The Tempest Introduction William Shakespeare's T

William Shakespeare's The Tempest embodies both mythological and archetypal elements. Nearly all the action of the play tales place on different locations of a nearly deserted island. Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, has been deposed to the island with his daughter, Miranda. The island, inhabited by the son of the witch Sycorax, Caliban, is a land of magic, spirits and illusions. The play focuses on the universal themes of captivity and freedom, including heavy doses of fantasy, dreams, imagination and magic. This analysis will explore the mythological and archetypal elements incorporated into Shakespeare's The Tempest. Through this analysis we shall see that Prospero is an archetype or symbol of freedom and justice, while Caliban is a symbol of captivity and injustice.

Prospero is a symbol of freedom and justice on the island. He uses magic to free Ariel, a spirit who had been trapped in a tree by Sycorax, and he enchants Caliban, the son of Sycorax who Prospero virtually imprisons as his servant. We see that Caliban resents Prospero's actions, likening him to an unjust leader and a man of magic, "As I told thee before, I am subject to a / tyrant; a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath / cheated le of this island" (Shakespeare 13). Sorcery is an element of mythology that was particularly popular among societies of the 1600s and 1700s, and it is used quite heavily by Shakespeare in The Tempest.

Despite Caliban's contentions about Prospero, it

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o, and Antonio tells Sebastian: "For all the rest, / They'll take their suggestion, as a cat laps milk; / They'll tell the clock to any business that we say befits the hour" (Shakespeare 10). Equality, justice, and fairness are also aspects of archetypal symbols we see expressed in the play. Literary critic Bonamy Dobree (170) maintains that The Tempest is a play in which "Shakespeare was toying with the very idea of reality." Part of this game is related to the question of how well Prospero, in his exile, exhibits the qualities of a just and equitable ruler. In The Tempest, Shakespeare defines justice as a quality that embraces the idea of freedom but also includes the concept of responsibility. This means that a state or collective community and its ruler will treat all with equal fairness and consideration, while remaining true to a set of moral and ethical standards. Justice, Prospero maintains, involves "forgive[ing] thy rankest faults - all of them" (Shakespeare 7). We see that Miranda and Ferdinand embody this symbol or ideal of the "good" shared by the collective unconscious in Shakespeare's era. As Miranda tells her father of Ferdinand, "There's nothing ill can swell in such a temple: / If the ill spirit have so f

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