Playwrights choose their titles with care. A title must first intrigue the potential audience and second accurately represent the drama. While "The Enchanted Island" might intrigue its targeted prospective attendees, it would mislead them into thinking the play would be a delightful portrayal of a magical land full of fairy creatures. While the play is set on such an island, the plot is not as light and airy as such a title implies. If the play had been titled "The Magician," it would not be intriguing enough to make potential viewers want to attend. Such a title doesn't hint at whether the magician is good or evil or at what transpires.
"The Tempest " is an intriguing title that is meaningful in the context of the entire play. Hearing the word "tempest" makes one think of natural disasters and all the drama that can ensue. It also might refer...
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to tempestuous relationships or emotions. A tempest suggests some sort of adventure. Londoners who knew the story of theSea Venture, a British supply ship headed for Virginia colony that had recently shipwrecked in a violent windstorm, might be primed to attend a play about surviving such an ordeal.
The play's title is not a bait-and-switch. It begins with a real tempest at sea and a shipwreck, and that incident not only kicks off the action but also drives the plot forward as the separated parties deal with the presumed loss of loved ones and their plight on the strange island. There are plenty of tempestuous emotions as well, from Prospero's desire for revenge, to Antonio's murderous plot, to Ferdinand and Miranda's love affair. The play ends by resolving the negative emotions and restoring harmony as the characters sail on becalmed seas back to Naples.
The title "The Tempest" holds up as an intriguing and apropos description of the play's genre and plot.
Why is the play called The Tempest?
At face value, The Tempest seems to be a strange name for Shakespeare's play. For starters, a great many of Shakespeare's plays are named after their protagonist. A few examples of this include Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. What's more, the storm referenced in the title The Tempest is over and done with in the first scene of act 1, leading some critics to feel that the work should have been named in Prospero's honor instead.
Many argue that The Tempest is a fitting name for this play because it was the storm caused by Prospero that set the entire story into action. If the ship had not been caught in the tempest, a romance would never have begun between Prospero's daughter, Miranda, and Ferdinand, the king's son. The shipwreck caused by the tempest is also the catalyst for Prospero telling Miranda the whole truth about their past, including the dangerous voyage the two were forced to make when Miranda was a child.
The tempest in the play has made it possible for Prospero to face his enemies once and for all and to make things right. This was the goal Prospero held most dear, and by choosing to name the play The Tempest, Shakespeare draws attention to Prospero and to his motivation for having raised the storm that changes the lives of the royal party returning from the wedding.