ii) “Shakespeare’s portrayal of the master-servant relationship between Prospero and Ariel is central to our understanding of the play.” How far would you agree with this view of The Tempest?

P1 - Use of "immoral Magic” as a tool for power & cohesion establishes power dynamic with Ariel

• Reassert Ariel's position as a submissive “spirit” whilst granting him relative power

• E → P's use of “books” & “garment” as form of exerting his “art”: Magus who indulges in magical studies

AO3: Reflects Jacobean concerns over the spiritual world/corrupt use of magic

AO5: Habour argues that Prospero’s magic goes beyond rational understanding HOWEVER arguably magic allow him to nourish a compassionate relationship with Prospero with Ariel as he refers to him as “my spirit” → Shows his affection towards him

• Relationship though is based on vengeance & P’s sense of injustice as he wishes to restore Great Chain of Being which he betrayed by prioritizing his magic

• E → As he wants to return to being “Duke of Milan, a prince of power”

J - Ariel as agent to fulfil P’s desire for revenge by conjuring his violent tricks

P2 - Themes of freedom & entrapment established as Prospero manipulates promise of freedom to reassert Ariel’s submission

• E → Ariel confront Prospero who “promis’d” “My liberty’s”: Ariel has relative dignity & freedom as he defends his right tot freedom

• E → Prospero manipulates Ariel’s recall of the past “thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax”: Encourages a distorted view of Ariel’s servitude, potrays P’s saviourism & interprets the Gratitude that Ariel should feel as he was saved by P from corrupt magic of Sycorax

• E → “render an oak, and peg thee of his knotty entrails”: Represses any earlier companion & & reasserts oppressive power dynamic

• AO3: Colonial treatment of native societies as he criticises GB attitudes towards the “New World

• E → Caliban & P is more violent & coarse relationship as he is referred to as “poisonous slave” & “a thing of darkness”: Ariel’s relationship as contrast to Caliban’s enslavement to portray contrast between P’s nurture & natural civility

AO5: Kermode argues that Caliban represents nature restraint to nurture demonstrated by P “Nature, on whose nurture can never stick” & C’s connection to island “the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs”

AO3: Ariel & Caliban reveal influences of Montaigne’s essay ‘Of the Cannibals"‘ which expressed contrast between savagery (P’s violent use of magic) & nobility (Caliban & Ariel’s connection to nature)

J - Presents parallel M-S relationships as criticism of GB attitudes towards ‘native savagery’ whilst forcing Jacobean audience to reflect on own assumptions & imposition of Western Values

P3 - Ariel however is granter greater freedom than Caliban due to confronting the “three men of sin” as a “harpy”

• E → Use of Blackfriars theatrical wealth enables Sh to portray Ariel’s alternative power through use of “banquet” that disappears & Ariel as a harpy with wings, harpy’s mythological significance as it represents storm winds reveals Ariel as agent of P’s conjuring tricks

AO5: Some critics may claim that Ariel simply is P’s submissive servant who fulfils his desire for vengeance but an alternative power is shown as..

• E → Ariel represents “destiny” & “the ministers of fate”: Goes beyond nature & P’s control of nature, sense of Ariel defying God-like worship of P by introducing laws of fate that go beyond religion & God

• E → Ariel able to control “three men of sin” physically as he states “Your swords are too many for your strengths”: Despite being a spirit, he surpasses human strength & represents anew power

AO3: Challenges "divine right of kings” which granted a God-like staus to nobility by undermining noble men’s strengths & rendering social order as obsolete

• Ariel’s proximity to nature: where “the bee sucks, there such I”: Creates alternative power to P’s violence

• AO5: Agor - Ariel represents a natural environment that reveals “a distorted view of the world & human nature”
  

J - Ariel like P uses nature to distort & disturb social order highlighting his separation to P who represents Western corruption, Ariel able to morally transform P & guide his search for forgiveness arguably reversing S-M relationship as Ariel is granted freedom eg. “thou shall have your freedom”

Conclusion

• M-S relationship introduces struggle for freedom & Jacobean notions of servitude

• Mirrors Caliban’s own relationship with P & his proximity to nature beyond colonial rule

• Ariel & P provide instances of human affection in a play that is overpowered by violence & quest for revenge