The Tempest – Summary & Analysis

Short summary

• Prospero, overthrown as Duke of Milan by his brother Antonio with King Alonso’s help, lives in exile on a remote island with his daughter Miranda.
• Served by the airy spirit Ariel and the native Caliban, Prospero conjures a tempest that shipwrecks his enemies nearby, scattering the survivors in groups across the island.
• Alonso’s son Ferdinand and Miranda fall in love, while Antonio and Sebastian plot further treachery and the clownish Stephano and Trinculo join Caliban in a comic rebellion.
• Prospero exposes all plots, reveals his identity, and wins Alonso’s repentance.
• He finally chooses forgiveness over revenge before giving up his magic and preparing to return to Italy. ​

The Tempest – Plot summary

The play opens with a violent storm at sea threatening to sink a ship carrying Alonso, King of Naples, his son Ferdinand, his brother Sebastian, and Prospero’s usurping brother Antonio, along with Gonzalo and other courtiers. Amid chaos on deck, the nobles quarrel with the Boatswain before the scene cuts away, leaving their fate uncertain. ​

On a nearby island, Miranda begs her father Prospero to calm the storm, fearing for the lives of those aboard. Prospero reveals that he created the tempest through magic and then tells Miranda their history: twelve years earlier Antonio, aided by Alonso, deposed Prospero as Duke of Milan and set him and the infant Miranda adrift at sea, but they survived and reached this island. Sustained by his books of magic, Prospero has since ruled the island, compelling service from Ariel, an airy spirit he rescued from imprisonment, and from Caliban, the island’s native and son of the witch Sycorax.

​Prospero reassures Miranda that no one has died in the shipwreck. After sending her to sleep, he instructs Ariel, who reports that the passengers have been dispersed around the island but are unharmed, and asks for the freedom he has been promised. Prospero delays Ariel’s release but vows it will come soon. Prospero then harshly rebukes Caliban, who resents his servitude and claims the island as his inheritance, revealing that he once tried to assault Miranda. ​

Ariel, following Prospero’s orders, leads Ferdinand away from the others with music. Ferdinand and Miranda meet, each thinking the other almost divine, and quickly fall in love. To test Ferdinand’s worth, Prospero accuses him of treachery and forces him to perform heavy labour, though privately he approves of the match.

​Elsewhere, Alonso believes Ferdinand has drowned and mourns his son, while Antonio and Sebastian mock his grief. When Gonzalo and Alonso sleep under Ariel’s charm, Antonio urges Sebastian to murder Alonso and seize the crown of Naples; Ariel wakes Gonzalo just in time to foil the plot. ​

In another part of the island, Caliban encounters the jester Trinculo and the drunken butler Stephano, who have been washed ashore. Taking Stephano for a powerful being, Caliban offers to serve him and persuades him to kill Prospero, seize Miranda, and rule the island. Their conspiracy becomes a comic echo of the more serious political betrayals.

​Back at Prospero’s cell, Ferdinand and Miranda declare their love and agree to marry. Prospero, now satisfied, blesses their engagement and summons spirits to present a masque, celebrating chastity and harmony. The performance is suddenly broken off when Prospero remembers Caliban’s plot, and, with Ariel’s help, he torments and drives off the would‑be assassins, who are lured by gaudy clothes and chased by spirits in the form of hounds. ​

With his enemies now fully in his power, Prospero has Ariel bring Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio and the others before him, enchanted and bewildered. Though deeply hurt by their past “high wrongs,” Prospero decides that the rarer action is mercy; he forgives them, reveals his identity, and restores Ferdinand to Alonso, who rejoices at his son’s survival and consents to the marriage. Prospero demands his dukedom back from Antonio, plans the return to Italy, and frees Ariel to the elements. Caliban, ashamed of having worshipped Stephano, resolves to be wiser. Finally, Prospero renounces his magic, promising to break his staff and drown his book, and prepares to leave the island and return to human, political life.

Publication

The Tempest was first published in 1623 in the volume now known as the First Folio, titled “Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies.” This large collection, prepared by Shakespeare’s colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell, gathered thirty‑six plays, eighteen of which, including The Tempest, had never appeared in print before. Printing likely took place between 1622 and late 1623, and The Tempest was placed first in the volume, suggesting that the editors valued it highly as an opening work. The First Folio is the only early textual authority for the play, and its text of The Tempest is regarded as one of the cleanest and most carefully proofread in the collection, with relatively few obvious errors. Modern editions are therefore based directly on the Folio text, updating spelling and punctuation while preserving its structure and dialogue. ​

Context & Sources

The Tempest was probably written in late 1610 or early 1611, during the reign of King James I, and was first recorded as performed at court on 1 November 1611. It belongs to Shakespeare’s late “romances,” alongside plays like The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline, which mix shipwrecks, magic, loss and reconciliation. Many readers see it as one of his final solo-authored plays and sometimes as a kind of farewell to the stage. ​

The play reflects Jacobean interest in voyages of discovery, colonial ventures and encounters with “new” worlds. Reports from the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture on Bermuda seem to have influenced Shakespeare, especially William Strachey’s detailed “True Reportory of the Wracke” (1610) and Sylvester Jourdain’s “A Discovery of the Barmudas,” which described storms, shipwreck and survival on strange islands. Intellectual and literary sources also shaped the play: critics see close links to Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Of the Cannibals,” which questions European assumptions about so‑called “savages” and utopian societies, as well as echoes of Erasmus’s dialogues, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Aeneid in its magic, transformations and sea imagery. These contexts together help explain the play’s blend of politics, exploration, and philosophical reflection on power and humanity.

​List of characters

Prospero – The rightful Duke of Milan, now a powerful magician ruling the island. ​

Miranda – Prospero’s innocent and compassionate daughter. ​

Ariel – An airy spirit who serves Prospero in hope of freedom. ​

Caliban – Son of the witch Sycorax, native of the island, resentful servant of Prospero. ​

Alonso – King of Naples, who helped depose Prospero. 

Ferdinand – Alonso’s son, who falls in love with Miranda. ​

Antonio – Prospero’s brother, who usurped the dukedom of Milan. ​

Sebastian – Alonso’s brother, drawn into plotting murder. ​

Gonzalo – An honest old counsellor who once helped Prospero. ​

Stephano – A drunken butler who joins Caliban’s rebellion. ​

Trinculo – A jester and Stephano’s companion, part of the comic subplot. ​

Adrian and Francisco – Lords attending Alonso. 

Mariners, Boatswain, Master, spirits and other minor figures. ​

The Tempest – Commentary

The Tempest centres on power: political, magical and emotional. Prospero’s control over the island, Ariel and Caliban dramatizes questions about rightful authority and the limits of domination. As former Duke of Milan, he once neglected government for his books; the coup by Antonio exposes how easily power can be seized when rulers withdraw from practical responsibility. On the island he becomes both just ruler and potential tyrant, using enchantments to manipulate storms, imprison bodies and stage elaborate illusions. ​

Colonial and post‑colonial readings focus on Prospero as a European coloniser and Caliban as the dispossessed native. Prospero claims the island through his knowledge and language, teaching Caliban but also enslaving and punishing him. Caliban’s speech mixes resistance with internalised abuse, and his dream of serving a new “god” in Stephano shows how exploitation can repeat itself, just with different masters. Yet Caliban’s poetic evocation of the island’s “noises” and music suggests a deep connection to the land that complicates simple stereotypes of the “savage.”

​Forgiveness and reconciliation form the play’s emotional core. Prospero begins with a carefully planned revenge, but by the end he chooses mercy, declaring that “the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.” Alonso repents for his role in Prospero’s fall, while Ferdinand and Miranda’s union symbolically heals political divisions between Naples and Milan. In contrast, Antonio and Sebastian remain largely unrepentant, hinting that not all wrongs can be fully mended. The play thus balances hope for renewal with a realistic sense of human stubbornness. ​

The masque and the repeated imagery of theatre draw attention to illusion and performance. Prospero, like a dramatist, orchestrates scenes, directs spirits, and stages shows for his “audience” of castaways. His famous speech about “the great globe itself” dissolving has often been read as Shakespeare’s own meditation on the transience of theatre and life. The breaking of the staff and drowning of the book resemble a playwright laying aside the tools of his craft.

​Finally, the play explores freedom: Ariel longs for release, Caliban for liberation from bondage, and even Prospero for freedom from his consuming need to control. By the end, Ariel gains the open air, Caliban claims a new self‑knowledge, and Prospero returns to the imperfect but genuine world of human society. The island becomes a space where characters confront themselves and then must leave, carrying changed perspectives back to the wider world.