Characters in The Tempest

Characters in The Tempest

1. Prospero

   • rightful Duke of Milan
     • Exiled by brother Antonio - found refuge on island
   • controls magic
   • Father of Miranda
   • Can be seen as evil
     • Never intends to hurt anyone
       • Humanity obvious in his treatment of Antonio
         • Also obvious with him, telling Alonso not to apologise to Miranda
           • "no need for amends"
     • Doesn't free Caliban or Ariel
       • autocratic in his treatment of Ferdinand
         • Ultimately realises that won't help the courtship
     • enigmatic protagonist
       • emerges as more likable in final scenes
         • love for Miranda
         • forgiveness of his enemies
         • happy ending of his schemes
         • even if he originally seem autocratic he ultimately manages to persuade the audience to share his understanding of the world - an achievement that is the final goal of every author and every play
   • Surrogate of Shakespeare
     • Prospero single-handedly moulds the whole plot
       • enables audiance to explore first hand the ambiguties and ultimate wonder of the creative endeavor
     • Final speech likens himself to the playwright
       • asks the audience for applause
         • makes the play's final scene function as a moving celebration of creativity, humanity and art
   • symbolic of western world
   • WARTON- personification of consistency, dignity and decorum

2. Miranda

   • In love with Ferdinand at first sight
     • "I might call him, a thing divine"
     • Does not choose own husband and gets no input in father's decision makings
       • Stands by while Prospero tells Ferdinand not to
         • "break her virgin-knot" before the wedding
       • But it is her decision to chase after Ferdinand to offer assitance
   • Been on Island since age 3
     • Remembers little of before
       • "rather like a dream than assurance"
       • naive?
   • meek/emotional
     • O, I have suffered/with those I saw suffer
       • About the Shipwreck
       • Powerful
         • Challenges Prospero
           • questions treatment of sailors
           • defies commandment to have nothing to do with Ferdinand
         • Goes against Elizabethan modesty
           • "I am your wife, you will mary me;/ If not, I'll die your maid"
   • Presented as prop in final scene
     • Unimportant character/low in hierarchy
       • Because she's a woman?
         • Feminism
           • She internalises the male hierachy accepting her father sibordination as she doesn't know any better
           • LEININGER -Mirandas treatment by Prospero is the same as Calibans
             • the sexist attitudes are the same as the racist attitudes
             • ALSO "external beauty mirrors her inner virtue
       • Is important but it's subtle?
         • sheer presence
         • Foils Prospero's more violent insincts
         • serves as a sounding board to move the plot forward
         • central to fathers revenge
           • marriage is needed for political gain
         • Michael Neill
           • Miranda's function is to be a Christ figure
             • she is the indicator of a characters moral status within the hierarchy of the island
               • Embraces Ferdinand who is saved by her presence
               • Rejects Caliban who is shown to be monstrous
       • has few lines of importance or soliliquoys
       • Most of her interaction on stage is dominated by males
         • dictated by Prospero
           • marriage to Ferdinand
           • interactions with Caliban
   • "perfect and peerless, created of every creatures best
   • Only female character
     • Can show 2 things
       • She can't be compared to other women because she isn't valued and that's unimportant
       • Can't be compared because she's so virtuous
   • personification of chastity
   • allegory for missionary side of colonialism
     • attempts to educate Caliban
     • more sympathy for Ferdinand
     • sharply contrasts her father

3. Antonio

   • Prospero's younger brother
   • Evil/Antagonist
     • plots for Sebestian to kill his brother -the king of Napels

4. Caliban

   • Native of the island - supposedly savage
     • Speaks in Iambic pentameter
       • suggests he's smarter than he's given credit for
     • not distracted by material possessions
       • shows that he knows knowledge is power
   • subservient to Stephano and Trinculo
     • possibly using them for his own advantage

5. Ferdinand

   • Miranda's love interest
     • Prospero making him think his father's dead makes him cling to Miranda more
   • King of Naples
   • Represents the audience

6. Ariel

   • Second orient in the play
     • represents supernatural side to Prospero's power
   • On their heads no hair perished, on their garments, not a blemish
     • The rhyme here emphasises Ariel's taunt at the sailors who thought they were condemned to death,
       • could also be a jibe at Prospero's lack of power- it is his magic that enacted the tempest, not Prospero's?
       • It also serves to convey the non malignant aspect of his magic- he wants revenge, not to kill, but also highlights their abuse of godly power and Prospero's choice over who lives and dies.
     • "Do you love me master? No?" Portrays Ariel's sycophancy towards Prospero, and seems almost forced in order to get across his gratitude (faked?) for being treated well and more humanely than Caliban.
       • He represents an aspect of how colonisers turned natives against one another- complicit versus rebellious, using eachother to tear up the society and establish the white European as ruler. This is seen in the novel "When Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe.
     • Ariel and Caliban can be regarded as representations of Prospero himself, to render visible to struggle within the mind and soul of the hero"- LINDLEY

7. Sebastian

   • shows audience how easy it is for Antonio to maipulate characters

8. Alonso

   • King of Milan
   • victim of one of the paralled plots

9. Gonzalo

   • Kings advisor
   • Only nice person in the play
     • The first time we meet Gonzalo, he's trying to break up a nasty argument between the royals and the mariners on deck during the tempest
       • Gonzalo also makes a big utopian speech that literary critics like to compare to a passage from Montaigne's "Of Cannibals,"