The Tempest Themes

Themes in the tempest

Parent/child relationships

• Absent mother – Caliban and Miranda
• “my dearest father”
• I / Have given you a third of mine own life."
• “I have done nothing but in care of thee”
• “Thy no greater father”
• “do you love me master” “my dear Ariel”
• “So is the dear’st o’th ‘loss” – Alonso

Supernatural

• “What care these roarers for the name of king”
• “your art”
• “This is no mortal business, nor no sound/ That the earth owes”
• "First to possess his books, for without them / He's but a sot as I am"
•  “The isle is full of noises, / Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not."
•  "Thy shape invisible" – about Ariel
•  "These are not natural events; they strengthen / from strange to stranger." – Alonso

Love

•  “I’ll make you the Queen of Naples”
•  “Goddess”
•  “Changed eyes”
•  “Labours pleasures”
•  “most dear mistress” “precious creature”
• “love, prize, honour Miranda”

Vengeance

• “Revenge it on him”- Caliban
• "that foul conspiracy of the beast Caliban... against my life”
• “The rarest action is in virtue than in vengeance”

Nature and Nurture

• “Tis a villain"
• “got by the devil himself”
• “thou poisonous slave”
• “in my false brother, awakened an evil nature”
• “A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick”

Prejudice

• "the son (Caliban) that she did litter here, / A freckled whelp, hag- born - not honoured with/ A human shape"

Slavery

• “All hail,…