Freedom vs servitude

“All hail, great master! I come to answer thy best pleasure, best to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire…

• Formal, almost ceremonial greeting - clear hierarchy of power, worship, Prospero as authoritative & worthy of respect. Establishes master-servant dynamic

• Tricolon of elemental actions shows Ariel’s supernatural nature & close connection to natural elements. Shows his versatility & willingness to serve in any condition - complete devotion

• However, obedience is conditional & not loyal

• Instrument of Prospero’s art - contrast between his compliance & Caliban’s resistance

“Let me remember thee what thou hast promised” “How now? Moody?”

• Ariel - polite, careful phrasing softens what is actually a challenge & reminder of Prospero’s obligation. Asserting himself but cautiously as he knows his position in master-servant relationship

• Obedience as conditional, rather than genuine & loyal

• Prospero - dismissive, abrupt response that trivializes Ariel’s concern & presents it as unreasonable, mere emotional instability. Reasserts dominance through belittling language

“Dost thou forget from what a torment I did free thee?” “haste thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax?”

• Accusatory tone, warning - memory as a tool of psychological control.

• The repetition of “forget” forces Ariel to recall his past suffering, while the emotive noun “torment” and the loaded description “foul witch” construct a narrative in which Prospero is positioned as a benevolent saviour.

• Shakespeare thus exposes how authority is sustained through the manipulation of memory and obligation, as Ariel’s obedience is secured not through loyalty but through a carefully maintained sense of indebtedness.

“damned witch Sycorax, for mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible…was banished”

• “damned witch” - evil, morally condemned & corrupt beyond redemption. Characterizes Sycorax as a figure of overwhelming evil to highlight his good use of magic & savior complex. Justifies dominance of Ariel

• Constructed figure shaped by Prospero’s narrative as we only know details about her from him - unreliable narrator ?

• AO3 anxieties about witchcraft - Salem witch trials, James I daemonelogie book etc

“I thank thee, master” “I will be correspondent to command and do my spiriting gently”

• Gratitude & polite

• Language constructs him as an instrument of obedience rather than a thinking subject - “will” future obligation with no choice, “correspondent” mechanical responsiveness rather than autonomous action

• Presents Ariel not as an agent negotiating freedom, but as a figure whose existence is entirely subsumed within Prospero’s authority, highlighting the absolute nature of hierarchical control within the play

“Go make thyself like a nymph of the sea; be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every subject else”

• Imperatives - control & authority

• “nymphs” - mythological imagery, associated with natural elements. Reduced to a perforative, aesthetic function.

• “thine” and “mine” - possessiveness, ownership

• Ariel becomes a performance tool & a visual illusion under Prospero’s direction, allowing him to control narrative through spectacle. Reinforces Prospero’s role as “stage director” AO5

“Caliban, my slave” “my quaint Ariel”

• Caliban - no softness or affect in diction, property & dehumanization.

• Ariel - endearing, delicate & affectionate

• Juxtaposing master-servant relationships - but controlled by subservience yet different in nature

• Caliban represents coercive domination & enforced labour which can be read from colonial perspective as colonizer exploiting the indigenous

• Ariel represents rewarded obedience & conditional servitude

·      “thou shalt have cramps…thou shalt be pinched as thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging than bees that made them”

• Prospero

• Semantic field of violence & suffering - Caliban’s body becomes site of discipline & object of punishment

• Repetition “thou shalt” - inevitable & predetermined

• “cramps” - enforced suffering, loss of control over body. Control becomes bodily & invasive

• Extended bee metaphor - bees symbolized as an organised collective. Honeycomb = dense structure of repeated suffering. Stinging = sharp, immediate pain

“I must obey; his art is of such power it would control my dam’s god Setebos and make a vassal of him”

• Caliban - tone of defeat

• “must” - modal verb. No agency or resistance, obedience inevitable. Fully subject to Prospero’s commands

• Prospero’s authority is overwhelming & totalising, has no power to object. God-like, has ability to reduce a god to subservience

“That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him”

• Caliban about Stephano Act 2 Scene 2

• Heavenly language - elevates Stephano from a drunken sailor to divine, transient figure. Admirable, impressive & highly hyperbolic

• “kneel” - physical submission through positioning, religious imagery like worshipping. Complete declaration of servitude, sees him as his savior as can escape Prospero’s wrath

• Deeply ironic as it reinforces his condition of dependency & creates cyclical pattern of submission which is replicated rather than broken. Reflects colonialism as colonizers used alchohol & novelty to exploit & dominant indigenous

• Plays with both comedy & tragedy genre - drunken misunderstanding aids hyperboly & Caliban’s inability to imagine freedom

“Hast thou not dropped from heaven? / Out of th’ moon”

• Religious imagery - elevates Stephano to a divine, god-like status. Deeply ironic given Stephano’s actual position as a drunken sailor - Xp uses alcohol to aid comedic misjudgment

• Stephano extends the illusion & encourages misunderstanding, comic improvisation & adds a folkloric mythical imagery. Stephano exploiting Caliban’s credulity for his own advantage.

• Authority as a performance & deliberately fabricated - quickly accepts new rule as master

“I’ll show thee evert fertile inch o’th’ island / And I will kiss thy foot. I prithee, be my god”

• Close connection with island & earthly elements - surrounds his knowledge & ownership

• “highly pattered play” AO5 - parallel to Act 1 Scene 2 in monologue with Prospero “showed thee all he qualities o’th’ isle”. Cyclical structure of subservience which is almost innate. Creates sympathy & presents him as naive as he can’t predict inevitable exploitation of his kindness

• Colonial dynamic in which the oppressed not only relinquish control, but actively participate in sustaining hierarchical power structures.

• “kiss thy foot” - extreme act of physical subordination & desperate request for his authority. Voluntary self-enslavement

“A most ridiculous monster - to make a wonder of a poor drunkard!”

• Trinculo Act 2 Scene 2

• “monster” - dehumanizing language strips Caliban of humanity & aligns him with the natural & uncivilized.

• “ridiculous” - comedic object, form of entertainment & profit. AO3 freak shows & commodification of the ‘other’

• Reveals the absurdity of Caliban’s worship - dismissive, belittling & undercuts divinity

• Comedy humorous on surface but is used to reveal uncomfortable truths about prejudice (AO5 “ to prevent Stephano & Trinculo as a pair of drunken clowns is to oversimplify their roles”)

“A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! I’ll bear him no more sticks but follow thee, thou wondrous man”

• Caliban Act 2 Scene 2

• Exclamative - raw intense anger. “plague” - curse, disease, suffering. “tyrant” - illegitamte, oppressive ruler. Redefines Prospero as unjust & abusive, not rightful authority

• “bear him no more sticks” - reduced to physical labour, menial dehumanizing work. Enforced bodily exploitation

• Elevated, admiring language “wondrous”, echoing his earlier divine religious imagery.

• Illusion of rebellion - thinks he is resisting tyranny but is entering another hierarchy. Freedom inaccessible, cycle of subservience which he cannot escape from

“Freedom, high-day; high day freedom”

• Caliban end of Act 2 Scene 2

• Spontaneous outbursts of joy, celebration. Chant-like repletion makes it almost song-like & childish, naive.

• Dramatic irony as he sees this as genuine freedom but we know that he is actually entering another servant-master relationship. Also isn’t fully free from Prospero’s control as we know of his revengeful plot

• Freedom as an illusion for the oppressed, suggesting that prolonged subjugation can distort one’s understanding of independence, so that even moments of supposed liberation remain confined within structures of domination

“I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island'“

• Caliban Act 3 Scene 2

“Be free, and fare thou well!”

• Act 5 Scene 1