Porspero

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 Prospero's 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. Prospero's 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: "Prospero's 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 howl'd 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 Prospero's

failure to understand Caliban's limitations. Furthermore, Prospero's 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" in his story to Miranda, and answers

her question in extremely long-winded fashion, suiting his own wishes rather

than hers. Although he says that his only care has been to serve Miranda, the

first thing we see after that is Miranda serving Prospero by helping him takes

off his cloak, inferring hypocrisy. When Stephano's party is getting ready to

kill Prospero and the court party is apparently going to commit mass suicide,

aided by Antonio. Prospero indulges his vain desire to show off his art to his

children, and makes most of it before he gives it up. Even at the end, we are a

little uneasy at Prospero's desire to tell everyone his life story, a wish that

seems selfish. However,