The Tempest, a Brave New World; or just a sad goodbye?

Through the years there has been much debate as to whether Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an Allegory to European colonization and colonial life, or if it is his “farewell to the stage” with a complete overview of the stage and a compilation of all of his characters into a few, in which the playwright himself being presented as Prospero. Is The Tempest an allegory to European colonization, or is it Shakespeare, presenting his formal farewell to the stage?

Many believe that Shakespeare, personified his character into Prospero, because Prospero ultimately created the entire plot of the play with his magic, which he obtained shortly after being marooned on the island. Because The Tempest was one of only two of Shakespeare’s works that were entirely original, one could see why this would be the easiest position to take; after all, Prospero basically writes the play himself, by creating a complicated plot to regain his dukedom from which he was usurped. He also controls every character in the play, some with loving relationships, some with just the opposite. “Watching” Prospero create and work through the play, is almost like watching the playwright write the play, from start to finish. His extremely manipulative control over all characters in the play, and his delicate and sometimes hard to understand strategy in “capturing” the king is symbolized in the end in which Miranda and Ferdinand are revealed playing chess. Because of this, his dukedom is surrendered back to him, for which matter he also surrenders his magic in order to fit in with the world which he is about to rejoin after twelve years. This play very much does show the magic and ability to create anything in the world of theatre, even a barren theatre like the Globe, before the wonders of technology could create special effects and realistic scenery. This is ironic because the vivid descriptions that the characters give of the island, whether good or bad, are not achievable through primitive scenery as there was in Shakespeare’s day, so therefore are left up to the audience for interpretation. For instance:

Adr: Though this island be desert…

Uninhabitable and almost inaccessible…

The air breathes upon us here the most

Seb: As if it had lungs, and rotten ones

Ant: Or as if t’were perfumed by a fen

Gon: How lush and lusty the grass looks, How G...

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... They then created all of the colonies, which became the states we know today. This particular scene illustrates this very well.

In October of 1996, the archaeologists on Jamestown Island discovered a ring with the signet of William Strachey, a man who wrote a letter to a woman in England in 1610 concerning the islands off the coast of Bermuda. It is believed that this letter may have made it into the hands of Shakespeare, from which he acquired very descriptive information about the islands, and the colonization of them. It described the English treatment of natives, and a shipwreck that Strachey was in that marooned him there. (Andrews 1) In this letter, he described in detail a similar shipwreck, as well as an island almost identical to the one Shakespeare chose to maroon his characters on in the play. (Andrews 1)

In conclusion, one can clearly see, that although Shakespeare may have used the Tempest as his farewell in a sense, and used it to describe himself as Prospero, the evidence supports the claim much more strongly that he was simply creating a magical, mystical, allusion to the European colonization of the 15th century, and that he did so in an almost satirical manner.