Prospero. Prospero is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him to sea on a rotten carcass of a boat to die, twelve years before the play begins.
Prospero and Miranda had survived and found exile on a small island. He has learned sorcery from books, and uses it while on the island to protect Miranda and control the other characters.
Before the play has begun, Prospero frees the spirit Ariel from entrapment within a cloven pine, about which Prospero states: It was mine Art, When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape The pine and let thee out., The Tempest, Act 1, scene 2. Prospero's sorcery is sufficiently powerful to control Ariel and other spirits, as well as to alter weather and even raise the dead: Graves at my command have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth, by my so potent Art.-Act V, scene 1. On the island, Prospero becomes master of the monster Caliban and forces Caliban into submission by punishing him with magic if he does not obey. Ariel is beholden to Prospero after he is freed from his imprisonment inside the pine tree.
At the end of the play, Prospero intends to drown his book and renounce magic. In the view of the audience, this may have been required to make the ending unambiguously happy, as magic was associated with diabolical works
Prospero and Miranda had survived and found exile on a small island. He has learned sorcery from books, and uses it while on the island to protect Miranda and control the other characters.
Before the play has begun, Prospero frees the spirit Ariel from entrapment within a cloven pine, about which Prospero states: It was mine Art, When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape The pine and let thee out., The Tempest, Act 1, scene 2. Prospero's sorcery is sufficiently powerful to control Ariel and other spirits, as well as to alter weather and even raise the dead: Graves at my command have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth, by my so potent Art.-Act V, scene 1. On the island, Prospero becomes master of the monster Caliban and forces Caliban into submission by punishing him with magic if he does not obey. Ariel is beholden to Prospero after he is freed from his imprisonment inside the pine tree.
At the end of the play, Prospero intends to drown his book and renounce magic. In the view of the audience, this may have been required to make the ending unambiguously happy, as magic was associated with diabolical works
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