The Tempest opens and the audience is in no doubt it is outside of its known existence. In this world a boatswain can boldly say, “What cares these roarers/ for the name of king? To cabin! Silence; trouble us not (1.1.15-16),” to the King’s counselor. This storm is no storm that rises suddenly, we discover, it has been brewing for a long time. The tempest, of the title, can be taken literally and figuratively.
The play begins in the middle of this violent weather condition. The seamen are fighting the elements for their lives and quite possibly their souls. The first scene of Act I ends violently with the mariners crying out, “Mercy on us!/ We split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!/ Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split! (1.1.54-56)” This is a chaotic moment as Miranda cries out to her father, Prospero, who she feels he is inflicting his powers upon a helpless vessel traveling on the sea- “The sky it seems would pour down stinking pitch,/ But that the sea, mounting to th’ welkan’s cheek/ Dashes the fire out (1.2.2-5).” Prospero comforts her about the fate of the men but he cannot ease the discomfort of this storm.
The storm has been building for years we discover as Prospero confesses his identity to Miranda. The tempest began when Prospero confesses that, “The government I cast upon my brother,/ And to my state grew stranger, being transported/ and rapt in secret studies (1.2.75-77).” This transference of duty upon an unworthy brother is the ill wind which sets this storm on its course. Even his description of how he was thrust out of his kingdom reads like a dark-and-stormy-night tale. “… A treacherous army levied, one midnight/ fated to th’ purpose did Antonio open/ The gates of Milan; and, i’ the’ dead of darknes,/ The ministers for th’ purpose hurried thence/ Me and thy crying self (1.2.127-132).”
Antonio and crew face the same fate as Prospero and Miranda twelve years after this deed. They are set out on a cruel sea and find themselves washed up on the same island as Prospero. Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian, who all prospered from the Antonio’s greed, experience the same confusion and grief that Propero and the young Miranda would have during their voyage. The same kind of confusion felt by the seamen on the ship continues once the main cast is set on the island. Shakespeare skillfully puts the innocent sailors to sleep leaving us with the raging emotions of the rest of the players.
During the feast, in which Alonso, Antonio, and Sebestian are confronted with their past sins against Prospero, Shakespeare continues with the storm imagery as the three men draw their swords against Ariel who is described as descending disguised as a harpy. Ariel mocks them saying, “You fool! I and my fellows/ Are ministers of fate. The elements/ Of whom your swords are tempered may as well/ wound the loud winds, or with bemocked- at stabs/ Kill the still-closing waters…(3.3.60-64)” Their swords are useless against the impending judgment they set in motion in the city of Milan twelve years earlier.
It is interesting that it is Alonso, Prospero’s sworn enemy, who is the first to understand the meaning of this storm. “Me thought the billows, spoke and told me of it,/ The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,/ That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced/ The name of Prosper. It did bass my trespass (3.3.96-99).” It is the acknowledgement of this crime that culminates in the calming of the storm.
The tempest is not a destructive force but one of redemption. Prospero, in taking his rightful place as Duke of Milan returns the audience to a recognizable world. In a wonderful touch, Shakespeare has Prospero, in the epilogue, grant the audience the power to send this story back to the world of the familiar. “Now I want/ Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;/ And my ending is despair/ Unless I be relieved by prayer,/ Which pierces so, that it assaults/ Mercy itself, and frees all faults./ As you from crimes would be pardoned be,/ Let your indulgence set me free (Epilogue13-20).” Prospero finds a benevolent wind in the applause of Shakespeare’s audience for his voyage home.
1 comment:
I really like how you tie the overarching idea of redemption back into the title and opening action of the story, Sandra. This also takes us back to the source material for Shakespeare's play, the Strachey letter we talked about in class. One of the ideas Shakespeare's story shares with that text is the redemptive storm. Rather than loss, the storm proves how strong and resilient these Englishmen are--something that Shakespeare very much picks up on in his play.
Post a Comment