The Tempest

Spoiler alert (lol it's ancient) if you have never read The Tempest:

Prospero really asked a lot of Ariel in this play. I don't know where my frame of reference is, maybe it's living in this pro-union moment in America; solidarity to the workers always whether they're humans or little island sprites. But I was just shocked at what Ariel was putting up with and I was absolutely certain that Ariel was going to lose his/her/its shit and murder Prospero. Like I was just bracing myself for a rampaging sprite.

Anyway, I completely misread the vibe of this 400 year old play. I just finished it and Prospero has a huge change of heart, sets Ariel and Caliban free, and willingly gives up his magic. There's also a love story.

It's pretty good. It's quotable.

I remember reading this long, long time ago, and being enchanted by it.
Now... I find it rather... nasty.
So, Calaban's “crime” was to not want to be a slave on his own island, given to him by his mother, and falling in love with Miranda? Oh, and being ugly. So... let me guess... he was black.
Also, they SAY Sycorax died long before Prospero and Miranda arrived, but why, then, would Prospero have taught Calaban the names of sun and moon? More likely Prospero killed Sycorax when Calaban was still very young. What ever.
I am also uneasy with Ariel. “Just do this one thing, and you'll be free”. Over and over again. And why wasn't she free to begin with? Because Sycorax enslaved her? So Prospero just took over the slaves after Sycorax? So... how was he being this kind and enlightened regent?
Uh. Leaves very bad taste.

Summary: In this romance, a group of men including the king of Naples and the Duke of Milan ends up shipwrecked on an island where the duke’s brother, who he had deposed with the help of the king of Naples and several others, lives. The men do not know that the former duke, Prospero, lives there or that he, using his magical powers, caused the shipwreck. The play depicts the interactions of Prospero and the other men as well as those of Prospero’s daughter and the Neapolitan king’s son, Ferdinand.

The play explores issues of forced servitude and forgiveness.

Never or seen this before, I liked it.

I'm not sure if it's a drama or a comedy. On the one hand you have the elegant and poetic journey of Prospero from betrayal, to revenge, to melancholy forgiveness. All the while potentially echoing the bard himself - who wrote this at the end of his career - reflecting on his own life and work.
On the other hand you have the dudebro comedy of Caliban and the lads getting plastered and hilariously failing at every step in their drunken attempt at a coup.

Good fun.

Transgression and redemption, loss and retrieval, exile and reunion

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, written between 1610–11. It is thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. The sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan and his daughter Miranda are stranded on an island with the deformed Caliban. A second shipwreck brings ashore the man of Miranda's dreams. Prospero plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place. He uses illusion and skilful manipulation to conjure up a storm, the eponymous tempest. He does this to lure his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit King Alonso of Naples to the island. There, his scheming brings about the revelation of Antonio's lowly nature. It also redeems the King, and the brings about the marriage of Miranda to Alonso's son, Ferdinand.

The story draws on the tradition of the romance. This is a fictitious narrative set far away from ordinary life. Romances use themes such as the supernatural, wandering, exploration and discovery. They were often set in coastal regions, and featured exotic, fantastical locations. The also use themes of transgression and redemption, loss and retrieval, exile and reunion.

These are a few more themes I noticed when I watched and read the play.

The Illusion of Justice
The Tempest tells a straightforward story involving an unjust act. This is the usurpation of Prospero's throne by his brother and his quest to restore himself to power. But, the idea of justice that the play works toward seems subjective. This idea represents the view of one character who controls the fate of all the other characters. Prospero's idea of justice and injustice is somewhat hypocritical—though he is angry with his brother for taking his power, he has no qualms about enslaving Ariel and Caliban to achieve his ends. Because the play offers no notion of higher order or justice to supersede Prospero's interpretation of events, the play is morally ambiguous.

By using magic and tricks that echo the special effects and spectacles of the theatre, Prospero persuades the other characters and the audience of the rightness of his case. As he does so, the ambiguities surrounding his methods resolve themselves. Prospero forgives his enemies, releases his slaves, and relinquishes his magic power, so that, at the end of the play, he is only an old man whose work has been responsible for all the audience's pleasure. The establishment of Prospero's idea of justice becomes less a commentary on justice in life than on the nature of morality in art.

Humanity
Miranda and Prospero both have opposing views of Caliban's humanity. They think that their education of him has lifted him from his brutish status. But they seem to see him as inherently brutish. His base nature can never be overcome by nurture. The play leaves the matter ambiguous. Caliban balances all his eloquent speeches, with degrading drunken, servile behaviour.

Colonialism
The uninhabited island presents the sense of possibility to almost everyone who lands there. Prospero has found it, in its isolation, an ideal place to school his daughter. Sycorax, Caliban's mother, worked her magic. All these characters envision the island as a space of freedom and unrealized potential. Yet, while there are many representatives of the colonial impulse in the play, the colonized have only one representative: Caliban. We might develop sympathy for him at first, when Prospero seeks him out to abuse him. But this sympathy is made more difficult by his willingness to abase himself. Even as Caliban plots to kill one colonial master (Prospero) he sets up another (Stefano). The urge to rule and the urge to be ruled seem intertwined.

As for the book itself, at this price you can't go wrong, its a bargain. Supplement your reading by watching the play itself, then it'll all make much more sense.