The Tempest by Shakespeare - Research Paper Example

The Tempest and motifs Shakespeare is renowned for heavy use of motifs and symbols in order to add color and hide meanings. Literature is essential in stroking the imagination of the audience. The use of motifs, therefore, help an individual easily make out the otherwise complex meanings in literary works. The Tempest describes the story of jilted Duke of Milan, Prospero, who spends a significant part of his life enacting justice on his enemies. The story delves into a mystical world of magic that involves manipulations in order to as a way of making other characters acquiesce to Prospero’s needs. Motifs, therefore, help Shakespeare bring out the veracious analogies underlying in his text. The tempest that occurs at the beginning of the paly symbolizes notable things. To begin with, it highlights the conflicts occurring between the characters in the boat. This, especially, is crucial in the context of a wedding and a serene sea that may not promise an underlying tension. The tempest warns the audience that the characters in the boat have unresolved differences. It is essential to note that the storm places Prospero’s enemies at a vulnerable position, whereby he can exploit them for his own ends. This symbolizes his earlier suffering and struggle. Just as Prospero suffered in the sea some years ago, he places the victims of the shipwreck at the mercy of the sea. The audience later uncovers that the storm is not a natural occurrence as it had been caused by Prospero. A malicious aspect of magic warns the audience of the danger of dalliance with a mystical world. Prospero, however, is careful and conscientious enough to only use magic as a means of punishment, but not as a way of obliterating his enemies. This is because the storm does not cause any harm. In a large sense, the tempest reveals a noble and benevolent character of Prospero that seeks to realign the society towards normalcy. More essentially, the tempest represents a social upheaval that upsets the status of the privileged class in the society. The storm sets the Shakespearean society for a more egalitarian mode of life that respects the dignity of the person. When the characters suffer from the shipwreck, it manifests that death is a unifying factor that does not favor a person, regardless of one’s societal status. Shakespeare, in the character of Prospero, is an idealist who detests the feudal systems that place a certain class of individuals above others. He, therefore, seeks to reveal the meaninglessness of royal titles in life. Music is also an important motif in the story. Music is an essential feature of a play since it breaks the monotony, sometimes of going through the denseness of a literary work. However, music serves a deeper role of portraying the emotions of characters which may not be explicit through words. In the play, unlike the tempest, music represents harmony. The tempest symbolizes chaos and disharmony while the music symbolizes peace. Music permeates the whole of the play thereby becoming the central to the formation of the plot. To begin with, there is invisible music, both vocal and instrumental, that Caliban often hears. Caliban says that he Island is full of noises that delight the ears. This occurs in spite of the fact that he refers to such music as noises. Besides such music, which is a fundamental feature of the Island, Ariel also sings. Her songs create a feeling of love, beauty, and harmony. This explains why Ariel’s songs soothes Ferdinand from his gloom. Her song which begins from the lines, “full fathom thy father lies”, represents one of the core ideas of the play (Shakespeare 67). This regards the transformation of mortal concepts into things of immortal beauty. Ariel, for instance, refers to her subjects’ eyes as pearls. The use of music recurs in the plot till the end of the play. At the end of the play, Juno and Ceres conjures up a song that offers a harmonious and ethereal view of marriage. It is notable that words such as vines, barns, and plenty reflects the Utopia of Garden of Eden whereby life has no chaos and individuals exist in a continuous state of bliss. Music, as connected to the magical world, is employed by characters in escaping the despicable realities of their world. Ariel, who is in Prospero’s bondage, makes recurrent use of music to refer to an ethereal world that she dreams of the same. In this sense, she escapes her own sorrow of constant bondage by reimagining her existence. Water is central to the plot of the play for notable reasons. The first interaction with water begins at the initial scene where tempest occurs in the sea. However, more essentially, the act of immersion in water, rather than the sea itself, has great connotations. The tempest has the imagery of individuals drowning as they fear for their fate. When Prospero feels the emotions of exile, he tells her daughter, Miranda that he wishes he could have covered the sea with his tears when he cried over his past. Water, in this frame, is a tool of power since Prospero indirectly agrees that the sea is indomitable and undefeatable. This explains why Alonso, Ferdinand, Antonio, and Sebastian shakes with fear when they are drowning. The indispensability and magnitude of water also manifests in the fact that it surrounds the Island. Water, therefore, is both a means of escape and a tool of punishing wayward characters. Since the Island is inhabited by spirits, the existence of the sea around the place marks the supernatural being of water. In a huge sense, water exhibits itself as one of the characters. Water, however, is a special type of character that can change its shape to fit both evil and benevolent purposes. When Ferdinand listens to Ariel’s song that refers to the sea and corals, he believes his father has actually drowned in the water. The song connotes that Alonso’s body has transformed into unrecognizable thing. Coincidentally, his father believes that Ferdinand has drowned in the sea. His words that he has given up hope of ever finding his son as he cites the sea’s tendency to permanently drown things. This signifies that once someone is lost in the sea, even the body cannot be recovered. Drowning is so powerful that once it captures a body, the relations of a person should lose hope about acquiring proper funeral for the deceased. Drowning is a symbol of a certain finality that lingers in the conscience of every character. The Tempest, however, is not a plot of lost things but a recovery of things that seems to have been lost. Drowning is employed to the test the essence of emotional connection among individuals. Alonso realizes his love for his son when he imagines he has actually drowned in the sea. In the end, he realizes that his son is more essential than external pursuits such as the kingdom’s crown. More importantly, drowning is an act of baptism that restores the humanity of the characters. Prospero, therefore, promises to drown his book on reconciling with his offenders. Prospero’s magic is key to the operation of the plot. It is essential to emphasize that Prospero is highly delinked from his magic. His identity is not in any sense attached to the magic that he principally employs to achieve his ends. Before the start of the play, he had been played out of his leadership position. Magic becomes the only way of avenging and acquiring back what he feels he should possess. In this way, the mortality and limited human powers manifest. The world is an unfair place that a person, sometimes, can use crafty means to acquire what one cannot in a supposed exploitative system. Prospero occupies the position of the oppressed since he fights against both the human world and the spirit world. The combined force of Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio is insurmountable against Prospero. Prospero’s books are a symbol of his magic and power. It emerges that in an exploitative society, an oppressed only survives through intelligence. Intelligence, in this view, is employable in manipulating the oppressors in order to restore sanity in the society. In the end, motifs and symbols serve different ends in the story. The use of motifs is a connotation of denseness that the play contains. Such symbolism helps the plot move a situation of oppression and avenge to a harmonious end of marriage and reconciliation. The play begins on a chaotic note with the symbolism of the tempest that highlights underling tension among the characters. On the other hand, music prophesies a looming normalcy and harmony that will set upon the lives of the characters. The music presents an ethereal world where the characters yearn to escape to the same. Water, in the aspect of drowning, serves as a reconciling symbol. Although it signifies the end of things, it represents the redemption of wayward characters. This explains why promises to drown his book once the characters reconcile. Works cited Shakespeare, William, and David Lindley. The Tempest. Cambridge (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print. Read More