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The Tempest Essay

“The Tempest” has widely acclaimed as one of the most imaginative,most original and most varied of Shakespeare’s drams.Shakespeare has created in the play an enchanted island in which human conflict is enacted reconciled and a symbolic harmony is acived.Although the play has an apparently simple plot it has all the characteristics of a romantic comedy. It deals with improbalble events,wild passions,love,conflict and final reconciliation and severity.The presence of supernatural elements is an attractive feature of the play. We are transported to a world of spirits which interacts with the human world. Shakespere introduces four kinds of spirits either directly or indirectly through Ariel.

Prospero is the centere of the play.Fom the begining to end,he is the ,master,the controller of t5he situation.He creates the storm of the first scene.At the end of the play,he makes the King’s ship catch with the rest of the fleet.In the mi9ddle of the palay,he makes Alonso,Anotnio and Sebastian mad. He foils the plot of Sebastian and Antononio aganist Alonso.Also he spoils the plan of Caliban and Stephano aganist himself.He brings Ferdinand to his care and there Ferdinad and Miranda see,and fall in lo9ve with each other.He gets back his Kingdom and his only daughter marries the heier to the throne of Napeles.All this he is able to achive by the power of his music.

When Prosporo was the duke of Milan,he was interested in the study of magic.So he neglected the affairs of state and left them to the care of his brother Antonio.But Antonio sought the help of Alonso,king of Naples,to outst his child Propsero.Prospero and his motherless child Miranda were put in a rotten boat and set adrift in the sea.

Prospero uses his power of magic to liberate Ariel whom the wicket witch Sycorax had imprisoned in the cleft of a tree.His treatment of Caliban seems to be cruel but it was not always so.At first he treated Caliban with sympathy.He used to teach him letters and words.But when he attempted to violate the chasoty of Mirands,Prospero has sent out of his cell and kept him as a mere slave.

One day, King Alonso’s ships sail by the island and then the natural desire for revenge rises in his mind.With magical power,he raises a storm in the sea and byu producing false fires on board of King’s ship,he makes all the passengers jump into the sea and seek shelter in his island.But having got them in his power,he requires no more of them than that they should repeat.At the end of the play Prospero leaves the impression of an old man.Life appeares as mere illusion to him.He lays aside all his magical powers.

“The Tempest” is one oif the most original and perfect of Shakespeare’s plays.It is full of grace and grandeur. The simple feeling of love is presented in the play is all its different manifestation.Ferdinand reminds us of Orlando in ‘As you like it’ or Bassanio in ‘The Merchant of Venice’.Miranda is presented as an innocent child.Many critics hold that Prospero in the play is Shakespeare himself. The voice of Prosepero is the voice of Shakespeare. His magic represents Shakespeare’s imaginative art.The plot of the play depends almost on the use of supernatural powers.