Prospero Speech Analysis

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Prospero’s speech is not finished. He concludes his metaphor for life as a play with the following words: “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on” (IV.i.173-174). By comparing the current events to a dream, he again recognizes his supposed reality as fiction, which stresses the unimportance of the play. How can he demean his supposed reality to a dream, and thus, fiction? The “how” is critical; it means Prospero must have a sense of something greater. To demean something is to, conversely, place importance on something else. Therefore, Prospero implies life outside of the play – something only someone more than a character can conjecture, which makes the next part of the speech significant. When Prospero puns on the phrase “the great globe …show more content…
Once his enemies are vulnerable in relation to him, Prospero delivers a soliloquy in which he renounces his magic. “… this rough magic / I here abjure… This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, / Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, / And deeper than did ever plummet sound / I’ll drown my book,” he promises (V.i.159-166). Throughout the play, “magic” refers to charms and spells. However, this “rough magic” appears more nefarious in this instance: Prospero’s magic has not only been used to direct his slaves, particularly Ariel, to manipulate the minds of his enemies as well as spy on all the other characters, but also to stage the play and call it into being. In the final scene of The Tempest, Prospero extensively uses his magic to hold his enemies captive in order to forgive them. Prospero has his enemies stand in a circle and he speaks to them in a charmed state, one which he places upon them. As they remain in this state, Prospero scolds them, but then forgives them and sets his former enemies free from his magical imprisonment. In other words, Prospero ends the conflict and concludes the play–by taking vengeance, but finally bequeathing to his enemies …show more content…
Without art, there would be no play in which Prospero could control the narrative and individuals within it in order to exact revenge on his enemies and regain his dukedom. In a sense, the relations of power in the play, whether between master and slave, between father and child, or between a sovereign and his subjects, provided evidence of a greater authoritarian figure that established these relations. The power of this authoritarian figure is tyrannical with the purpose of controlling others for his personal advancement. As a result, Prospero is able to end the play favorably for himself. However, at the end Prospero does recognize his overreach and asks for forgiveness, but this is forgiveness for the tyranny of the artist, not necessarily for the specific actions he himself performs within the

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