The Illusion of Justice
The Tempest tells a fairly straightforward story involving an unjust
act, the usurpation of Prospero’s throne by his brother, and Prospero’s quest
to re-establish justice by restoring himself to power. However, the idea of
justice that the play works toward seems highly subjective, since this idea
represents the view of one character who controls the fate of all the other
characters. Though Prospero presents himself as a victim of injustice working
to right the wrongs that have been done to him, Prospero’s idea of justice and
injustice is somewhat hypocritical—though he is furious with his brother for
taking his power, he has no qualms about enslaving Ariel and Caliban in order
to achieve his ends. At many moments throughout the play, Prospero’s sense of
justice seems extremely one-sided and mainly involves what is good for
Prospero. Moreover, because the play offers no notion of higher order or
justice to supersede Prospero’s interpretation of events, the play is morally
ambiguous.
As the play progresses, however, it
becomes more and more involved with the idea of creativity and art, and
Prospero’s role begins to mirror more explicitly the role of an author creating
a story around him. With this metaphor in mind, and especially if we accept
Prospero as a surrogate for Shakespeare himself, Prospero’s sense of justice
begins to seem, if not perfect, at least sympathetic. Moreover, the means he
uses to achieve his idea of justice mirror the machinations of the artist, who
also seeks to enable others to see his view of the world. Playwrights arrange
their stories in such a way that their own idea of justice is imposed upon
events. In The Tempest, the author is in the play, and the fact
that he establishes his idea of justice and creates a happy ending for all the
characters becomes a cause for celebration, not criticism.
By using magic and tricks that echo
the special effects and spectacles of the theater, Prospero gradually persuades
the other characters and the audience of the rightness of his case. As he does
so, the ambiguities surrounding his methods slowly resolve themselves. Prospero
forgives his enemies, releases his slaves, and relinquishes his magic power, so
that, at the end of the play, he is only an old man whose work has been
responsible for all the audience’s pleasure. The establishment of Prospero’s
idea of justice becomes less a commentary on justice in life than on the nature
of morality in art. Happy endings are possible, Shakespeare seems to say,
because the creativity of artists can create them, even if the moral values
that establish the happy ending originate from nowhere but the imagination of
the artist.
The Difficulty of Distinguishing “Men” from “Monsters”
Upon seeing Ferdinand for the first
time, Miranda says that he is “the third man that e’er I saw” (I.ii.449). The
other two are, presumably, Prospero and Caliban. In their first conversation
with Caliban, however, Miranda and Prospero say very little that shows they
consider him to be human. Miranda reminds Caliban that before she taught him
language, he gabbled “like / A thing most brutish” (I.ii.359–360) and Prospero
says that he gave Caliban “human care” (I.ii.349), implying that this was
something Caliban ultimately did not deserve. Caliban’s exact nature continues
to be slightly ambiguous later. In Act IV, scene i, reminded of Caliban’s plot,
Prospero refers to him as a “devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can
never stick” (IV.i.188–189). Miranda and Prospero both have contradictory views
of Caliban’s humanity. On the one hand, they think that their education of him
has lifted him from his formerly brutish status. On the other hand, they seem
to see him as inherently brutish. His devilish nature can never be overcome by
nurture, according to Prospero. Miranda expresses a similar sentiment in Act I,
scene ii: “thy vile race, / Though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good
natures / Could not abide to be with” (I.ii.361–363). The inhuman part of
Caliban drives out the human part, the “good nature,” that is imposed on him.
Caliban claims that he was kind to
Prospero, and that Prospero repaid that kindness by imprisoning him (see
I.ii.347). In contrast, Prospero claims that he stopped being kind to Caliban
once Caliban had tried to rape Miranda (I.ii.347–351). Which character the
audience decides to believe depends on whether it views Caliban as inherently
brutish, or as made brutish by oppression. The play leaves the matter
ambiguous. Caliban balances all of his eloquent speeches, such as his curses in
Act I, scene ii and his speech about the isle’s “noises” in Act III, scene ii,
with the most degrading kind of drunken, servile behavior. But Trinculo’s
speech upon first seeing Caliban (II.ii.18–38), the longest speech in the play,
reproaches too harsh a view of Caliban and blurs the distinction between men
and monsters. In England, which he visited once, Trinculo says, Caliban could
be shown off for money: “There would this monster make a man. Any strange beast
there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar,
they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian” (II.ii.28–31). What seems most
monstrous in these sentences is not the “dead Indian,” or “any strange beast,”
but the cruel voyeurism of those who capture and gape at them.
The Allure of Ruling a Colony
The nearly uninhabited island
presents the sense of infinite possibility to almost everyone who lands there.
Prospero has found it, in its isolation, an ideal place to school his daughter.
Sycorax, Caliban’s mother, worked her magic there after she was exiled from
Algeria. Caliban, once alone on the island, now Prospero’s slave, laments that
he had been his own king (I.ii.344–345). As he attempts to comfort Alonso,
Gonzalo imagines a utopian society on the island, over which he would rule
(II.i.148–156). In Act III, scene ii, Caliban suggests that Stephano kill
Prospero, and Stephano immediately envisions his own reign: “Monster, I will
kill this man. His daughter and I will be King and Queen—save our graces!—and
Trinculo and thyself shall be my viceroys” (III.ii.101–103). Stephano
particularly looks forward to taking advantage of the spirits that make
“noises” on the isle; they will provide music for his kingdom for free. All
these characters envision the island as a space of freedom and unrealized
potential.
The tone of the play, however,
toward the hopes of the would-be colonizers is vexed at best. Gonzalo’s utopian
vision in Act II, scene i is undercut by a sharp retort from the usually
foolish Sebastian and Antonio. When Gonzalo says that there would be no
commerce or work or “sovereignty” in his society, Sebastian replies, “yet he
would be king on’t,” and Antonio adds, “The latter end of his commonwealth
forgets the beginning” (II.i.156–157). Gonzalo’s fantasy thus involves him
ruling the island while seeming not to rule it, and in this he becomes a kind
of parody of Prospero.
While there are many representatives
of the colonial impulse in the play, the colonized have only one
representative: Caliban. We might develop sympathy for him at first, when
Prospero seeks him out merely to abuse him, and when we see him tormented by
spirits. However, this sympathy is made more difficult by his willingness to
abase himself before Stephano in Act II, scene ii. Even as Caliban plots to
kill one colonial master (Prospero) in Act III, scene ii, he sets up another
(Stephano). The urge to rule and the urge to be ruled seem inextricably
intertwined.
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