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Is Prospero really the kind, nurturing figure he seems to like to appear as or is he, in fact, a manipulative tyrant?
Also, many people say that Prospero is a reflection of Shakespeare himself. Why would Shakespeare portray himself as a rude, selfish dictator?
Anyone got any ideas??
Daizee x x :D
yes you can say that prospero is a manipulative hypocrite, particularly with regards to his usurpation of the island from caliban, but when people refer to the autobiographical qualities of prospero i think it is more to do with the fact that the tempest was shakespeare's final play, and so he draws parallels between prospero giving up his magic and his own retirement from playwriting; he also expresses through prospero parallels between this magic and the theatre, and as his plays as 'masques', such as the ones prospero enacts - for example 'this insubstantial pageant', 'some vanity of mine art' can both be linked to shakespeare's own 'art'. i don't think shakespeare wants to portray himself as a tyrant, however, this is a different issue regarding caliban, servitude and usurpation, reflecting montaigne's work on cannibals and the idea of the 'noble savage'.
I think through Prospero Shakespeare is suggesting he was not the perfect man and like all had his flaws... yet by handing all the power to the auidence in the end, Shakespeare throught Prospero is asking for a final acceptance not only as a playwrite but perhaps as a humanbeing.....
:)
He clearly leads a Tyrannical life over his daughter, but decides in the end, while giving up his staff and forgiving, to finally allow her the sexual freedom deserved to a woman, I.E. marrying her to Ferdinand.
yet....he is only marrying her to Ferdinad to become duke....and only giving up his powerful "arts" to regain a "powerful" status as DUke....for him power is a cyclical