Discussion Topic
Prospero as a symbolic representation of the playwright in The Tempest
Summary:
Prospero symbolizes the playwright in The Tempest by controlling the narrative and orchestrating events on the island, much like a playwright directs a play. His manipulation of other characters and his creation of illusions mirror the creative power and authority of a playwright over their work and audience.
How does Prospero exemplify the role of a playwright in The Tempest?
There are several ways in which the character of Prospero in The Tempest by William Shakespeare functions in a manner analogous to the playwright himself.
First, Prospero at some points functions as a narrator, telling the story of the play. In Act 1 Scene 2, Prospero narrates the back story of the play to Miranda. In Act 5, Prospero also serves as a narrator, in a sense telling the story of the play and making meaning for the characters. Shortly before the epilogue, Prospero says that before the human characters depart for Naples, he will recount:
... the story of my life
And the particular accidents gone by
Since I came to this isle
In other words, he explicitly is portraying himself as a story teller, precisely the role of the playwright.
The next way in which Prospero acts in a fashion similar to the playwright is by possessing...
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knowledge inaccessible to the other characters of the play. In a sense, an author or playwright is always omniscient with respect to the characters of an imaginative work, and only reveals such knowledge to individual characters or the audience for his own literary purposes. In the same way, Prospero is the only character in the story who has full knowledge of everyone's identity, the history behind the happenings of the play, and what goes on in his island kingdom, only gradually revealing this information to the audience and characters.
Additionally, both Prospero and the author of a literary work have supernatural powers with respect to the universe within the work. Just as an author can control every aspect of a fictional universe, deciding when it will rain, whether the winds will rise and wreck a ship, or even manipulate time, so too Prospero states in Act V Scene 1:
... I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war:
Finally, just as an author controls the characters in a story, Prospero controls spirits through his magic, using these to manipulate the characters of the play, and move the plot to its resolution.
How can Prospero from The Tempest be symbolically interpreted as the playwright?
In many respects, Prospero does appear much like a stand-in for Shakespeare himself, and you can readily observe likely parallels in their personalities. Like Shakespeare himself (as a reading of his various plays and poems will freely attest), Prospero is highly literate and well educated. He is also a man with a wealth of experience but also (especially by the later part of the play) no little weariness as his powers are stretched to their limits. It is worth noting that The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's late plays, so this sense of age, coupling experience with weariness, could easily be read as being inspired by his own experience.
However, when you extend an analysis of Prospero's characterization to his interactions with the other characters in the play and to an examination of his magic, the argument might start to become more convincing. First of all, note the degree to which Prospero is a manipulator, seeking to control and direct the other characters in the play. We see this most strongly reflected in his direction of his servants, most importantly Ariel, but the same quality can be observed within his manipulation of the romance between Prospero's daughter, Miranda, and Ferdinand. Not content to allow the two to fall in love, Prospero adopts an antagonistic role for himself that Ferdinand must reckon with and overcome, with the expectation that this hardship would strengthen their romantic affections.
In this respect, you might say that Prospero, rather than letting their romance play out, intends to turn it into a grand romantic story, with Prospero simultaneously playing the roles of writer, director, and villain of the piece. Now, contrast these elements of his personality with Shakespeare's history and career to consider where they might intersect.
Additionally, there is the matter of Prospero's magic itself. Note that there is something very dreamlike about Prospero's island, as Caliban himself expresses in act 3, scene 2:
The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again.
Prospero's magic itself then has a highly dramatic quality to it. It plays to the imagination and the senses and is, in reality, largely insubstantial, depending on illusion and misdirection. Consider the feast prepared for Alonso, Antonio, and company in act 3, scene 3 and what abruptly follows once they try to partake in it. Similarly, consider the appearance of the goddesses and the nymphs in act 4, scene 1 as well as the collapsing of that magic. I'd suggest reading and examining the use of magic in these scenes to discern these parallels between literary creation and magic as practiced by Prospero to better discern where Shakespeare and his character seem to intersect.