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- Prospero's ambition to return home with his daughter and claim their birthright provides the play with its central story.
- Prospero's powers are so extensive that he influences everything that occurs in 'The Tempest'.
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- Dutiful and loving father to Miranda
- Commands Ariel and other spirts to perform magical tasks
- Keeps Caliban as as his slave
- Creates the storm that causes Alonso and his companions to reach the island
- Arranges the meeting of Ferdinand and Miranda who fall in love
- Reunites King Alonso of Naples with Ferdinand, his son and heir.
- Forgives those who wronged hi and renounces magic power
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- Prospero refers in a variety of ways to his plan to be reinstated as the Duke of Milan
- Associated from the beginning of the play with a love of books and study.
- Many aspect of Prospero's behaviour and appearance would have put Shakespeare's audiences in mind of alchemy
- Shakespeare portrays Prospero as a very different kind of practitioner to the 'damned witch Sycorax' [1.2.263].
- Furthermore, having recovered his earthly powers he relinquishes his magic, thereby demonstrating that he is motivated by justice rather than by greed.
- Ironically, Prospero's books are both the cause of his downfall and the means by which he talks back and control.
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- Prospero is a bookish and learned man with an interest in the 'liberal arts' [1.2.173]. He became as absorbed in his 'secret studies' [1.2.77] that his brother Antonio was able to become more involved in governing Milan and to eventually plot his overthrow.
- He is an attentive father to Miranda and takes great care that she receives an excellent education on the island. He insists that Miranda was not a 'trouble' [1.2.51] to him but 'a cherubin.... that did preserve me' [lines 152-3]. He refers to himself as Miranda'schoolmaster' [line 172] and says he has 'made thee more profit/Than other princes can' [lines 172-3]
- He can be stern and severe in his dealing with others. In Act 1 Scene 2 he calls Ariel [moody] [line 244] and 'malignant' [line 257] and calls Caliban 'malice' [line 367] and 'poisonous slave' [line 319]. Miranda says that Prospero is 'of a better nature... Thane he appears by speech' [1.2.496-7]. However, Ferdinand believes him to be 'composed of harshness' [3.1.9].
- Ultimately he shows forgiveness to those who conspired against him. In Act V Scene 1, he says that 'The rare action is/In virtue than in vengeance' [lines 27-8] before instructing Ariel to release the wrongdoers and bring them to him.
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