THEMES TEMPEST
Sea journeys
• Voyages of discovery and contributed to colonial conquest, occupation, exploitation,
and the theft of ‘discovered’ land.
• Shipwreck – Political strategy to forge an alliance with North African Kingdom to
secure his position as the ruler of various competing states and to expand his
domain across the Mediterranean Sea.
• Archetypal associations – presents opportunities for those who take it – knowledge,
wealth, identity, redemption.
o Sebastian, Antonio, Stephano and Trinculo are lured by opportunity and a
desire for power.
o Ferdinand gains love, Alonso receives forgiveness.
• Travel unites communities, individuals and cultures and is a front for reconciliation.
• Travel to escape the corruption of cities and live in an idyllic land.
o Gonzalo imagines a place where no one has to work, yet there is an
abundance of food and natural wealth.
Colonisation, slavery and the noble savage
• Celebrated as innocent but also childlike and in search for protection.
• Native people, vulnerable and owned the resource-rich lands.
• Admired for being untouched by the greed and excess of so-called ‘civilisation’ and
therefore, barbaric and civilised by force.
• Relationship between Prospero and Caliban – despite his ability to sympathise with
Caliban’s oppression, Shakespeare betrays a European bias of how Prospero
educated Caliban.
o Prospero sees Caliban as a rapacious and violent creature who is unable to
control his sexual urges when he tried to rape Miranda.
o Stephano and Trinculo make much of Caliban’s physical form – sea creature.
• Ariel and Caliban were the prior inhabitants – Ariel laments losing his freedom and
Caliban curses that he has learned the colonisers language.
Sea journeys
• Voyages of discovery and contributed to colonial conquest, occupation, exploitation,
and the theft of ‘discovered’ land.
• Shipwreck – Political strategy to forge an alliance with North African Kingdom to
secure his position as the ruler of various competing states and to expand his
domain across the Mediterranean Sea.
• Archetypal associations – presents opportunities for those who take it – knowledge,
wealth, identity, redemption.
o Sebastian, Antonio, Stephano and Trinculo are lured by opportunity and a
desire for power.
o Ferdinand gains love, Alonso receives forgiveness.
• Travel unites communities, individuals and cultures and is a front for reconciliation.
• Travel to escape the corruption of cities and live in an idyllic land.
o Gonzalo imagines a place where no one has to work, yet there is an
abundance of food and natural wealth.
Colonisation, slavery and the noble savage
• Celebrated as innocent but also childlike and in search for protection.
• Native people, vulnerable and owned the resource-rich lands.
• Admired for being untouched by the greed and excess of so-called ‘civilisation’ and
therefore, barbaric and civilised by force.
• Relationship between Prospero and Caliban – despite his ability to sympathise with
Caliban’s oppression, Shakespeare betrays a European bias of how Prospero
educated Caliban.
o Prospero sees Caliban as a rapacious and violent creature who is unable to
control his sexual urges when he tried to rape Miranda.
o Stephano and Trinculo make much of Caliban’s physical form – sea creature.
• Ariel and Caliban were the prior inhabitants – Ariel laments losing his freedom and
Caliban curses that he has learned the colonisers language.
