Essay | Character Analysis of Prospero

"A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning." The opening stage directions for William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Yet little do we know that the `tempestuous noise was created by none other than the lead character, a marvellous yet mysterious magician who purposefully conjured the storm to casts Alonso his "false brother" and his courtiers upon the island, which he and his daughter Miranda live on with no other company than two slaves; Ariel and Caliban.

It is not Prospero that we meet first, but his magic in the form of the great storm that was created for what we later discover as a reunion between his new life and the life that he once led. It is his daughter Miranda that has seen for herself, the damage that the storm has done to a ship and her "piteous heart" demands a salvation for the "poor souls" onboard. However her father...
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