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SummaryA violent storm rages around a small ship at sea. Themaster of the ship calls for his boatswain to rouse the marinersto action and prevent the ship from being run aground by the tempest.Chaos ensues.
Revise and learn about the plot of Shakespeare's play, The Tempest with BBC Bitesize KS3 English Literature.
Some mariners enter, followed by a group of noblescomprised of Alonso, King of Naples, Sebastian, his brother, Antonio,Gonzalo, and others. We do not learn these men’s names in this scene,nor do we learn (as we finally do in Act II, scene i) that theyhave just come from Tunis, in Africa, where Alonso’s daughter, Claribel,has been married to the prince. As the Boatswain and his crew takein the topsail and the topmast, Alonso and his party are merelyunderfoot, and the Boatswain tells them to get below-decks. Gonzaloreminds the Boatswain that one of the passengers is of some importance,but the Boatswain is unmoved.
He will do what he has to in orderto save the ship, regardless of who is aboard.The lords go belowdecks, and then, adding to the chaosof the scene, three of them—Sebastian, Antonio, and Gonzalo—enter againonly four lines later. Sebastian and Antonio curse the Boatswainin his labors, masking their fear with profanity. Some marinersenter wet and crying, and only at this point does the audience learnthe identity of the passengers on-board. Gonzalo orders the marinersto pray for the king and the prince. There is a strange noise—perhapsthe sound of thunder, splitting wood, or roaring water—and the cryof mariners. Antonio, Sebastian, and Gonzalo, preparing to sinkto a watery grave, go in search of the king.
AnalysisEven for a Shakespeare play, The Tempest is remarkablefor its extraordinary breadth of imaginative vision. The play issteeped in magic and illusion. As a result, the play contains atremendous amount of spectacle, yet things are often not as theyseem. This opening scene certainly contains spectacle, in the formof the howling storm (the “tempest” of the play’s title) tossingthe little ship about and threatening to kill the characters beforethe play has even begun. In terms of stagecraft, it was a significantgamble for Shakespeare to open his play with this spectacular naturalevent, given that, in the early seventeenth century when the playwas written, special effects were largely left to the audience’simagination.Shakespeare’s stage would have been almost entirely bare,without many physical signs that the actors were supposed to beon a ship, much less a ship in the midst of a lashing storm.
Asa result, the audience sees Shakespeare calling on all the resourcesof his theater to establish a certain level of realism. For example,the play begins with a “noise of thunder and lightning” (stage direction).The first word, “Boatswain!” immediately indicates thatthe scene is the deck of a ship. In addition, characters rush franticallyin and out, often with no purpose—as when Sebastian, Antonio, andGonzalo exit at line 29 and re-enter at 33,indicating the general level of chaos and confusion. Cries fromoff-stage create the illusion of a space below-decks.But in addition to this spectacle, the play also usesits first scene to hint at some of the illusions and deceptionsit will contain. Most plays of this era, by Shakespeare and others,use the introductory scene to present the main characters and hintat the general narrative to come—so Othello begins with Iago’s jealousy,and King Lear begins with Lear’s decision to abdicate his throne.But The Tempest begins toward the end of the actual story, latein Prospero’s exile. Its opening scene is devoted to what appearsto be an unexplained natural phenomenon, in which characters whoare never named rush about frantically in service of no apparentplot.
In fact, the confusion of the opening is itself misleading,for as we will learn later, the storm is not a natural phenomenonat all, but a deliberate magical conjuring by Prospero, designedto bring the ship to the island. The tempest is, in fact, centralto the plot.But there is more going on in this scene than initiallymeets the eye. The apparently chaotic exchanges of the charactersintroduce the important motif of master-servant relationships. Thecharacters on the boat are divided into nobles, such as Antonioand Gonzalo, and servants or professionals, such as the Boatswain.The mortal danger of the storm upsets the usual balance betweenthese two groups, and the Boatswain, attempting to save the ship,comes into direct conflict with the hapless nobles, who, despitetheir helplessness, are extremely irritated at being rudely spokento by a commoner. The characters in the scene are never named outright;they are only referred to in terms that indicate their social stations: “Boatswain,”“Master,” “King,” and “Prince.” As the scene progresses, the charactersspeak less about the storm than about the class conflict underlyingtheir attempts to survive it—a conflict between masters and servantsthat, as the story progresses, becomes perhaps the major motif ofthe play.
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The Tempest is a play about magic, betrayal, love and forgiveness. It is set on an island somewhere near Italy where Prospero, the one-time Duke of Milan, and his beautiful daughter, Miranda, live with a sprite called Ariel and a strange wildman called Caliban. Prospero is a powerful magician who creates a storm, or, that sets the scene for the play. In the events that follow we see a plot to murder the King of Naples, a drunken scheme to kill Prospero and a romance between Miranda and the King’s son, Ferdinand. In the end everyone is forgiven and they all set sail for home. Contents. A ship is caught in a tempest and begins to sink.
Prospero tells Miranda that he caused the storm. Ariel fetches Ferdinand, who falls in love with Miranda.
Antonio and Sebastian plot to kill Alonso, the King of Naples. The ship’s jester and butler meet Caliban and feed him alcohol. Caliban suggests that they should kill Prospero, and Ariel overhears. Prospero uses magic to scare Alonso and spoil Caliban’s plot. Prospero forgives the passengers for their former betrayals.
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