Acts 2-3: Power Struggles
Act 2, Scene 1: The Court Party on the Island
After the shipwreck, the court party — Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, and others — find themselves scattered on the island. Alonso is grief-stricken, believing his son Ferdinand has drowned. Gonzalo tries to comfort him by noting the island’s beauty, but Antonio and Sebastian mock Gonzalo at every turn, their sardonic asides revealing their contempt for sincerity.
Gonzalo’s utopian speech imagines a commonwealth with “no sovereignty” — no king, no laws, no labour. Sebastian’s sneering response, “Yet he would be king on’t,” exposes the inherent contradiction: even a utopia needs someone to establish and maintain it. Shakespeare uses this moment to question whether any human society can truly exist without power structures. Gonzalo’s idealism is genuine but naïve; Antonio and Sebastian’s cynicism is perceptive but morally bankrupt.
When Ariel puts the court party to sleep (except Antonio and Sebastian), Antonio proposes murdering Alonso so that Sebastian can become King of Naples. This conspiracy directly mirrors Antonio’s earlier usurpation of Prospero — Shakespeare creates a structural parallel showing that Antonio has learned nothing and will always reach for illegitimate power. Ariel wakes Gonzalo just in time to prevent the assassination.
Antonio: The Unrepentant Villain
Antonio is the play’s most purely villainous character. Unlike Macbeth or Claudius, he shows no guilt, no hesitation, and no internal conflict. When he tempts Sebastian to murder Alonso, his language is chillingly pragmatic: “What’s past is prologue” — the past is merely the introduction to what comes next. He treats the murder of a king as a simple strategic move. His influence over Sebastian mirrors his earlier corruption of Milan’s political order when he overthrew Prospero.
Crucially, Antonio never apologises at the end of the play. When Prospero forgives him, Antonio says nothing. This silence is one of the most debated moments in The Tempest — does it suggest shame, defiance, or simply an inability to change? Shakespeare leaves it unresolved, refusing to give the audience the comfort of a complete moral transformation.
The Tempest contains three overlapping conspiracies against authority: Antonio’s past usurpation of Prospero in Milan, Antonio and Sebastian’s plot to murder Alonso on the island, and Caliban’s alliance with Stephano and Trinculo to murder Prospero. Each conspiracy reflects a different social level — aristocratic, political, and servant-class — but they all share the same structure: a tempter corrupts a willing follower. Shakespeare suggests that the desire to seize power by treachery is a universal human flaw, not confined to any one class.
Act 2, Scene 2 & Act 3, Scene 2: Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo
The subplot involving Caliban, Stephano (a drunken butler), and Trinculo (a jester) provides comic relief but also serious thematic weight. When Caliban encounters Stephano and his wine, he mistakes the drunkard for a god: “That’s a brave god, and bears celestial liquor.” He immediately offers himself as Stephano’s servant: “I’ll show thee every fertile inch o’ th’ island … I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow.”
This mirrors exactly what Caliban did when Prospero first arrived. He is repeating the cycle of colonisation: offering his knowledge of the island to a new master in the hope of escaping the old one. Shakespeare shows that Caliban’s desire for freedom leads him into a new form of subjugation. Yet Caliban’s speech about the island — “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, / Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not” — is some of the most beautiful poetry in the play, revealing a sensitivity that neither Stephano nor Trinculo possess.
“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, / Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.” This speech (Act 3, Scene 2) reveals Caliban’s deep emotional connection to the island. His language here is lyrical and gentle — entirely different from his angry exchanges with Prospero. Shakespeare uses this contrast to show that Caliban is not simply a “monster” but a complex being with an inner life that his oppressors cannot see or value.
Act 3, Scene 1: Ferdinand and Miranda
Prospero has set Ferdinand to the menial task of carrying logs — a test of his love for Miranda. Ferdinand accepts willingly: “The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead.” His language of willing servitude contrasts sharply with Caliban’s forced labour and Ariel’s bound service. Ferdinand chooses to serve out of love, while Caliban and Ariel serve out of compulsion. Shakespeare draws a clear distinction between willing service and slavery.
Miranda offers to carry the logs for Ferdinand, breaking her father’s instructions. She even tells Ferdinand her name despite Prospero’s explicit command not to. Their exchange is sincere and direct: “I am your wife, if you will marry me; / If not, I’ll die your maid.” Miranda’s boldness subverts the typical Jacobean expectation that women should be passive. Prospero watches in secret, pleased: his plan is working. The love match will unite Milan and Naples, restoring political order through the younger generation.
Act 3, Scene 3: The Vanishing Banquet
Prospero stages a spectacular illusion: spirits present a lavish banquet to the hungry court party, then Ariel appears as a harpy and makes it vanish. Ariel denounces Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian as “three men of sin” who overthrew Prospero: “The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have / Incensed the seas and shores — yea, all the creatures — / Against your peace.” The vanishing banquet symbolises how the material rewards of treachery are ultimately empty. Alonso is moved to guilt and despair; Antonio and Sebastian draw their swords uselessly against spirits they cannot fight.
A harpy in classical mythology is a creature of divine vengeance that snatches food from the guilty. By having Ariel appear in this form, Shakespeare frames Prospero’s justice as divinely sanctioned. The banquet scene is also a masque-like spectacle that demonstrates Prospero’s absolute control over the island. The “three men of sin” are powerless against his magic. Yet this scene also raises the question: is Prospero dispensing justice or enacting revenge? The line between the two is deliberately blurred.