Paper Topic:
The Tempest
The Tempest The Tempest Magic , in Shakespeare 's The Tempest seems to be neither a wholly positive or wholly negative force , but rather , an elemental force which can only be partially controlled by human beings -- and even then at a certain degree of cost and pain . For example , while Prospero is able to manipulate events and seems to be able to follow a course of vengeance by his mastery over Ariel , by the play 's climax and resolution , Prospero has actually become able to renounce his vengeance and he has learned to
br be wiser person
His transformation as a person is directly tied to his ability to control the world through magic , so it is natural to assume that one of the less-obvious aspects of magic in Shakespeare 's The tempest is that it , as a power , influences the magician as well as those who are overtly intended to be impacted
There is some evidence in the play itself that magic is to be regarded as a feminine and earthly force . When Prospero speaks to Ariel to remind the spirit of its terrible past , the symbolism of Sycorax , the witch and the tree , allude to feminine basis of magic which makes it earthly and elemental and in this way , perhaps not fully comprehended by human terms of right and wrong . When Prospero reminds Ariel that "thou , my slave /As thou report 'st thyself , was then her servant /And for thou wast a spirit too delicate / To act her earthy and abhorred commands (Orgel 116 ) there is a hint that Ariel , and by association , magic , is in fact , a moral or positivistic force
However , Ariel 's subsequent subservience to Prospero , always accompanied by reluctance and pleas for his freedom , shows that magic is not a force which operates under human reason or human ambition , but is something elemental and cosmic , mysterious and illogical . It is shown throughout the play that magic is subject to human will as Prospero reminds Ariel , Sycorax imprisoned him by her "her most unmitigable rage / Into a cloven pine , within which rift / Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain / A dozen years (Orgel 116 ) which established a sort of bitter victory for the witch
Prospero 's spoken revelation of his own belief about the nature of magic "Spirits , which by mine art / I have from their confines called to enact / My present fancies (Orgel 178 ) proves to be only partially true because , when a close reading of the play is given , it is obvious that magic , as represented in the play , has its own agenda , its own "fancies " This can be seen by the end of the play when Prospero 's original intentions of vengeance have been supplanted by events he would not have personally willed and the reconciliation , through love , with his former enemies
The reason that Prospero renounces magic at the end of the play is because its true transformative power has been exerted on him rather than merely on his enemies . Whether he realizes it...
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