing to lose them.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness also comes from father to father – Prospero recognizes Alonso's grief at "losing" Ferdinand as the grief he would feel, and does to an extent, at losing Miranda. Because of this, he forgives the King of Naples for his part in the plot.
It's because of the love between Miranda and Ferdinand that this forgiveness comes from Prospero. He even forgives Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo for attempting to kill him. Their's is not an easy forgiveness to win though; Prospero tells them to clean his rooms before he'll pardon them.
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