Porspero
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Shakespeare does not present us the perfect ruler immediately. Instead, he develops Prospero from a basically good, but flawed man, to one who, although retaining some vanity and therefore is not perfect, will certainly act in a manner befitting an ideal leader.
Prospero’s character is portrayed as entirely good throughout the play, using his magic only to achieve positive ends such as education. He is one with his environment as he has developed superior intellectual powers, now realizing that he marked himself to be ousted by his distance from everyday affairs. At the beginning of the play viewed, he is perfected and works to perfect others. He occasionally rules with a heavy hand, as can be seen by his interactions with Ariel and Caliban, but never plans to carry out threats and acts in their best interests.
Shakespeare, by concealing part of the truth at first, shows us the development
of Prosperos character while on the island, from excessively trustful, too
tyrannical, to a man who is willing to forgive. By the end of the play, Prospero
indeed combines power over himself with power over the outer world (Elye 7).
Although this does put him in an ideal position to lead, Prospero is brought to
a point where he develops control over himself, rather than being presented as
such a character immediately. Prosperos magical powers allow him singlehandedly
to take control of a situation of slowly developing chaos, caused by his
eviction from Milan. He has powers over his surroundings, far greater than those
of an ordinary mortal, is incontestable, as is the fact that he uses them for
good throughout the play. However, it remains to be presented whether
Shakespeare actually favors Prospero as an ideal leader. Although we hear
Prospero tell the story of his eviction from Milan, the manner in which he tells
his history inspires distrust and self-pity. While Duke of Milan, he trusted his
brother Antonio too much, and consequently lost his dukedom, and nearly his
life. On the island, he befriended Caliban, brought him into his house and
treated him as a member of the family. Repeating the pattern of trust, which was
again betrayed, when Caliban attempted to rape Miranda. Although Prospero learns
from this second betrayal, he goes to the other extreme (Thomson 27). As stated
by critic Karl Elye: “Prosperos apparent tyrannical stance is revealed in
his exile and verbal abuse of Caliban, and also his tirade and threat to
imprison Ariel again “till / Thou hast howld away twelve winters” (Elye
24). Aside from the sin of tyranny, Prospero also seems unforgiving toward
Caliban and Antonio. When we see Caliban willingly serving Stephano and Trinculo,
we begin to realize that Caliban is not evil, and could in fact be a most
affectionate servant. When Caliban speaks of Prospero as a “tyrant,”
Shakespeare implies that the fault of alienating Caliban lies with Prosperos
failure to understand Calibans limitations. Furthermore, Prosperos treatment
of the court party seems to show that he is interested only in frightening them,
and at this point we do not realize that he wants to educate them. We can only
assume that Prospero wants to take his revenge on Alonso. As yet, we have heard
no other speech from Prospero about his intentions for the court party except
the long history he told to Miranda, when he called Alonso “an enemy / To
me inveterate” and spoke bitterly at great length about Antonio (Elye 27).
Prospero is also consistently self-indulgent and vain. At the beginning of the
play, he calls himself “poor man”