.......As a strange, fiery light illumines the ship, the king and his company jump overboard. All except Ferdinand wash ashore at the same location on an enchanted island. Ferdinand lands on another part of the island. Alonso thinks Ferdinand has drowned, and vice versa, and both mourn their losses. The ruler of the island is the magician Prospero. It was Prospero who caused the tempest. Aware of who was on the ship, thanks to his magical powers, he commanded the sea to deliver to him the king and his company to settle some unfinished business. Twelve years before, Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, had been set adrift to die at sea with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda, after his brother, Antonio, seized his dukedom with the connivance of King Alonso. However,  the kindly counselor Gonzalo sneaked food and drink to Prospero, along with his books of magic. So it was that Prospero and his daughter survived and landed on the island to live in a cave. 

                                I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash’d all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallow’d and
The fraughting souls within her. (1. 2. 6-14)

Lingering perdition–worse than any death
Can be at once,–shall step by step attend
You and your ways. . . .” (3. 3.93-95)

All three of them are desperate: their great guilt, 
Like poison given to work a great time after, 
Now ’gins to bite the spirits.” (3. 3. 124-126)

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The New World (America) is a raw, untamed wilderness. Prospero's island may have symbolized America, or the islands off the coast of America, with Caliban representing the uncivilized native population. 

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Type of Play

The Tempest is a comedy resembling a fairy tale.

Imagery

The Tempest is among Shakespeare’s finest plays in terms of its imagery. Shakespeare scholar G. B. Harrison has written the following appraisal of its language:

Shakespeare, like all Elizabethan dramatists, used four kinds of speech in his plays: blank verse, rhymed verse, prose and song. Each kind has its uses, and the whole play, especially in his maturity, is conceived as a kind of verbal symphony, each scene or episode being composed as part of a complete harmony. The Tempest in its poetical scenes is the finest example of the musical use of words in all Shakespeare’s plays.” (Major British 53)

We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (4. 1. 168-170)
In a metaphor, Prospero compares a human to the immateriality of a dream.

Full fathom five thy father lies; 
Of his bones are coral made: 
Those are pearls that were his eyes: 
Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange. 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: 
Hark! now I hear them,–ding-dong, bell. (1. 2. 456) 
Ariel, while invisible, sings this poem to Ferdinand, telling the lad that his father lies under thirty feet of water. The poem has a rhyme scheme of ababccdd.

My library 
Was dukedom large enough. (1. 2. 128)
In this metaphor, Prospero compares his dukedom to a library, a comparison that comments on the modesty of his desires.

You taught me language; and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. (1. 2. 430-431)
Speaking sarcastically, Caliban says his only benefit in learning language from Prospero is the ability to curse. A metaphor occurs when he compares knowledge to profit. 

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. (1. 2. 125)
Miranda uses hyperbole to note how intently she listens to her father’s story about the treachery that cast them out of Milan.

Good wombs have borne bad sons. (1. 2. 141)
Miranda uses antithesis (good wombs, bad sons), paradox (good begets bad), alliteration (borne, bad) to make this line memorable.

What’s past is prologue. (2. 1. 250)
Antonio’s paradox says, in effect, that the past will become the future–that history will repeat itself.

He that dies pays all debts. (3. 2. 93)
Stephano uses alliteration (dies, debts).

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t! (5. 1. 204-205)
While playing chess with Ferdinand in Prospero’s cell, Miranda utters these lines when Alonso and Sebastian enter.

Did you notice in your reading of The Tempest that the name of the beast-man, Caliban, is an anagram for cannibal (except for a missing n)? Did you also notice that name of Prospero’s servant, Ariel, sounds like aerial, meaning in the air, of the air, high flying, ethereal, and fanciful–words which all describe Ariel? Other characters also have names suggestive of their qualities and lot in life: Prospero (a name that derives from the Latin prosperare, meaning to cause to prosper), who prospers through his magic and intelligence; Miranda (a name that derives from the Latin mirandus, meaning strange, wonderful, miraculous), who is wonderful to behold and is indeed strange–that is, exotic; and Ferdinand (a name that derives from Germanic words meaning bold traveler), who has traveled on the high seas and survived a roaring tempest.

Character Habitats

Shakespeare's plays frequently present characters in settings far removed from urban centers. However, they generally are creatures of the city, the court, the vibrant life where people throng. Consider the following observation: 

Shakespeare's characters are . . . dubious of rusticity. Valentine [in The Two Gentlemen of Verona] does not rejoice in his woodland life as head of an outlaw band; the lovers of A [Midsummer Night's] Dream find their woodland adventure unnerving, and mountain life seems rude to the characters in Cymbeline who are forced to endure it. Although Florizel [in The Winter's Tale] dreams of spending his life with Perdita in a cottage, she knows that pastoral bliss is only a dream; true content lies in Leontes' court, to which all the characters . . . return. Even Prospero [in The Tempest], who has no great desire to see Milan again, knows that he and Miranda must leave their island, which is as much prison as refuge to them. Although critics can idealize the pastoral experiences of Shakespeare's characters as renewing contacts with nature, that experience is often somewhat harrowing.–Shakespeare's Comedies From Roman Farce to Romantic Mystery. Newark: U of Delaware, 1986 (Page 144).

The Tempest is a masterpiece, in part because of the arresting words in which the characters couch their thoughts. Even the beast-like dunderhead Caliban speaks memorable verse, such as these ironic lines spoken to Prospero: "You taught me language; and my profit on't / Is, I know how to curse" (Act I, Scene II). Examples of the other figures of speech Shakespeare uses in the play are the following:

Ariel to Prospero: Act I, Scene II (Lines 213-216)
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Ariel Singing a Song, Pretending That Ferdinand's Father Is Dead (Act I, Scene II, Lines 394-400)
 

Antonio to Sebastian: Act II, Scene I, Line 261
 

Stephano to Trinculo and Caliban (Act III, Scene II, Line 143)
 

Alonso to Gonzalo Act III, Scene III, Lines 97-99
 

The Tempest and Humanism
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During the European Renaissance between 1400 and 1600, great thinkers began advocating the betterment of civilization by emphasizing the study of classical culture and literature and by promoting the cultivation of such ennobling qualities as compassion, generosity, friendship, wise judgment, and prudence. In The Tempest, Prospero exhibits those qualities. He does not seek to retaliate against those who wronged him; he seeks only to bring them out of the darkness of hatred and revenge. In this respect, he is like the Renaissance humanist who builds a bridge for the Dark Ages to cross into the enlightenment of a new age in which humankind renounces its old barbarity and savagery. In discussing this idea, Shakespeare scholar Bernard D. Grebanier wrote:
"Shakespeare is perhaps the perfect expression of Renaissance humanism. His profound sympathy for humanity enabled him to pierce to the very core of his characters; his unexcelled gifts as a poet made his men and women unforgettable creatures of flesh and blood. This may be said as much of the best of his earliest plays as of The Tempest, where Prospero is himself a kind of incarnation of the best of what the Renaissance had extended to mankind."–Grebanier, Bernard D., et al. English Literature and Its Backgrounds. New York: Holt, 1950 (Page 242).

Shakespeare sets the scene in a far-off, isolated island. Whether he intended the setting to symbolize the New World is arguable, but it certainly resembles it. Like America, it is wild and undeveloped, with strange sights, sounds, and creatures. It has a “colonial” overseer, Prospero, who exploits the native population–the savage beast-man, Caliban, and the sprite, Ariel–turning them into servants, or slaves. Prospero’s daughter, Miranda, knows no other world but her father’s island. In this respect, she is like the real-life Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas (on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina). The remote setting, along with the exotic landscape, enable Shakespeare to infuse the story with a fairytale atmosphere in which Prospero’s magic and the appearance of otherwordly beings–goddesses, nymphs, and the sprite Ariel–seem plausible.In Shakespeare’s time, published reports about the islands of the Americas included an account of the wreck of the Sea Venture in the Bermudas in 1609; A Discovery of the Bermudas (1610), by Sylvester Jourdain; A True Repertory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates upon and from the Islands of the Bermudas (written in 1610 and published in 1625), by William Strachey. The Spanish navigator Juan Bermúdez is credited with discovery of the Bermuda Islands, and they first appeared on Spanish maps in 1511. It may well be that the wreck of the Sea Venture inspired Shakespeare to write about the wreck of King Alonso’s ship. 

Caliban as an Exploited Native

In The Tempest, Caliban suffers the same fate as many New World natives: He loses control over a domain he thought he ruled, becoming a virtual slave of Prospero. Although Prospero teaches him language, Caliban complains that the only benefit of this experience is that he learned how to curse. Caliban’s encounter with Prospero resembles the encounter of real-life native Americans with Europeans seeking riches in the New World wilds while spreading their culture. The natives learned bad habits, acquired alien diseases, and lost control of their domains. Of course, The Tempest centers on the wrong done to Prospero by his brother, who usurped Prospero’s dukedom. But did not Prospero usurp Caliban’s domain?

Study Questions and Essay Topics

1. Write an essay explaining how closed, isolated environments like Prospero’s island in The Tempest, Elsinore Castle in Hamlet, and ....the forest of Arden in As You Like It affect the characters.
2. Shakespeare uses allusions to mythology in The Tempest. What is an allusion? Where do allusions take place in Acts 3 and 4?
3. Lust for power, a theme in other Shakespeare plays, manifests itself in The Tempest in two independent conspiracies? What are these ....conspiracies and who is involved in them? 
4. Would you consider Prospero’s island an example of a microcosm? Write a short essay that explains your answer. In the essay, be ....sure to define microcosm as a literary device. 
5. To whom does Shakespeare address the epilogue at the end of the play? 
6. What was Prospero’s wife like? (See lines spoken by Prospero in Act I.) 
7. Do you despise or pity Caliban. Explain your answer. 
8. Do you approve of the way Prospero treats Miranda?