Power Of Prospero In Shakespeare's The Tempest

The island in the Tempest serves as a temporary kingdom for Prospero as well as a prison while he battles to escape his inner demons. Despite achieving a position of great power on the island, Prospero’s aspirations thwart his happiness. Outwardly Prospero appears to be the master of his isle as he uses his magical powers to manipulate people and his surroundings; however, internally he is a servant to the feelings of inadequacy that dictate his will and actions. Prospero is not a free man because his unfulfilled desire to reclaim the dukedom controls his actions and will.

By manipulating situations, Prospero cruelly exercises power over others in order to assert his dominance. Prospero persistently attempts to maintain power in order to regain the hierarchical status he held prior to the usurpation of his dukedom. Ironically Prospero must steal the isle from the native Caliban to

In addition to hypocritically acting like the brother he condemns, Prospero assumes the role of a colonizer on the island. Fearful that he might lose power again, Prospero relies on force and debt to solidify his control. Caliban had already been on the island when Prospero strolled on with his daughter, Miranda, and immediately claimed the land as his own. Caliban even told Prospero, “The island’s mine by Sycorax my mother / Which thou tak’st from me” (1.2.332-3). Evidently, Caliban feels that Prospero forcefully took the island. Caliban further claims, “When thou cam’st first / Thou strok’st me and made much of me” and adds that now “you sty me / In this hard rock” (1.2.333-4, 342-3). Prospero at first treats Caliban with respect and then, after gaining his trust, treats Caliban inferiorly. In The Tempest, Shakespeare, by highlighting Prospero’s deceptiveness, reveals colonization to be a malicious act of aggression rather than a generous act of establishing order beyond one’s