The Tempest Comparative Analysis

The Tempest by William Shakespeare, among other themes, is a play very centered around rivalries, an important one being the one between Prospero and Caliban. As one would naturally expect, the triumphs and failures of the ongoing conflict yield different reactions for the two different characters. The conflict illustrates a dichotomous view of the way in which people respond to failure or defeat. Whereas Caliban responds to defeat instinctively with furious acts of retaliation, Prospero reasons that when those kinds of acts are examined under the scope of logic, they appear to be unlike that of a noble and therefore, should not be undertaken.

From a soliloquy spoken by Caliban after we become acquainted with the larger conflict in the story, we learn Caliban’s side of his conflict. He says: “All the infections that the sun sucks up/ From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him/ By inchmeal a disease!”(2.2.1-3) In this brief excerpt of his soliloquy, two things are telling about the way that Caliban retaliates; the first is the use of disease as a metaphor and the second, which compliments the first, is his use of the word “inchmeal.” With regard to the use of disease as a metaphor, we learn the kind of motive that Caliban has towards his retaliation. During the time when this play was written, seeing as it was before the advent of modern medicine, disease was a large part of life which, more so than it does now, caused a long period of suffering for the victim. Another thing to note about Caliban’s metaphor is the fact that the harm done unto his enemy is entirely anonymous. In addition, the word “inchmeal” tells us that he does not wish death unto Prospero; he wants him to suffer the maximum amount of pain possible. From...

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... take revenge on Caliban. We learn that not only was his “nobler reason” not actually a moral reason and instead a somewhat political reason, we also learn that “fury,” which can be seen as illogical revenge, is only a reference to Caliban’s form of revenge. In other words, he did not prevent himself from performing vengeful acts because of the logical problem with it; Instead, he did it because it would be alike to the way that Caliban would handle the problem who is the opposite of a noble. Now that we have taken into more careful consideration the reasons that Prospero uses not to take revenge on Caliban, we know that “nobler reason” is not a reference to moral logic and his stance against “fury” is only a refusal to act in the lowly way that Caliban acts. Instead of treating his comments as logical and wise, we are driven to treat them as self-centered comments.