All great authors in some way explore the question: What does it mean to be human? Few writers do this better than Shakespeare, and, I would argue, few of Shakespeare’s plays rival “The Tempest” in its ability to display both the depths to which human nature can sink and the heights to which it can rise.
“The Tempest” tells the tale of a magician, Prospero, who has been exiled to a mysterious island along with his daughter, Miranda. Miranda has grown up on the island, her only companions being her father, the creature Caliban, and various spirits, such as Ariel, who serve her father.
At the beginning of the play, a ship is wrecked on the island and the ship contains the men responsible for Prospero’s unjust exile—including his brother, Antonio. Their arrival gives Prospero his opportunity to bring about justice.
Caliban
Perhaps the most recognizable character from the play is Caliban, a half-human, half-animal monster. His name echoes the idea of a “cannibal,” clearly indicating his savage state. In a humorous exchange, Trinculo and Stephano—a jester and drunken butler also shipwrecked on the island—debate between themselves whether he is a fish or a man, further highlighting his closeness to the world of the beasts.
Early in the play, we learn Caliban’s criminal, animalistic tendencies. In the first place, he is the child of a witch and a demon, which doesn’t bode well. He was taken in, cared for, and educated by Prospero—but then he tried to rape Prospero’s daughter, Miranda. When confronted with this truth, he doesn’t deny it, nor does he show any remorse: “O ho, O ho! would’t had been done! / Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else / This isle with Calibans.”
Antonio
Frye says Antonio’s criminality is more calculated than Caliban’s, who acts primarily on animal instinct. Antonio, by contrast, is cold-hearted, deceitful, subtle. He uses his intelligence rather than brute, animal force to try to win more power for himself, whether that be through killing the king when he is asleep or usurping his brother’s (Prospero) dukedom before the play even begins.Ariel
In many ways, Ariel is the opposite of Caliban. Caliban “in contrast with Ariel is a creature all earth,” writes G.B. Harrison. If Caliban is bodily, Ariel is spiritual (the name Ariel suggests “air” rather than “earth”). He is a being without a firm body, largely unconstrained by physical limits, though not impervious to the will of others, as shown when he was imprisoned in a tree by Caliban’s mother, the witch.
Ever since Prospero freed Ariel from the tree, he has been Prospero’s faithful servant. But he yearns, above all, to be free. His path to that freedom is through one last act of service to his master, by which Prospero will be able to bring justice to Antonio and the other villains of the play.
Ariel occupies an interesting space somewhere between slavery and freedom. By nature, he has few restraints, but justice and Prospero’s magic bind him to the old man. Ariel is undergoing a final trial or purification before he can become everything he is meant to be. Due to his intangible nature and the stark contrast between him and the bodily Caliban, it’s likely that Shakespeare’s audience would have seen in Ariel the idea of the human soul.
Ferdinand
This combination of body and soul, and angel and beast becomes even more clear through the character of Ferdinand. Ferdinand is the son of Alonso, the king. He, too, has been shipwrecked on the island, and separated from his father. In fact, in the chaos of the storm and wreck, he believes everyone else on the ship perished in the wreck. As he wanders through the island, heartbroken over his father whom he believes to be dead, he is discovered by Prospero and Miranda.
It’s important to note that this is the first man other than her father whom Miranda has ever seen. For Miranda, Ferdinand is, in a way, a representation of the human race. The words said of him by Miranda and Prospero thus have a significance beyond just the literal sense of the scene.
So when Miranda asks, “What is’t? A spirit?” she is asking this, in a way, about all mankind. Prospero replies, “No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses / As we have.” Miranda then says, “I might call him / A thing divine, for nothing natural / I ever saw so noble.”
In this brief exchange, then, we have a profound paradox, one already embodied by the characters described above. Shakespeare seems to suggest that a human being is not a pure spirit (we have bodies) but also not a mere animal (we have a spark of the “divine”). We are a strange mix of the two. We have the potential to behave villainously (Caliban and Antonio) or virtuously (Miranda and Ferdinand).
When we act rationally and with restraint, we become something noble. Ferdinand and Miranda give an example of this when they keep their promise to Prospero not to engage in intimacy until after they are married, despite the temptation when they are left alone together.
But one of the most remarkable suggestions of the play comes at the end. “The Tempest” is largely a play of forgiveness and redemption—even for Caliban.
In the final act, Caliban’s plot is discovered and easily foiled by Prospero. When faced with his crimes, Caliban, in a moment of self-knowledge, says, “I'll be wise hereafter / And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass / Was I, to take this drunkard [Stephano] for a god / And worship this dull fool!” Caliban realizes the foolishness of worshiping mere pleasure and living by mere instinct. He wants to aim for something higher. Thus, even our lower nature and evil propensities can potentially be changed, elevated, and ennobled.
