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Power and control in The Tempest — theme analysis

The Tempest · William Shakespeare · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702), Paper 1 Section A — not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. Prospero has total power on the island, and the play examines what it does to him and to everyone under it.

This study ends with William Shakespeare. Build your reading of Power and control in The Tempest, teach it, then defend it against William Shakespeare.

How Power and control works in The Tempest

Every event in the play is Prospero's design: the storm, the separation of the survivors, the music, the banquet, the masque, the hounds. The play shows power in three relationships — over Ariel by debt and threat, over Caliban by pain, over Miranda and Ferdinand by arrangement — and in three rival plots to seize power: Antonio's past usurpation of Milan, Antonio and Sebastian's attempt on Alonso, and Caliban's plot with Stephano.

“What cares these roarers for the name of king?” — Boatswain, Act 1, Scene 1

In the storm a working sailor tells the noblemen that rank means nothing to the waves. The opening scene questions authority — and the next scene reveals that the storm itself was ordered by a greater power.

Methods: rhetorical question · metaphor

Context that changes the reading. The play's world of deposed dukes and usurping brothers belongs to a period in which the legitimacy of rulers was a live question; the three parallel plots let an audience compare ambition at every social level.

Use this in an essay. Frame: 'Shakespeare stages one act of treachery three times — in Milan, in Naples, among the drunks — so that the comic plot strips the dignity from the serious ones.'

The characters who carry Power and control

An essay on Power and control is built from the characters. Each line below is from that character's own study — follow it for the full analysis.

  • Prospero — the storm, the threats, the renunciation.
  • Miranda — her courtship is arranged.

More Power and control quotations, from the The Tempest quote bank

Each is analysed in full — speaker, scene, techniques, structure, context and essay use — on the The Tempest key quotes page; the line here is what the words are doing.

“Dost thou attend me?”

Prospero · Act 1, Scene 2

He keeps checking that Miranda is listening to his story. Full analysis →

“my library / Was dukedom large enough”

Prospero · Act 1, Scene 2

He admits he preferred books to governing. Full analysis →

“If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak”

Prospero · Act 1, Scene 2

He threatens Ariel with a worse imprisonment. Full analysis →

“They now are in my power”

Prospero · Act 3, Scene 3

His enemies are helpless before him. Full analysis →

“this rough magic / I here abjure”

Prospero · Act 5, Scene 1

He gives up the magic that made him powerful. Full analysis →

“Let your indulgence set me free”

Prospero · Epilogue

He asks the audience to release him. Full analysis →

“O ho, O ho! Would't had been done!”

Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2

He wishes his assault on Miranda had succeeded. Full analysis →

“Remember / First to possess his books”

Caliban · Act 3, Scene 2

He knows the books are Prospero's power. Full analysis →

Essays on Power and control in The Tempest

How does Shakespeare present Prospero's power in Act 1 Scene 2 and across the play?

Thesis: Prospero's power is total and costly: the play shows its symptoms before it shows his choice to give it up.

  1. The storm revealed as manufactured; 'Dost thou attend me?' — control over knowledge.
  2. The oak threat to Ariel; the cramps for Caliban — power held by debt and pain.
  3. 'They now are in my power' (Act 3 Scene 3) — revenge within reach.
  4. 'The rarer action' and 'I'll drown my book' — a decision, with violent verbs.
  5. The Epilogue — the duke dependent on the audience.

Thesis statements that argue it

  • Shakespeare presents Prospero's power as a condition with symptoms, and his renunciation as a decision that could have gone the other way.

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of Power and control in The Tempest to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  2. Defend it — Hold your reading of Power and control in The Tempest against William Shakespeare in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
  3. Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.

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Carry on through The Tempest

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