The Tempest Summary: What Happens on Prospero's Island and What It Means

Q: Comedy, tragedy or romance?

The First Folio lists The Tempest first among Shakespeare's comedies, but it mixes tragic and comic themes. Modern critics place it in a group called the "late romances", along with other plays from the end of his career. It deals with magic, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness and family, and it is full of music and songs that create the enchanted mood of the island. It is often called Shakespeare's last play, but that is not quite right. It was probably his last play written alone, but he later worked with John Fletcher on Henry VIII , Cardenio and The Two Noble Kinsmen .

A deposed duke turned magician raises a storm, traps his enemies on his island, then forgives them. A clear guide to Shakespeare's The Tempest.

The Tempest is Shakespeare's play about Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, who was overthrown by his brother and now lives on a remote island as a magician with his daughter Miranda and two servants, the "monster" Caliban and the airy spirit Ariel. When a ship carrying his enemies sails near, Prospero raises a storm, wrecks them on his island, and uses magic to bring them under his control. Then, instead of taking revenge, he forgives them, gives up his magic and sets Ariel free. The play was probably written in 1610–1611 and is thought to be one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote alone.

The story before the storm

Twelve years before the play begins, Prospero was Duke of Milan and a gifted sorcerer. His treacherous brother Antonio, helped by Alonso, King of Naples, took the dukedom from him. Prospero escaped by boat with his baby daughter Miranda and reached a remote island, where they have lived ever since.

On the island Prospero used his magic to force its only inhabitant, Caliban, to serve him and Miranda. He also freed the spirit Ariel, then bound him into service. Caliban's mother was Sycorax, an Algerian witch who had lived on the island and died before Prospero arrived. She had trapped Ariel inside a split pine tree, and it was Prospero's art that opened the tree and let him out. This is why Ariel owes Prospero a debt, and why Caliban sees him as a thief who took his island.

Act I: the shipwreck

The play opens on a ship at sea in a violent storm. The ship is carrying Antonio, King Alonso, Alonso's son Ferdinand, Alonso's brother Sebastian, and Gonzalo, an honest old counsellor who once helped Prospero. Prospero, with Ariel's help, conjures up the storm and wrecks the ship. Everyone survives, but they are scattered across the island, each group believing the others are dead.

Acts II and III: three groups on the island

Prospero now carries out a careful plan to punish the men who took his dukedom. Using magic, he keeps the survivors in separate groups.

The first is Ferdinand alone. He is found by Prospero and Miranda, and Prospero steers the young man into a romance with his daughter. The second is a comic trio. Trinculo, the king's jester, and Stephano, his drunken butler, meet Caliban, and the three plan a clumsy "rebellion" against Prospero that never succeeds. Their scenes are the play's comic relief.

The third group is the nobles. While King Alonso sleeps, Antonio persuades Sebastian to kill Alonso and Gonzalo so that Sebastian can become king, but Prospero and Ariel stop the plot. Later Ariel appears as a harpy and accuses Antonio, Alonso and Sebastian of their crimes against Prospero and against each other. The man who once betrayed one brother is ready to help another man betray his brother too, which shows how little Antonio has changed.

Act IV: the wedding masque

Prospero intends Miranda, now fifteen, to marry Ferdinand. He has Ariel and other spirits perform a masque, a short show with music in which they play the goddesses Juno, Ceres and Iris and bless the engagement. The masque suddenly breaks off when Prospero remembers the plot against his life. Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano are then chased into the swamps by spirits in the shape of hounds.

It is in this act that Prospero speaks some of the play's most famous lines, reflecting that the whole world will one day fade like the vanished show and that "We are such stuff as dreams are made on".

Act V and the epilogue: forgiveness

In the final act Prospero promises that, once his goals are achieved, he will free Ariel and give up his magic. Ariel brings in Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian, and Prospero forgives all three. His title of Duke of Milan is restored. Caliban, apparently full of regret, promises to behave, while Stephano and Trinculo are mocked and sent away. Before everyone leaves for Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will marry, Ariel is told to send good weather for the voyage, and then he is set free.

The play ends with an unusual epilogue. Prospero turns to the audience and asks them to set him free with their applause. The magician who controlled everyone on the island now depends on the people in the theatre.

Comedy, tragedy or romance?

The First Folio lists The Tempest first among Shakespeare's comedies, but it mixes tragic and comic themes. Modern critics place it in a group called the "late romances", along with other plays from the end of his career. It deals with magic, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness and family, and it is full of music and songs that create the enchanted mood of the island.

It is often called Shakespeare's last play, but that is not quite right. It was probably his last play written alone, but he later worked with John Fletcher on Henry VIII, Cardenio and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

What inspired the play?

There is no single source for the plot. One important influence was a real shipwreck: in 1609 the Sea Venture, sailing toward Virginia, was wrecked on Bermuda, and an eyewitness account by William Strachey may have shaped the opening storm. The island in the play should lie in the Mediterranean, since the ship was sailing from Tunis to Naples, but Ariel's mention of the "still-vexed Bermoothes" links it to Bermuda as well. Prospero's speech giving up magic also borrows from the witch Medea's speech in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Prospero as Shakespeare, Caliban as the colonised

Because this was probably Shakespeare's last solo play, many readers have heard in Prospero's farewell to magic Shakespeare's own farewell to the stage. Passages such as "Our revels now are ended" are often read this way.

The play has also been read as an allegory of Europeans colonising foreign lands. Caliban claims the island was his before Prospero came, and details such as the name of his mother's god, Setebos, which comes from South America, suggest a New World setting. Critics have also changed their view of Prospero himself. Until the mid-twentieth century he was usually seen as an admirable figure; more recent criticism often sees him as controlling and full of suspicion. Is he a wise father who chooses mercy, or a ruler who controls everyone until the last moment? The play lets you decide.

Learn with The Tempest: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
such stuff as dreams are made on	something beautiful but unreal	Their plans were such stuff as dreams are made on.
a brave new world	an exciting new situation	Online learning opened a brave new world.
a storm in a teacup	a lot of anger about a small matter	The argument was just a storm in a teacup.
to turn the other cheek	to forgive instead of taking revenge	She decided to turn the other cheek.
to bury the hatchet	to stop fighting and make peace	The brothers finally buried the hatchet.

Try this: Write three English sentences about a time you forgave someone, using "to bury the hatchet" and "a brave new world".