SOURCE: “The Tempest: Shakespeare's Ideal Solution,” in Shakespeare's Personality, edited by Norman N. Holland, Sidney Homan, and Bernard J. Paris, University of California Press, 1989, pp. 206-25.

[In the essay below, Paris compares Shakespeare to the character of Prospero, and finds that “[l]ike Prospero at the end of The Tempest, Shakespeare at the end of his career seems to have resolved his inner conflicts by repressing his aggressive impulses and becoming extremely self-effacing.”]

I

As J. B. Priestley has observed, “until his final years” Shakespeare “was a deeply divided man, like nearly all great writers. There were profound opposites in his nature, and it is the relation between these opposites … that gives energy and life to his work” (1963, 82). Critics have tended to define these opposites in terms of masculine and feminine traits. In The Personality of Shakespeare Harold Grier McCurdy concludes that Shakespeare “was predominantly masculine, aggressive,” but that his “masculine aims have a way of running counter to the feminine components in him, which incline toward idealistic love and domestic virtues” (1953, 159). In Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare Norman Holland presents a similar picture. As these critics see it, the division in Shakespeare is between an aggressive, vindictive, power-hungry masculine side, which generates “images of … violent action” (Holland 1966, 142), and a gentle, submissive, idealistic feminine side, which dislikes cruelty and is given to loving-kindness and Christian charity. Shakespeare is afraid of his feminine side and employs “aggressive masculinity … as a defense against it” (Holland 1966, 141-42); he can express tenderness and charity only when his aggressive needs have been satisfied.

This view is in conflict with the traditional picture of a “gentle Shakespeare” (Jonson) who is “civil,” “upright,” and “honest” (Chettle) and “of an open and free nature” (Jonson). In the heyday of what Samuel Schoenbaum calls “subjective biography” most critics held the charitable side of Shakespeare's personality to be uppermost (see Dowden 1910). Brandes felt that Shakespeare's strong reaction to evil was partly the result of his idealism (1899, 420), and Bradley observed that it is “most especially in his rendering of … the effects of disillusionment in open natures that we seem to feel Shakespeare's personality” (1963, 325).

In what is perhaps the most sophisticated attempt to relate Shakespeare's works to “the evolving temperament of [the] author,” Richard Wheeler finds “a division in Shakespeare's imagination” between masculine and feminine modes of forming an identity and of relating to the world. The masculine mode involves “the assertion of self-willed … autonomy over destructive female power or over compliant feminine goodness,” while the feminine mode seeks a “trusting investment of self in an other” and “turns on the mutual dependence of male and female” (1981, 221). Wheeler's understanding of the opposites in Shakespeare derives from the theories of Margaret Mahler, which posit an initial state of oneness or symbiosis with the mother, followed by a process of separation and individuation that is essential to the establishment of an autonomous identity. This process is subject to a variety of disturbances that produce powerful needs for a renewal of merger or for the assertion of independence. Both the movement toward merger and the movement toward autonomy have destructive potentialities: “The longing for merger threatens to destroy precariously achieved autonomy; the longing for complete autonomy threatens to isolate the self from its base of trust in actual and internalized relations to others” (206). Wheeler does not find one side of Shakespeare's personality to be dominant. Rather, he sees a continual “interaction of conflicting needs for trust and autonomy” (207) both within individual plays and in the corpus as a whole.

Like many other critics, I, too, see Shakespeare as “a deeply divided man” whose works reflect his inner conflicts. My understanding of the opposites in Shakespeare derives from the theories of Karen Horney (1950), which posit that people respond to a threatening environment by developing both interpersonal and intrapsychic strategies of defense. In our interpersonal strategies we move toward people and adopt a self-effacing or compliant solution; we move against people and adopt an aggressive or expansive solution; or we move away from people and become resigned or detached. There are three subtypes of the expansive solution: narcissistic, perfectionistic, and arrogant-vindictive. Each solution carries with it certain needs, values, and character traits. Each involves also a conception of human nature, a view of the world order, and a bargain with fate in which the behaviors prescribed by that solution are supposed to be rewarded. In the course of development individuals come to make all three of these moves compulsively, and since these involve incompatible character structures and value systems, they are torn by inner conflicts. In order to gain some sense of wholeness, they emphasize one move more than the others, but the subordinate trends continue to exist.

While interpersonal difficulties are creating the movements toward, against, and away from people, as well as the conflict between these moves, concomitant intrapsychic problems are producing their own strategies of defense. To compensate for feelings of self-hate, worthlessness, and inadequacy, individuals create an idealized image of themselves and embark on a search for glory. The creation of the idealized image produces a whole structure of defensive strategies, which Horney calls the “pride system.” Individuals take intense pride in the attributes of their idealized self and on the basis of these attributes make “neurotic claims” on others. They impose stringent demands and taboos on themselves, which Horney calls “the tyranny of the should.” The function of the shoulds is “to make oneself over into one's idealized self.” Since the idealized image is for the most part a glorification of the self-effacing, expansive, and detached solutions, the individuals' shoulds are determined largely by the character traits and values associated with their predominant defense. Their subordinate trends are also represented in the idealized image, however; and, as a result, they are often caught in a “crossfire of conflicting shoulds” as they try to obey contradictory inner dictates.

Shakespeare seems to have intuitively understood and dramatically portrayed the kinds of phenomena Horney has analyzed. The major tragedies, for example, depict characters who are in a state of psychological crisis as a result of the breakdown of their strategies of defense. Hamlet, Iago, Othello, and Lear all have bargains with fate that are undermined when the world fails to honor their claims, while Macbeth violates his own bargain by failing to live up to his shoulds (Paris 1977, 1980, 1982, 1984b). Hamlet's bargain is that of the self-effacing solution, Iago's is arrogant-vindictive, and Lear's is narcissistic. Othello makes both a narcissistic and a perfectionistic bargain, while Macbeth tries to form a new, arrogant-vindictive bargain after he has violated his perfectionistic one. Shakespeare displayed an intuitive understanding of all of these strategies and of the conflicts between them. He seems to have been particularly fascinated by the conflict between the arrogant-vindictive and the self-effacing solutions, which Horney calls the “basic conflict,” and this fascination tells us something about his own psyche.

I do not propose Horney's theory as all-encompassing, but I do find that it illuminates a great deal in Shakespeare. Those who are not as comfortable with it as I am can translate the insights it yields into their own terminology, as I do with the insights of others. Indeed, it seems to me that the critics whom I have been citing have described Shakespeare's personality in terms that are quite compatible with a Horneyan approach. The vengeful, aggressive, power-hungry side of Shakespeare corresponds to what I would describe as his arrogant-vindictive trends, while the forgiving, submissive, idealistic side corresponds to his compliant tendencies. McCurdy and Holland depict a Shakespeare who is predominantly aggressive but who has powerful, though submerged, self-effacing trends, while Brandes and Bradley describe a man who believes in the world-picture of the self-effacing solution and whose aggressive tendencies emerge as a result of his disenchantment. What Wheeler describes as the trust/merger pattern in many ways parallels Horney's account of the self-effacing solution, in which the individual counts on other people for love and protection and tends to merge with them in relationships of morbid dependency. The autonomy/isolation pattern seems to involve both the movement away from other people and the movement against them. Since Horney's theory is predominantly synchronic, not much work has been done tracing the early origins of the defensive moves she describes (see, however, Feiring 1983). It is possible that Horney and Mahler can be integrated by seeing the Horneyan strategies as originating in the vicissitudes of the separation/individuation process. Fear of separation generates the movement toward other people, whereas fear of reengulfment generates longings for power and independence.

From a Horneyan point of view there is more than one conflict in Shakespeare. There are conflicts between perfectionistic and compliant and perfectionistic and arrogant-vindictive trends (Paris 1981, 1982), as well as impulses toward detachment. His major conflict, however, is between his arrogant-vindictive and his self-effacing tendencies. Horney does not identify these tendencies as masculine or feminine, since she does not believe that they are biologically linked to either sex; but she notes that Western culture has tended to reinforce aggressive behavior in males and compliant behavior in females and to frown on compliant men and aggressive women. Because such linkages occur both culturally and in Shakespeare's works, it makes a certain amount of sense to speak of Shakespeare's conflict as occurring between the masculine and feminine components of his nature. I prefer the Horneyan terminology, however, which does not presuppose distinctively masculine and feminine psychologies.

Whereas some critics see Shakespeare as predominantly aggressive, I favor the traditional view of him as predominantly generous, open, and idealistic. As I see it, he is less concerned with establishing his masculinity than with finding ways to release his aggression without violating his need to be virtuous. McCurdy and I have opposite readings of The Tempest. He sees it as embodying Shakespeare's “ideal solution” because Prospero's demonstration of power permits him to “admit … Christian charity” (1953, 162), whereas I see it as embodying Shakespeare's ideal solution because Prospero's magical powers permit him to satisfy his sadistic and vindictive impulses without sacrificing his moral nobility. I think that Shakespeare fears his aggressive side more than his submissive or charitable impulses, though he has mixed feelings about both.

II

The Tempest is one of only two Shakespearean plays whose plot, as far as we know, is entirely the author's invention. It is, more than any other play, a fantasy of Shakespeare's. What, we must ask, is it a fantasy of? What psychological needs are being met, what wishes fulfilled? One way of approaching this question is to look at the unrealistic elements in the play, particularly Prospero's magic. The function of magic is to do the impossible, to grant wishes that are denied to us in reality. What is Prospero's magic doing for him? And for Shakespeare? Why is it there? What impossible dream does it allow to come true?

Before he is overthrown, Prospero is a predominantly detached person, in Horneyan terms. The detached person craves serenity, dislikes responsibility, and is averse to the struggle for power. His “two outstanding neurotic claims,” says Horney, “are that life should be … effortless and that he should not be bothered” (1950, 264). Prospero turns his responsibilities as duke over to his brother, rejects the pursuit of “worldly ends” (1.2.89), and retires into his library, which is “dukedom large enough!” (1.2.110). He immerses himself in a world of books, seeking glory not through the exercise of his office, which involves him in troublesome relations with other people, but through the pursuit of knowledge. As a result of his studies he becomes “the prime duke, being so reputed / In dignity, and for the liberal arts / Without a parallel” (1.2.72-74). He is not without ambition and a hunger for power, but he satisfies these expansive needs in a detached way. His study of magic is highly congruent with his personality. The detached person has an aversion to effort and places the greatest value on freedom from constraint. Magic is a means of achieving one's ends without effort and of transcending the limitations of the human condition. It is a way of enforcing the neurotic claim that mind is the supreme reality and that the material world is subject to its dictates; indeed, it symbolizes that claim. Through his withdrawal into the study of magic Prospero is pursuing a dream of glory far more grandiose than any available to him as Duke of Milan. It is no wonder that he prizes his volumes above his dukedom (1.2.167-68). He becomes “transported / And rapt in secret studies” and grows a “stranger” to his state (1.2.76-77).

Reality intrudes on Prospero in the form of Antonio's plot, which leads to his expulsion from the dukedom. Although many critics have blamed Prospero for his neglect of his duties, Prospero does not seem to blame himself or to see himself as being responsible in any way for his fate. He interprets his withdrawal as a commendable unworldliness and presents his behavior toward his brother in a way that is flattering to himself:

                                                  and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood in its contrary as great
As my trust was, which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans bound.

(1.2.93-97)

There are strong self-effacing tendencies in Prospero that lead him to think too well of his fellows and to bestow on them a trust they do not deserve. Overtrustfulness has disastrous consequences in the history plays and tragedies but it has no permanent ill effects in the comedies and romances. Prospero glorifies his excessive confidence in his brother and places the blame for what happens entirely on Antonio's “evil nature” (1.2.93). He seems to have no sense of how his own foolish behavior has contributed to his fate.

Antonio's betrayal marks the failure of Prospero's self-effacing bargain; his goodness to his brother, which he had expected to be repaid with gratitude and devotion, is used by Antonio to usurp the dukedom. This trauma is similar to those that precipitate psychological crises in the protagonists of the tragedies, crises from which none of them recover (Paris 1980). Prospero's case is different because of his magic. Like the protagonists of the tragedies, Prospero is enraged with those by whom he has been injured and craves a revenge that will assuage his anger and repair his idealized image. Unlike the characters in the realistic plays, however, he has a means of restoring his pride without being terribly destructive to himself and to others. He spends the next twelve years dreaming of his revenge and perfecting his magic in preparation for his vindictive triumph. The Tempest is the story of his day of reckoning.

Propsero has numerous objectives on this day, all of which he achieves through his magic. He wants to punish his enemies, to make a good match for his daughter, to get back what he has lost, to prove through his display of power that he was right to have immersed himself in his studies, and to demonstrate that he is the great man that he has felt himself to be, far superior to those who have humiliated him. The most important function of his magic, however, is that it enables him to resolve his psychological conflicts. Once he has been wronged, Prospero is caught between contradictory impulses. He is full of rage, which he has a powerful need to express, but he feels that revenge is ignoble and that he will be as bad as his enemies if he allows himself to descend to their level. What Prospero needs is what Hamlet could not find and what Shakespeare is trying to imagine: a way of taking revenge and remaining innocent (Paris 1977). This is a problem that only his magic can solve. The Tempest is above all a fantasy of innocent revenge. The revenge is Prospero's, but the fantasy is Shakespeare's, whose conflicting needs resemble those of his protagonist.

The storm with which the play opens is an expression of Prospero's rage. It instills terror in his enemies and satisfies his need to make them suffer profoundly for what they have done to him. If the vindictive side of Prospero is embodied in the storm, his self-effacing side is embodied in Miranda, who is full of pity for the suffering of the “poor souls” who seem to have “perish'd” (1.2.9). Since Miranda is the product of Prospero's tutelage, she represents his ideal values, at least for a woman; and it is important to recognize that she is extremely self-effacing. When Prospero begins to tell the story of their past, she says that her “heart bleeds / To think o' th' teen that I have turn'd you to” (1.2.63-64); and when he describes their expulsion, she exclaims, “Alack, what trouble / Was I then to you!” (1.2.152-53). She wants to carry Ferdinand's logs for him, feels unworthy of his love, and swears to be his servant if he will not marry her (3.1). Like her father before his fall, she has an idealistic view of human nature. The “brave vessel” that has sunk “had no doubt some noble creature in her” (1.2.6-7), and she exclaims, when she first sees the assembled company, “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in't!” (5.1.183-84). Prospero is no longer so idealistic, but he has retained many of his self-effacing values and has inculcated them in Miranda. He approves of her response to “the wrack, which touch'd / The very virtue of compassion in thee” (1.2.26-27) and assures her that “there's no harm done” (1.2.15). Through his “art” he has “so safely ordered” the storm that there is “not so much perdition as an hair / Betid to any creature in the vessel / Which thou heard'st cry” (1.2.28-32). Miranda says that if she had “been any god of power” (1.2.10) she would never have permitted the wreck to happen; but neither does Prospero. Through his magic the wreck both happens and does not happen. His magic permits him to satisfy his vindictive needs without violating the side of himself that is expressed by Miranda (Kahn 1981, 223). To further alleviate his discomfort with his sadistic behavior and with Miranda's implied reproaches, Prospero maintains that he has “done nothing but in care” of her (1.2.16) and justifies his actions by telling the story of Antonio's perfidy.

Prospero's delight in the discomfiture of his enemies is revealed most vividly in his response to Ariel's account of his frightening behavior during the tempest. He asks Ariel if he has “perform'd to point the tempest” that he, Prospero, has commanded, and when Ariel replies that he has, Prospero reacts with enthusiastic approval and obvious sadistic pleasure: “My brave spirit! / Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil / Would not infect his reason” (1.2.206-8). His response inspires Ariel to elaborate:

                                                                                                    Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and play'd
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plung'd in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me. The King's son Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair),
Was the first man that leapt; cried “Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here!”

(1.2.208-15)

Once again Prospero expresses his approval: “Why, that's my spirit!” (1.2.215). Since Ariel has carried out his orders “to every article” (1.2.195), we must assume that the madness and desperation Ariel describes are precisely what Prospero intended. He is pleased not only by the terror of his enemies but also by that of Ferdinand, his future son-in-law. He is rather indiscriminate in his punishments, as he is later in his forgiveness.

Prospero can enjoy the terror of his victims because he has not injured them physically: “But are they, Ariel, safe?” (1.2.217). Not only are they safe, but their garments are “fresher than before” (1.2.219). In the history plays and the tragedies revengers incur guilt and bring destruction on themselves by doing physical violence to their enemies. Prospero is a cunning and sadistic revenger, who employs his magic to inflict terrible psychological violence on his enemies while he shields them from physical injury and thereby preserves his innocence. To his thinking, as long as no one is physically injured, “there's no harm done” (1.2.15). Prospero finds harmless such things as having everyone, including the good Gonzalo, fear imminent destruction, having them run mad with terror at Ariel's apparitions, and having Ferdinand and Alonso believe each other dead.

Prospero's cruelty toward his enemies may not appear to say much about his character because it seems justified by their outrageous treatment of him. He is prone to react with aggression, however, whenever he can find a justification, however slight, for doing so. (I am taking what Harry Berger, Jr. [1970], calls “the hard-nosed,” as opposed to the “sentimental,” view of Prospero; other hard-nosed critics include Abenheimer 1946, Dobree 1952, Leech 1958, and Auden 1962.) He says he will put Ferdinand in chains and force him to drink sea water and to eat mussels, withered roots, and acorn husks (1.2.462-65), and he makes him remove thousands of logs “lest too light winning” of Miranda “make the prize light” (1.2.452-53). This seems a weak excuse for his sadistic behavior. He even threatens Miranda when she beseeches him to have pity on Ferdinand: “Silence! One word more / Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee” (1.2.476-77).

The pattern frequently is that Prospero is benevolent until he feels that his kindness has been betrayed or unappreciated, and then he becomes extremely vindictive. He feels betrayed by Antonio, of course, and unappreciated by Ariel when that spirit presses for liberty. He justifies his enslavement of Ariel by reminding him that it was his “art” that freed the spirit from Sycorax's spell, and he threatens him with torments similar to those Sycorax had inflicted if he continues to complain. Prospero's threats seem to me an overreaction. He will peg Ariel in the entrails of an oak merely for murmuring. He makes enormous claims on the basis of his kindness, and if others do not honor these claims by displaying loyalty, gratitude, and obedience, he becomes enraged. If he is ready to punish Ariel and to hate Miranda for very slight offenses, think of the vindictiveness he must feel toward Antonio. Ariel is self-effacing and knows how to make peace with Prospero. He thanks him for having freed him and promises to “be correspondent to command / And do [his] spriting gently” (1.2.297-98). This allows Prospero to become benevolent once again, and he promises to discharge Ariel in two days. Ariel then says what Prospero wants to hear: “That's my noble master!” (1.2.299). This is the way in which Prospero insists on being perceived. Indeed, Prospero's anger with Ariel when he murmurs derives in part from the fact that Ariel has threatened his idealized image by making him seem unkind.

Ariel plays Prospero's game, but Caliban does not. Prospero is initially very kind to Caliban; he strokes him, gives him treats, educates him, and lodges him in his cell. Caliban at first reciprocates; he loves Prospero and shows him “all the qualities o'th'isle” (1.2.337). When Caliban seeks to violate Miranda's honor, however, Prospero turns against him, and from this point on he treats Caliban with great brutality. Here, too, Prospero overreacts. He is so enraged, I think, because Caliban has repeated Antonio's crime, accepting Prospero's favors and repaying them with treachery. Prospero discharges onto him all of the anger he feels toward the enemies back home, who, before the day of reckoning, lie beyond his power.

Prospero exhibits a major contradiction in his attitude toward Caliban. He feels that Caliban is subhuman, but he holds him morally responsible for his act and punishes him severely. If Caliban in fact is subhuman, then he is not morally responsible and should simply be kept away from Miranda, a precaution Prospero could easily effect. If he is a moral agent, then he needs to be shown the error of his ways; but Prospero's punishments are merely designed to torture him and to break his spirit. The contradiction in Prospero's attitude results from conflicting psychological needs. He needs to hold Caliban responsible because doing so allows him to act out his sadistic impulses, but he also needs to regard Caliban as subhuman because this allows him to avoid feeling guilt. If Caliban is subhuman, he is not part of Prospero's moral community, and Prospero's behavior toward him is not subject to the shoulds and taboos that are operative in his relations with his fellow human beings. Caliban provides Prospero with a splendid opportunity for justified aggression, for being vindictive without losing his nobility.

Prospero's rationalization of his treatment of Caliban works so well that the majority of critics have accepted his point of view and have felt that Caliban deserves what he gets, although some have been sympathetic toward Caliban's suffering and uneasy about Prospero's behavior (Auden 1962, 129). Prospero is constantly punishing Caliban, not just for the attempted rape, but also for the much lesser crimes of surliness, resentment, and insubordination. When Caliban is slow in responding to Prospero's summons, “Slave! Caliban! / Thou earth, thou!” (1.2.313-14), Prospero calls him again in an even nastier way: “Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself / Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!” (1.2.319-20). Caliban does not yield a “kind answer” (1.2.309) but enters with curses, and Prospero responds by promising horrible punishments:

For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.

(1.2.325-30)

This is a very unequal contest since Caliban's curses are merely words, an expression of ill, will, whereas Prospero has the power to inflict the torments he describes. Prospero looks for penitence, submissiveness, and gracious service from Caliban and punishes him severely for his spirit of defiance. He seems to be trying to torture Caliban into being a willing slave, like Ariel, and he is embittered by his lack of success.

Prospero and Caliban are caught in a vicious circle from which there seems no escape. The more Caliban resists what he perceives as Prospero's tyranny, the more Prospero punishes him; and the more Prospero punishes him, the more Caliban resists. He curses Prospero even though he knows that his spirits hear him and that he may be subject to retaliation—“yet I needs must curse” (2.2.4). The need for this emotional relief must be powerful, indeed, in view of what may be in store for him:

For every trifle are they set upon me,
Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me; then like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount
Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.

(2.2.8-14)

It is remarkable that Caliban's spirit has not been broken as a result of such torments. And it is no wonder that Caliban seizes the opportunity he thinks is presented by Stephano and Trinculo to revolt against Prospero. “I am subject,” he tells them, “to a tyrant, / A sorcerer, that by his cunning hath / Cheated me of the island” (3.2.42-44). Is this far from the truth? He claims that Prospero's spirits “all do hate him / As rootedly as I” (3.2.94-95). It is impossible to say whether or not this is true, but it might be. Even Ariel has to be threatened with terrible punishments and reminded once a month of what Prospero has done for him.

Prospero does not need to use his magic to resolve inner conflicts in his relationship with Caliban because regarding Caliban as subhuman allows him to act out his vindictive impulses without guilt or restraint. The combination of his sadistic imagination and his magic makes him an ingenious torturer. He could have used his magic more benignly if he had regarded Caliban as part of his moral community, but this would have generated conflicts and deprived him of his scapegoat. (See Berger 1970, 261, on Caliban as scapegoat.) Prospero insists, therefore, that Caliban is uneducable:

A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick! on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost!

(4.1.188-90)

His judgment is reinforced both by Miranda, who abhors Caliban in part because his vindictiveness violates her self-effacing values, and by Caliban's plot, which seems to demonstrate his innate depravity. Since there is no point in being humane to a born devil, Prospero is free to “plague” him “to roaring” (4.1.192-93).

Many critics agree that Caliban is a hopeless case, but some are impressed by his sensitivity in the speech “The isle is full of noises” and by his declaration that he will “seek for grace” (5.1.296; see Berger 1970, 255). His plot can be seen as a reaction to Prospero's abuse rather than as a sign that he is an “abhorred slave / Which any print of goodness wilt not take” (1.2.351-52). Prospero must hold on to his image of Caliban as a devil in order to hold on to his idealized image of himself. If Caliban is redeemable, then Prospero has been a monster. The exchange of curses between Prospero and Caliban indicates that they have much in common. What Prospero hates and punishes in Caliban is the forbidden part of himself. His denial of moral status to Caliban is in part a rationale for his vindictive behavior and in part a way of denying the similarities that clearly exist between them. Prospero is doing to Caliban what Caliban would do to Prospero if he had the power.

Prospero is much more careful in his treatment of his fellow humans, some of whom strike us as being considerably more depraved than Caliban. Indeed, Prospero calls Caliban a devil but feels that Antonio and Sebastian “are worse than devils” (3.3.36). Nonetheless, they are members of his moral community, and his shoulds and taboos are fully in operation in relation to them. Not only does he conceal his vindictiveness from himself (and from many of the critics) by employing his magic to punish them without doing them any “harm” but he justifies his treatment of them by seeing it as conducive to their moral growth. His object is not revenge but regeneration and reconciliation. Ariel articulates Prospero's perspective in the banquet scene. He accuses the “three men of sin” (3.3.53)—Antonio, Sebastian, and Alonso—of their crimes against “good Prospero” (3.3.70), threatens them with “ling'ring perdition” (3.3.77), and indicates that they can escape Prospero's wrath only by “heart's sorrow / And a clear life ensuing” (3.3.81-82). Even as Prospero is knitting them up in “fits” and exulting in the fact that “they are now in [his] pow'r” (3.3.90-91), he is being presented in a very noble light. He manages to take revenge in such a way that he emerges as the benefactor of his victims.

After he has tormented them so much that “the good old Lord Gonzalo” (5.1.15) is in tears at the sight and even Ariel has “a feeling / Of their afflictions” (5.1.21-22), Prospero relents, as he had intended to do all along. Although he is still furious with the evil three, claiming that “with their high wrongs [he is] struck to th' quick” (5.1.25), now his perfectionistic and self-effacing shoulds are stronger than his vindictive impulses. He releases them from his spell in part because his cruelty is making him uneasy and in part because his need for revenge has been assuaged to some extent by their suffering. He proclaims that “the rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance” (5.1.27-28), but he says this only after he has gotten a goodly measure of vengeance. While he makes it seem that his only purpose has been to bring the men of sin to penitence, that is hardly the case. This is a play not only about renouncing revenge but also about getting it.

There has been much debate over whether Prospero's enemies do indeed repent. Prospero's forgiveness is made contingent on penitence and a clear life thereafter, but only Alonso seems to merit his pardon. Whereas Alonso displays his remorse again and again, Sebastian and Antonio show no sign of repentance or promise of reformation. They have plotted against Prospero in the past, they try to kill Alonso during the course of the play, and they seem at the play's end still to be dangerous fellows. Many critics have speculated on the likelihood of their continued criminality upon their return to Italy, and in 1797 F. G. Waldron wrote a sequel to The Tempest in which Antonio and Sebastian betray Prospero during the voyage home and force him to retrieve his magic.

Why, then, does Prospero forgive them? It may be that he believes they have repented, but I do not think he does. While Antonio is still under his spell, Prospero says, “I do forgive thee, / Unnatural though thou art” (5.1.78-79); and when he has returned to full consciousness, Prospero forgives him again, in an even more contemptuous way:

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother
Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
Thy rankest fault—all of them.

(5.1.130-32)

As Bonamy Dobree (1952) has suggested, Prospero's forgiveness seems more like a form of revenge than a movement toward reconciliation. It is a vindictive forgiveness, which satisfies his need to express his scorn and bitterness while appearing to be noble. Antonio's undeservingness contributes to Prospero's sense of moral grandeur; the worse Antonio is, the more charitable Prospero is to forgive him. This is Prospero's perspective as well as that of the play's rhetoric; but from a psychological point of view Prospero's forgiveness seems compulsive, indiscriminate, and dangerous—inappropriate to the practical and moral realities of the situation but necessary if Prospero is to maintain his idealized image.

For most of the play Prospero's idealized image contains a combination of arrogant-vindictive and self-effacing traits, which are reconciled by means of his magic. He needs to see himself as a humane, benevolent, forgiving man, and also as a powerful, masterful, dangerous man who cannot be taken advantage of with impunity and who will strike back when he has been injured. The first four acts of the play show Prospero satisfying his needs for mastery and revenge, but in ways that do not violate the dictates of his self-effacing side. By the end of act 4 he has achieved his objectives. He has knit up Antonio, Sebastian, and Alonso in his spell and has thwarted the plot of Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, with a final display of innocent delight in the torture of the conspirators. Prospero sets his dogs (two of which are aptly named Fury and Tyrant) on them, and tells Ariel to

charge my goblins that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them
Than pard or cat o' mountain.

(4.1.258-61)

“At this hour,” Prospero proclaims, “lie at my mercy all mine enemies” (4.1.262-63). From this point on he becomes increasingly self-effacing. At the beginning of the next act he gives up his vengeance and determines to renounce his magic. Once he abandons his magic, he has no choice but to repress his arrogant-vindictive trends, for it was only through his magic that he was able to act them out innocently.

Prospero represses his vindictive side for a number of reasons. He has achieved as much of a revenge as his inner conflicts will allow, and he has shown his power. Now, in order to satisfy his self-effacing shoulds, he must show his mercy. He cannot stop behaving vindictively until his anger has been partially assuaged, but he cannot continue to do so once his enemies are in his power. That he is still angry is clear from the manner of his forgiveness, but the imperative to forgive is now more powerful than the need for revenge. Given his inner conflicts, Prospero is bound to feel uncomfortable about his aggressive behavior; and now that he has had his day of reckoning, his negative feelings about it become dominant. He regards revenge as ignoble, and he “abjures” his “rough magic” (5.1.50-51). His choice of words here is significant. He seems to feel ashamed of his magic (even as he celebrates his powers) and guilty for having employed it. Why else would he use the word “abjure,” which means to disavow, recant, or repudiate? Whereas earlier he was able to enjoy his power, he now has a self-effacing response to it. He gives up his magic because he needs to place himself in a humble position and to show that he has not used his power for personal aggrandizement but only to set things right, to bring about moral growth and reconciliation.

With his “charms … o'erthrown,” Prospero, in the Epilogue, adopts an extremely self-effacing posture. Since he can no longer “enchant,” he can “be reliev'd” only by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be
Let your indulgence set me free.

(Epi. 17-20)

Prospero sees himself here not as the avenger but as the guilty party, perhaps because of his revenge; he tries to make a self-effacing bargain in which he judges not, so that he not be judged. We can now understand more fully his motives for forgiving the “men of sin.” Beneath his self-righteousness Prospero has hidden feelings of guilt and fears of retribution. By refusing to take a more severe form of revenge, to which he certainly seems entitled, he protects himself against punishment. By forgiving others, he insures his own pardon. Giving up his magic serves a similar purpose: it counteracts his feelings of pride and places him in a dependent, submissive position. Although Prospero's remarks in the Epilogue are in part a conventional appeal to the audience, he remains in character and expresses sentiments that are in keeping with his psychological development.

When we understand Prospero's psychological development, he seems different from the figure celebrated by so many critics. Those who interpret The Tempest as a story of magnanimity, forgiveness, and reconciliation are responding correctly, I think, to Shakespeare's thematic intentions, while those who take a more “hard-nosed” view of the play are responding to the psychological portrait of Prospero. There is in this play, as in some others, a disparity between rhetoric and mimesis that generates conflicting critical responses and reflects the inner divisions of the author.

The rhetoric of the play justifies the vindictive Prospero and glorifies the self-effacing one. It confirms Prospero's idealized image of himself as a kindly, charitable man who punishes others much less than they deserve and only for their own good. The action of the play, meanwhile, shows us a Prospero who is bitter, sadistic, and hungry for revenge. The disparity between rhetoric and mimesis is a reflection of Prospero's inner conflicts and of Shakespeare's. The rhetoric rationalizes and disguises Prospero's vindictiveness and celebrates his moral nobility (see Sundelson 1980, 38-39). Its function is similar to that of Prospero's magic, which enables Prospero to have his revenge yet remain innocent in his own eyes and in the eyes of the other characters. The magic and the rhetoric together enable Shakespeare to deceive both himself and most audiences as to Prospero's true nature.

III

Harold McCurdy and I both feel that The Tempest is Shakespeare's “ideal solution,” but we differ in defining the problem that Shakespeare is trying to solve. For McCurdy Shakespeare's problem is how to “admit the loving-kindness of Christian charity” without feeling spineless, and the solution is to accompany it with such a demonstration of power that it “appears gracious and magnanimous” rather than weak (1953, 162). McCurdy sees Shakespeare as a predominantly aggressive person who is afraid of his softer emotions and who can express them only when his toughness and mastery have been firmly established. For me Shakespeare's problem is how to give expression to the hostile, vindictive, aggressive side of his personality without violating his stronger need to be noble, loving, and innocent; the solution is to create situations that permit justified aggression and innocent revenge. I see Shakespeare as a predominantly self-effacing person who is afraid of his aggressive impulses and who can express them directly only when it seems virtuous to do so.

From I Henry VI to The Tempest a frequent concern of Shakespeare's plays is how to cope with wrongs, how to remain good in an evil world. In the histories and the tragedies the tendency of the main characters is to respond to wrongs by taking revenge; but this response contaminates the revenger and eventually results in his own destruction. In Horneyan terms, the arrogant-vindictive solution, with its emphasis upon retaliation and vindictive triumph, does not work. But the self-effacing solution does not work in these plays either, for many innocent, well-intentioned but weak characters perish. Hamlet's problem, as I see it, is how to take revenge and remain innocent. The problem is insoluble and nearly drives him mad. In a number of the comedies and romances Shakespeare explores a different response to being wronged—namely, mercy and forgiveness. Because of the conventions of these genres, with their providential universe and miraculous conversions, wronged characters do not have to take revenge: either fate does it for them, or they forgive their enemies, who are then permanently transformed. In these plays the self-effacing solution, with its accompanying bargain, works very well, but only because the plays are unrealistic.

What I infer about Shakespeare from his plays is that he has strong vindictive impulses but even stronger taboos against those impulses, and a fear of the guilt and punishment to which he would be exposed if he acted them out. He does act them out imaginatively in the histories and tragedies, and he is purged of them through the destruction of his surrogate aggressors. He also fears his self-effacing side, however, and he shows both himself and us, through characters like Henry VI, Hamlet, Desdemona (Paris 1984b), and Timon, that people who are too good and trusting cannot cope and will be destroyed. In the tragedies he portrays the inadequacy of both solutions. In some of the comedies and in the romances he fantasizes the triumph of good people and avoids guilt either by glorifying forgiveness or by leaving revenge to the gods. In The Tempest, through Prospero's magic, he imagines a solution to Hamlet's problem: Prospero is at once vindictive and noble, vengeful and innocent. Although he takes his revenge through his magic, by raising a tempest and inflicting various psychological torments, he does not really “hurt” anybody; and when he has had his vindictive triumph, he renounces his magic and forgives everyone.

The Tempest offers an ideal solution to the problem of how to cope with wrongs without losing one's innocence—but only through the first four acts. The solution collapses when Prospero renounces his magic, for his magic was the only means by which he could reconcile his conflicts and keep evil under control. He does not at the end seem to have attained psychological balance or to have discovered a viable way of living in the real world.

Magic enables Prospero to attain only a temporary psychological equilibrium. It solves one set of problems, but it generates new inner conflicts, which he attempts to resolve by becoming extremely self-effacing. As we have seen, he abjures his magic because of a need to disown his pride and to assuage the feelings of guilt aroused by his exercise of power. Prospero has never been comfortable with power, which is one reason he delegated his authority to Antonio, and he seems unduly eager to relinquish it here. The problem is that though Prospero feels guilty with power, he feels helpless without it, as the Epilogue indicates. Even with all of his objectives achieved, Prospero seems weary rather than triumphant at the end. He will see the nuptials solemnized in Naples:

And thence retire me to my Milan, where
Every third thought shall be my grave.

(5.1.311-12)

Since he has given up his secret studies and has no taste for governance, what, indeed, is there for Prospero? It is no wonder that he longs to withdraw into the quietude of death.

We see Prospero at the end in the grip of self-effacing and detached trends that do not promise to make him an effective ruler. Even so “sentimental” a critic as Northrop Frye observes that Prospero “appears to have been a remarkably incompetent Duke of Milan, and not to be promising much improvement after he returns” (1969b, 1370). There have been many misgivings about Prospero's forgiveness of Antonio as well as doubts about his ability to cope upon their return to Italy. The forgiveness, as we have seen, is compulsive and indiscriminate. There is no evidence of repentance on Antonio's part and no reason to think that he will meekly submit to Prospero's rule. Antonio should, at the least, be put into jail; but Prospero can neither do this nor, we suspect, keep him under control. Like the Duke in Measure for Measure and many other of Shakespeare's self-effacing characters, Prospero cannot exercise authority and deal effectively with the guilty. At the end of The Tempest Shakespeare seems back where he started in the plays about Henry VI, with a nobly Christian ruler who cannot cope with the harsh realities of life.

Like Prospero at the end of The Tempest, Shakespeare at the end of his career seems to have resolved his inner conflicts by repressing his aggressive impulses and becoming extremely self-effacing. In Henry VIII he begins at the point he had reached by the end of The Tempest. The desire for revenge, which had inspired such a marvelous fantasy in The Tempest, is no longer present. Character after character is wronged and responds in a remarkably charitable manner, asking forgiveness and blessing his or her enemies. There is no need to cope with evil; rather we must submit ourselves patiently to the divine will, which has a reason for everything. As J. B. Priestley has said, Shakespeare was “a deeply divided man,” the “opposites” of whose nature gave “energy and life to his works.” In Henry VIII the opposites are gone, and the result is a vapid moral fable in which we no longer feel the presence of a complex and fascinating personality. This play makes it clear that Shakespeare's inner conflicts had much to do with the richness and ambiguity of his art.