The Tempest Summary: Shakespeare's Island of Magic, Revenge and Release
What The Tempest is about
Shakespeare probably wrote The Tempest in 1610 or 1611, and it is thought to be one of the last plays he wrote alone. It opens on a ship at sea in a storm. After that first scene, everything happens on a remote island, where a magician named Prospero lives with his daughter Miranda and two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit.
The backstory matters. Twelve years before the play begins, Prospero was Duke of Milan and a gifted sorcerer. His brother Antonio usurped him with the help of Alonso, King of Naples. Prospero escaped by boat with his infant daughter and landed on the island. There he used magic to force Caliban, the island's only inhabitant, to protect him and Miranda, and he freed the spirit Ariel only to bind him into servitude.
When a ship carrying Antonio passes close to the island, Prospero raises a storm with Ariel's help and wrecks it. Washed ashore are Antonio, Alonso, Alonso's son and heir Ferdinand, Alonso's brother Sebastian, Prospero's trustworthy former minister Gonzalo, and other members of the court. Prospero then sets about a sophisticated plan to take revenge on the men who deposed him and to regain his dukedom.
The main characters
Prospero drives everything. He is magician, father, exiled ruler and, for most of the play, the author of other people's experiences. Critics have long identified him with Shakespeare himself, reading his renunciation of magic as a farewell to the stage.
Miranda is fifteen and has known almost no one but her father. Prospero intends her to marry Ferdinand, and he manipulates the young man into a romance with her after rescuing him and giving him shelter.
Ariel is the spirit who carries out Prospero's designs, raising the storm, dividing the survivors into groups, and at one point appearing as a harpy to chastise Antonio, Alonso and Sebastian for their crimes against Prospero and against each other. Ariel serves in exchange for the promise of freedom.
Caliban is the island's original inhabitant, forced into service. He meets Trinculo, the king's jester, and Stephano, the king's drunken butler. The three stage an unsuccessful rebellion against Prospero, and their scenes supply the play's comic relief.
Among the nobles, Antonio and Sebastian plot to murder Alonso and Gonzalo so that Sebastian can become king. Prospero and Ariel thwart them. The ship's captain, boatswain and remaining sailors are put into a magical sleep until the final act.
The themes
Power is the spine of the play. Every group on the island reaches for control. Antonio took Milan by force and encourages Sebastian to take Naples the same way. Caliban swaps one master for another and calls it liberty. Prospero holds absolute authority over the island and uses it without apology.
Freedom runs alongside it. Ariel wants release and keeps asking for it. Caliban wants the island back. Prospero, by the end, wants to be let go himself, and the epilogue makes that literal when he asks the audience to free him with their applause.
Revenge and forgiveness are set against each other. Prospero has spent twelve years preparing, and the storm delivers his enemies into his hands. What he does with that power is the play's real question. Magic, betrayal and family thread through all of it, and music and song run across the whole island, giving it the atmosphere of enchantment the play is known for.
In Act IV, a wedding masque works as a play within the play. Ariel and other spirits perform as the classical goddesses Juno, Ceres and Iris to celebrate the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda, instructing the couple on the value of chastity and marriage. It brings spectacle, allegory and elevated language, then breaks off abruptly when Prospero remembers the plot against his life.
How it ends
Skip this section if you want the ending fresh. Prospero vows that once his goals are achieved he will set Ariel free and abandon his magic. Ariel brings Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian before him, and Prospero forgives all three. His title as Duke of Milan is restored. Caliban, seemingly full of regret, promises to be good. Stephano and Trinculo are ridiculed and sent away in shame. Ariel is told to provide fair weather for the voyage back to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will marry, and is then set free. In the epilogue, Prospero turns to the audience and asks them to release him with their applause.
Why it still matters
The First Folio lists The Tempest first among the comedies, but it handles tragic material as readily as comic, and modern criticism invented the category of late romance to hold it alongside Shakespeare's other final plays. Later centuries have read it hard. One reading sees Prospero as Shakespeare saying goodbye to his art. Another sees the whole play as an allegory of Europeans colonising foreign lands, with Caliban dispossessed on his own island.
Its afterlife is unusually broad. It has inspired artists across many nations and cultures, on stage and screen, in literature, in the visual arts, and especially in opera. For readers new to Shakespeare it is a useful place to start: one island, one day, a small cast, and a plot that explains itself as it goes.
