They are now on an island – a rural, unsophisticated place from which they have no means of escape – where they can be refreshed and renewed because there are none of the structures of European political systems on this island. We see that beneath his severe and autocratic behaviour he has a forgiving heart.Īlonso, Sebastian and Antonio are politicians in some of the world’s most sophisticated states and are infected with corruption. Prospero has used magic to bring them to the island with the intention of making them see the error of their ways.
He believes that everyone else was drowned. It seems that everyone on board is drowned but the royal party and some servants have been thrown up on the island, including Alonso, his brother Sebastian, Prospero’s brother Antonio, the old councillor, Gonzalo, a butler, and the king’s jester.Īlonso’s teenage son, Ferdinand, has been separated from the group and has landed on another part of the island. The ship is bringing Alonso, King of Naples, and his guests back from his daughter’s wedding in Algiers. In the past fifteen years, with uninterrupted study, he has mastered the art of magic and has the ability to create any weather conditions he likes. The boat washed up on a remote Mediterranean island and now, fifteen years later, the action begins with Prospero and the teenage Miranda standing on a cliff watching a ship being wrecked in a storm that Prospero has created to effect that.
He stocked the boat with Prospero’s beloved books. One of the councillors, Gonzalo, defied the order and put them in a little boat and set it adrift. Prospero as played by Christopher Plummer There was a kind of arrogance in him which led him to believe that he could have it both ways – be a private man indulging in his personal interests while at the same time governing a major modern state. Prospero had taken his eye off the ball by neglecting his duties when he was Duke of Milan, leaving governing to Antonio, and spending his time reading and studying philosophy and science. He is probably the most unusual of Shakespeare’s major characters in that, although he is a human being with human qualities, including human faults, he has magical powers: he has the ability to control the weather, the conditions on the island on which he lives, and also the actions and movements of people and the spirits who also live on the island.įifteen years before the opening of the play he was deposed as Duke of Milan by his brother, Antonio, who gave instructions for his execution, together with his baby daughter, Miranda. Prospero is the main protagonist of Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest.
Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale
This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order.
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