SHAKESPEARE’S THE TEMPEST: MEANING OF POLITICS AND DIPLOMATIC KILLING

Abstract

William Shakespeare’s The Tempest gives some very realistic answers as to why the play cannot be indiscriminately termed blanket-comedic or romantic. The answer it draws from the very heart of the political matter says the play is a one-man political show wherein most of the characters, except Prospero, have to dice with political deaths. The play seems more like a backdrop of political mercy-killing and of the meteoric rise of a diplomatic Prospero as an author of the demise of much dysfunctional language, conscience, poetry, ethics, free-speech and the cumulative voices of the political-eunuchs such as Caliban. Regardless of any of the qualms of conscience, Prospero firmly relocates himself as a master of the isle which is not his, dispossessing Caliban, his ‘abhorred’ slave, killing Caliban’s native language, naturalness and poetic spirit. Until he is done, Prospero keeps Ariel on his toes chastising Ariel and exerting a stranglehold on Ariel’s ‘liberty.’ Reminding Ariel time and again of his past favour, the diplomatic Prospero helps Ariel translate self-service as imposition. Miranda, the only daughter Prospero has, is the pawn instrument of Prospero’s political-gains wherewith to bait Ferdinand or to succeed in making the enemy subdued or to regain the dukedom. This paper shows the nature and consequences of political oneupmanship and brings us close to the fullest comprehension of diplomatic killing.