Analysis of Prospero from The Tempest by Shakespeare

Prospero, the male lead of the Tempest, starts out as the victim of the play, but as the story goes on, it becomes apparent that he is actually the cause of all the problems and plots within the play. Prospero is important because he is the puppeteer that leads all of the characters to complete his orders. He strings all of the characters along to do his bidding, and by the end of the play, he is the only one who wins. Prospero is interesting because, without him, there would be no plot. He is the one who stirs up the Tempest and brings his usurpers to the island. Despite the original belief that Prospero is the victim of his brother’s commandeering of his throne, it becomes obvious that Prospero does not have good intentions, and is intrinsically evil.

Throughout the play, Prospero doesn’t show consideration for anyone else’s feelings, and treats them as objects blocking the way to of his final goal. Prospero’s overarching goal in the play is to gain back is Dukedom and have his daughter, Miranda, become the Queen of Naples. When creating the Tempest, Prospero separates Alonso from his son, Ferdinand, not caring about either of their feelings. “My son is lost” (2.1.91) Alonso is left without an explanation of what happened to his son until the very end of the play. Prospero forced Alonso into a state of madness by making him believe that he had lost another one of his children when in fact, he was using Ferdinand in another one of his schemes. Prospero might have made Alonso suffer as revenge for helping Antonio, his brother, usurp his dukedom of Milan. Ferdinand, on the other hand, was just a casualty, tricked into falling in love with Miranda. By insuring that the two fall in love and get married, Prospero uses his daughter, Mi...

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...eedom and getting his hopes up for no reason. This implies that if he does not make it to Milan, Ariel would remain his slave.

Although Prospero can be characterized as evil, this cannot be his only classification. Prospero often shows a dual nature where he has good intentions but a bad outcome comes out of it. One might say that Prospero never intended to usurp the island from Caliban, but was forced to in order to teach him a lesson. Also, however ambiguous the ending is, Prospero might have had the intention to release Ariel from his duties. This interpretation of Prospero’s character changes the way the reader reads the play because it shows Prospero in a more authoritative way, forcing the reader to think about the implications of all of his actions. Every good action that Prospero does has negative reactions that make Prospero seem manipulative and devious.