Act 1: The Storm & Prospero's Story
Act 1, Scene 1: The Storm
The play opens with a violent tempest that threatens to sink a ship carrying Alonso (King of Naples), his son Ferdinand, Antonio (Prospero’s treacherous brother), Sebastian, Gonzalo, and others. The storm is significant because it immediately disrupts the normal social hierarchy: the Boatswain shouts at the nobles, telling them to stay out of the way: “What cares these roarers for the name of king?” The sea does not respect rank or title. This line establishes a key theme — the fragility of human authority when confronted by nature’s power.
Gonzalo, the honest old counsellor, tries to calm everyone: “The wills above be done! But I would fain die a dry death.” His characteristic mix of faith and dry humour marks him out from the start as the play’s moral compass. Meanwhile, the mariners struggle and Antonio curses. The scene is chaotic, noisy, and terrifying — and then we discover it was all staged by Prospero using magic.
The storm is artificial — created by Prospero through Ariel’s magic. No one is harmed, as Ariel reports back: “Not a hair perished.” The key quotation “Hell is empty and all the devils are here” (spoken by Ferdinand in Ariel’s report) captures how terrifying the illusion was. It also foreshadows the play’s concern with the boundary between appearance and reality.
Act 1, Scene 2: Prospero’s Exposition
Scene 2 is the longest in the play and serves as a massive exposition dump. Prospero tells Miranda their history: he was the Duke of Milan, a scholar so absorbed in his books and magic that he neglected his duties and allowed his brother Antonio to seize power. Antonio conspired with Alonso, King of Naples, and Prospero and the infant Miranda were set adrift in “a rotten carcass of a butt” — a leaky boat. Only Gonzalo’s secret kindness, providing food, water, and Prospero’s beloved books, kept them alive.
Prospero’s telling is emotionally charged and controlling. He repeatedly interrupts himself to check Miranda is listening: “Dost thou attend me?” and “Thou attend’st not.” This reveals his need for control — even over the narrative of his own suffering. Miranda’s response is pure compassion: “O, I have suffered / With those that I saw suffer!” She feels others’ pain instinctively, establishing her as the play’s emotional heart.
Miranda has grown up on the island with no memory of Milan and no contact with other humans besides her father and Caliban. Her name means “admirable” or “wonderful” in Latin, and she lives up to it: she responds to the shipwreck with immediate empathy, not fear. Her famous line later in the play — “O brave new world, / That has such people in’t!” — is deeply ironic because the people she admires include the very men who betrayed her father. Her innocence is both her virtue and her vulnerability. Shakespeare uses her to ask whether goodness comes from nature or experience.
Ariel: The Bound Spirit
Ariel is an airy spirit who serves Prospero in exchange for a promise of freedom. Before Prospero arrived, Ariel had been imprisoned inside a “cloven pine” by the witch Sycorax for refusing to carry out her “earthy and abhorred commands.” Prospero freed Ariel but bound the spirit to his own service instead. When Ariel asks for liberty, Prospero responds with anger: “Dost thou forget / From what a torment I did free thee?”
This exchange is troubling. Prospero saved Ariel from one form of imprisonment only to impose another. He holds his act of rescue over Ariel as a permanent debt, and says he must retell that history over and over: “I must / Once in a month recount what thou hast been, / Which thou forget’st.” The relationship is one of service, gratitude, and control. Ariel obeys, but always with one eye on the promised reward: freedom. Ariel’s yearning for liberty — “Do you love me, master?” — gives the character an emotional depth that goes beyond mere obedience.
Caliban: “This Island’s Mine”
Caliban is the most complex and debated character in the play. He is the son of Sycorax and the unnamed devil (described by Prospero as “the devil himself”). Setebos is the god that Sycorax worshipped — not Caliban’s father. When Prospero first arrived, Caliban and Prospero had a warm relationship: Caliban showed Prospero the island’s resources, and Prospero taught Caliban language. But after Caliban attempted to assault Miranda, Prospero enslaved him.
Caliban’s great speech of resentment makes his claim clear: “This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother, / Which thou tak’st from me.” He articulates the experience of the dispossessed: “You taught me language, and my profit on’t / Is I know how to curse.” This is one of the play’s most powerful lines. Language — the supposed gift of civilisation — has only given Caliban the tools to express his rage at being subjugated. The coloniser’s “gift” becomes the colonised’s weapon.
“You taught me language, and my profit on’t / Is I know how to curse.” This quotation encapsulates the colonial dynamic: Prospero sees teaching language as a civilising gift, while Caliban sees it as a tool of oppression that only lets him articulate his suffering. The word “profit” is bitterly ironic — the only profit Caliban has gained from his colonisation is the ability to voice his dispossession.
In Act 1, Scene 2, Prospero uses magic to control every character: he creates the storm, puts Miranda to sleep, summons and threatens Ariel, and punishes Caliban with cramps. His magic is both a narrative device and a symbol of authority. It allows him to stage-manage every encounter on the island, from Ferdinand’s meeting with Miranda to the nobles’ wandering. But this control comes at a cost — it isolates him and prevents genuine human connection. The play’s resolution requires Prospero to renounce his magic and trust in human relationships instead.