To understand what will be discussed in this essay first the play The Tempest must be explained and the Classical Unities alongside of Shakespeare’s stock characters will also be clarified. A brief history will also be explained. The Tempest is widely recognised as William Shakespeare's last complete play, classified by some as a romance and by others as a tragi-comedy, and often described as his greatest work. It was written between 1610 – 1611. In 1611 it was played for King James I. Its plot is, unusually for Shakespeare, almost completely original. The entire play is set on a fictional island which almost seems alive with magic. This setting is used to explore themes ranging from social order and the supernatural, to the simple conflict …show more content…
He is a powerful magician, and uses his powers to drive his quest for vengeance to its end. His commitment to this cause reveals his vengeful nature, but he also loves his only daughter Miranda greatly. He changes during the course of the play, becoming more humane and less vengeful. He takes on one of the stock characters that Shakespeare developed. Miranda, the young daughter of Prospero. She has been isolated on the island for so long that she doesn’t know any better and becomes naïve. She is loyal to her father, but also, at the age of fifteen, had become sexually aware. She is relatively undeveloped as a character, but her purpose is more as a symbol than anything else; she represents the ideals of innocence, goodness and beauty. Ariel is the next character who is very clearly one of the stock characters she is an airy spirit that is a mischievous servant. It has neither a specific gender nor a physical form. It was imprisoned in a tree for years. Caliban, the son of the witch Sycorax. His shape is not described in detail in the play, but from the text we can deduce that he is vaguely humanoid, but ugly and deformed. Ferdinand takes on the obvious stock character of a young and handsome prince. Something that is very prevalent in modern stories to this day. Alonso Ferdinand’s father, Helped Antonio in stealing Milan from Prospero twelve years before the events in the play. Antonio is Prospero’s brother and also the stock character of a villain. He is greedy, aggressive and power-hungry. Sebastian he is Alonso brother and is Antonio’s partner in crime, but definitely not the brains of the operations. Gonzalo is Alonso's honest and old counsellor. He is an optimist, and highly idealistic character. Trinculo is the jester he is cynical but has very similar character traits to Stephano his friend and companion. These are the main characters in the Tempest, they all seem to follow the