Ariel In William Shakespeare's The Tempest

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Shakespeare 's last play, The Tempest, is a story about a magician named Prospero who creates a tempest to crash a boat of people on an island. With the help of his servant Ariel, he is able to perform magic, making sure no one on the boat was harmed. Prospero also has another servant (more like a slave), Caliban, who he treats maliciously. Caliban knew the island very well and after Prospero got all the island 's secrets from him, he sent Caliban out of his care, to a rock where he was fed scraps and worked hard to serve Prospero. All of these characters contain power of different levels and it is often discussed, who has the most of it. Ariel, a genderless ghost spirit, has power because s/he has magic. Prospero is powerful because
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Prospero freed Ariel from an oak tree in which s/he was trapped by a witch named Sycorax (Caliban’s mother). Ariel is indebted to Prospero for freeing him as seen in the line, “Remember I have done thee worthy service/ Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served/ Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise/ To bate me a full year” (I.II.295-298). This line indicates Ariel asking for his freedom because s/he served Prospero for a year and his/her time is up. Ariel has been a faithful servant to Prospero and done everything he asked. From creating a tempest to creating illusions, Ariel could do almost anything as long as it was under Prospero 's command. Ariel’s power and Prospero 's power over him/her is represented in this quote, “ All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come / To answer thy best pleasure. Be ’t to fly, / To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride / On the curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task / Ariel and all his quality” (I.II.224). I choose this quote because Ariel was telling Prospero that s/he would do anything for him, and was explaining everything that s/he could do (like creating fires, illusions, and affecting people while invisible). Therefore, Ariel has lots of power because he is magical and can affect others in many

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