The Tempest by William Shakespeare: Symbol of Isolation

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The concept “island” always played a great role in British literature. A simple fact, that England is an island influenced the development of the symbol and promoted its spreading in British literature. Sea, as an inalienable component of insular life, also takes a great place in the treasury of images in British images.

In The Tempest, the sea is presented as a strict and impartial element: “When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king?” (Shakespeare 1). A man is helplessly facing the element. Human beings are too small and weak against the storm and sea wrath. So, it is a symbol of insuperable power, which takes away all the possibilities to oppose. Then, an island appears, as a natural partner of the sea. Both symbols are often shown together and act in cooperation.

Sea surrounds an island, remotes and isolates it from a continent. Thereby, a sea is a boundary which separates a big land, where a lot of people live, and a secluded world, that is an island.

In The Tempest, an island is a place of isolation for several people: great magician Prospero and his daughter, Miranda. They found a shelter there twelve years ago. Still, the island had given refuge for two other people: the witch Sycorax and her son Caliban. Also, the island was inhabited by an air spirit, Ariel. Caliban’s mother did not manage to make him her servant and confine him in a tree. Then she died. Prospero released Ariel and made him his servant.

So, even in a direct sense, the island is a place of isolation for many people. It is a place of exile for those who deserve it and those, who suffer without any guilt. Still, Prospero finds a way out. At one, a great magician sets up his daughter’s future, takes vengeance on traitors (his brother and Alonso, king of Naples), and forgives them. Leaving the island, he reveals Ariel from service and decides to forget about practicing magic:

“I here abjure, and, when I have required Some heavenly music (which even now I do) To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff Buries it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book”. Shakespeare 73-74

In the epilogue, a reader sees a man, who is tired and sick. Though he has come back to Milan, he thinks about death. Many researchers, who analyzed the play, spoke about the parallel between Shakespeare and Prospero. The magician has a strong subjective basis, which starts inside the author’s soul. If Prospero is not an incarnation of Shakespeare, he is the product of his emotional experience. It seems very probable that the image of Prospero has something in common with the author. Thereby, the desire to leave magic is a possible projection of Shakespeare’s desire to leave theatre and play-writing. The author is tired. What causes these desires? The answer may be found in the image of the island, depicted by Shakespeare.

Firstly, it is absolutely unclear, where the island is situated. The play contains two mentions about its position “From the still vexed Bermoothes, where she’s hiding” and “And are upon the Mediterranean float” (Shakespeare 11). Still, Bermoothes are situated in the Atlantic Ocean. The paradox could happen on the reasons of the author’s geographical illiteracy still, it is hardly possible.

Judging by the abovementioned facts, we can say, that the island is as illusory, as a lot of Ariel’s visions, which the spirit presented to humans. Island’s physical location means nothing, which is emphasized by the author. Island is only a metaphor for something bigger.

There are several additional facts, which support this theory. The island’s nature includes features of common and magical nature. Characters of the play seem to be between two different worlds, real and magical as long as Prospero is simultaneously a magician and a real duke; Antonio and Sebastian are at the same time witty and vulgar, evil and foolish. Caliban is brutal, but also he is receptive to beauty. A reader keeps the feeling that action oscillates between real and unreal details.

The play seems utopian at first sight. But looking at the final moments of The Tempest and analyzing Prospero’s speech in the epilogue one may dispute this statement. Wonderful new world, which was a dream of writers and philosophers for generations, seems ironic. An episode, which wonderfully illustrates this idea, may be found in The Tempest when Miranda enthusiastically says: “How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous the mankind is! O brave new world. That has such people isn’t!” (Shakespeare 78).

And sagacious Prospero answers her: “Tis new to thee” (Shakespeare78). The magician knows that only out-and-out scoundrels are around.

Topos of the island absorbed the quintessence of utopian outlook and world-building; here, in The Tempest, it is reborn as an antiutopian symbol of a wall, an insuperable barrier. The place of action is presented as a closed space, which has an inhuman heart inside. Entrance and exit are difficult. Any attempts of changing it are slightly possible. Anti-utopia clearly demonstrates, as a classical utopian image of a happy end is interchanged by a convincing example of the fact, that in reality an ideal changes into its polarity.

This theory may be supported by another argument. As long as some critics find parallels between Prospero’s visit to the island and the colonization of the New World, then his magic powers and books rather remind technological progress of European countries (Nuri). Still, such a genre as anti-utopia includes scepsis concerning the achievements of civilization and scientific and technological advances. So, the fact, that Prospero draws his books and leaves his magic behind only supports the idea of the antiutopian character of Shakespeare’s play. Also, Prospero speaks about the vainness of people’s efforts and even lives: “We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep” (Shakespeare 64-65). Even his powers do not save him from such thoughts. He is tired, he does not believe in anything. His desire to leave magic rather reminds the last will. One may find in The Tempest a lot of philosophic lines, from a search of freedom to abuse of authority; from forgiveness to retribution. Still, the uncertainty of the play, reality of the aesthetic world, which is expressly mystical and unreal seem well thought-off. Reading Prospero’s words about the world and people’s existence which is only a dream (they are cited above), one may even conjecture, that the whole plot is nothing but a dream of a duke who had never left Milan. He retired and became a scientist. Still, he suffered from misdoubts which took the form of a dream which is presented in the play.

In this case, the motive of isolation is also highly connected with the symbol of the island. We are afraid to be isolated and surrounded by an obstacle that we cannot surmount. An island is an eternal symbol of loneliness.

The Tempest tells us about unclear comprehension of new truth about the world we live in, which is metaphysical and transcendental. If the phenomenon which surrounds our lives is the darkness of a dream then our life can also be a dream. Shakespeare demonstrates this mystical and unclear feeling in The Tempest, where the island is the incarnation of vague images of human existence, which is surrounded by a sea while the island is small and defenseless in the face of endless and alien power.

Shakespeare is aware of the uselessness of efforts to restrain humans’ passions. His last play express fatigue from the knowledge that all the giant efforts are vain and the world remains unchanged.

An island is a place where many characters think about the nature of freedom from the spiritual freedom of Ariel to the bestial freedom of Caliban. Still, Caliban’s freedom guides him to dishonorable actions, cruelty, and desire for revenge. Freedom in The Tempest is diverse. It is a wide spectrum of humans’ freedoms. Symbolically, that all of them meet each other on the isolated territory, an island.

Antonio and Sebastian decide to kill Alonso, Caliban plots against Prospero because they feel free. In The Tempest Shakespeare demonstrates the downfall of humanisms: “on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost” (Shakespeare 66). Humaneness is powerless to defeat the inhumanity of countless Caliban, it cannot dispose of evil. The island is not only a symbol of physical or moral isolation. It is a symbol of isolation, caused by powerlessness, isolation, which makes one not only lonely but also humiliated.

Works Cited

Nuri, Akash. “Colonialism in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. Ezine Articles. Web.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Murrieta, CA: Classic Books Company. Print.

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The Tempest by William Shakespeare: Symbol of Isolation

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