Ariel And Prospero Quotes

At the happy ending of the Tempest, Prospero brings the kind back togeter with his son, and finds Miranda's true love and punishes the bad duke and frees Ariel and becomes a duke himself again. Everyone - except Caliban - is happy, and everyone is forgiven, and everyone is fine, and they all sail away on calm seas. Happy endings. That's how it is in Shakespeare. But Shakespeare was wrong. Sometimes there isn't a Prospero to make everything fine again. And sometimes the quality of mercy is strained.

Prospero is man-the-artist, or man-the-scholar: Ariel and Caliban represent his ethereal and material selves—the one airy, imaginative, and swift; the second earthy, gross, and appetitive.

Prospero : My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant that this coil could not infect his reason? Ariel : Not a soul, but felt a fever of the mad, and play'd some tricks of desperation. THE TEMPEST

No, Felix, it isn’t, he tells himself firmly. Prospero is not crazy. Ariel exists. People other than Prospero see him and hear him. The enchantments are real. Hold on to that. Trust the play. But is the play trustworthy?

Interestingly, this speech by Prospero does not contrast the unreality of the stage with the solid, flesh-and-blood existence of real men and women. On the contrary, it seizes on the flimsiness of dramatic characters as a metaphor for the fleeting, fantasy-ridden quality of actual human lives. It is we who are made of dreams, not just such figments of Shakespeare’s imagination as Ariel and Caliban. The cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces of this earth are mere stage scenery after all.

A main thing it says to our age ought to be plain. Its great opposed symbols are the tempest of Prospero, which Ariel made as Prospero’s slave, and Ariel’s music, which Ariel made of his own free will. The former is the result of necromantic science or theurgy. The latter is a spontaneous overflow of joy in life. The one creates an opportunity for revenge. The other resolves the situation thus created. What that says to a generation that has used its own science to make an atomic bomb is as illuminating as a flash of lightning by night.

Puck is clearly and solidly male, but Ariel is sexless (hence, in theatrical productions, the frequency with which the character is portrayed as either male or female).  In contrast to Puck's cheeky cheeriness, Ariel seems subservient and melancholy.  This theme of enslavement perhaps comes from Ariel's origins in hermetic magic: he is a familiar, a spirit to be conjured and commanded.  He is there to do Prospero's will and lacks any personality or motivation of his own.  Both captive Ariel and the conjured spirit are controlled by another's arcane knowledge and skills.

In The Tempest the spirit Ariel is enslaved by the sorcerer Prospero.  He has many very typical fairy traits: he can become invisible; he can fly at incredible speed ("with a twink"), riding on the clouds and conjuring storms; he can walk on the waves and ride the sharp north wind; finally, and most importantly, he can change his shape.

Noi, indienii, credem ca si el, ca lumea este o iluzie...un roi de visuri zburatoare inconjurate de eternitatea unui ocean de somn. Il dispretuim pe Shakespeare, cand auzim pe Prospero care se crede un salvator al lumii, prin vrajitorie, prin flautul lui Ariel! Sintem convinsi ca lumea nu poate fi vindecata, dar asta n-are nici o inportanta, fiindca lumea nu exista!

Prospero : My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant that this coil could not infect his reason? Ariel : Not a soul, but felt a fever of the mad, and play'd some tricks of desperation.