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GCSEEnglish LiteratureAQARevision Notes1. ShakespeareThe TempestThe Tempest: Character Quotations

The Tempest: Character Quotations (AQA GCSE English Literature): Revision Note

Exam code: 8702

Sam Evans

Written by: Sam Evans

Reviewed by: Deb Orrock

Updated on

Your exam question on The Tempest will ask you to respond to a task about theme or character. This means you should know how William Shakespeare presents his characters in ways that deliver a message or explore a theme (idea). The question asks you to consider aspects such as these:

  • Themes

  • Characters

  • Relationships between characters

Examiners reward answers that analyse how characters represent an idea or theme. It is best to know some key quotes from characters from the start of the play, from the middle, and from the end. This means you will avoid writing a character description and, instead, focus on character (and theme) development. 

Here we will examine some important quotations from the following key characters:

  • Prospero

  • Ariel

  • Caliban

  • Miranda 

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Examiners say that it is best to use short quotes that support your argument rather than using long pieces of dialogue or quotes that do not explore the character or theme in the question. 

Using shorter quotes has two benefits:

  • You can more easily embed the key word or phrase into your analysis 

  • You can see patterns across the character’s speech, or zoom into a technique 

By embedding short sections of quotations, you will better focus on analysing the impact of the language, or the literary or dramatic technique. Look for things like the character’s tone of voice, their typical speech patterns, the dynamic of the scene, and how an audience would respond. 

That’s why we’ve included a “key word or phrase” from every one of our longer quotations to help you memorise only the most important parts of each quotation.

Prospero

“Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power”
— Prospero, Act 1 Scene 2

Prospero 

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“prince of power”

What the quotation means:

Prospero, as former Duke of Milan, considers himself like monarchy, and with much influence

Theme: 

Loss and betrayal

  • Shakespeare presents Prospero as a character who is frustrated by his lost status

  • His keenness to assure Miranda of his previous influence in Milan, emphasised with the alliteration of “prince” and “power”, is used to justify his need for revenge

“Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom”
— Prospero, Act 1 Scene 2

Prospero

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“library” and “prize above my dukedom”

What the quotation means:

Prospero tells Miranda that Gonzalo gave him his books when they left Milan as they were more valuable than material wealth

Theme: 

Power and control

  • Shakespeare emphasises that Prospero’s power comes from his books (“library”):

    • Prospero’s knowledge gives him magical powers, often described as “art” and “charms”

  • The play explores the way knowledge brings power which can be abused:

    • This may allude to colonial settlers’ knowledge of English and the ‘arts’, a skill they believed made them civilised and powerful 

“These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:”
— Prospero, Act 4 Scene 1

Prospero

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Spirits” and “melted into air, into thin air”

What the quotation means:

Prospero tells Ferdinand that everything is an illusion, that the characters on the island (and in the play) are “spirits”

Theme: 

Magic and illusion

  • By the denouement, Shakespeare’s Prospero has changed from a character who needs full control to one who believes power to be an illusion:

    • Prospero may represent the playwright himself, this being his final play

  • Prospero’s metaphor describing the actors as vanishing “spirits” is heightened by the anaphora of “into air, into thin air”:

    • The imagery may imply that the play is simply fantasy, or it may extend to real life, symbolising Shakespeare’s own mortality

Ariel

“the fire and cracks
Of sulfurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,”
— Ariel, Act 1 Scene 2

Ariel

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Make his bold waves tremble”

What the quotation means:

Ariel reports on the storm and shipwreck: the god of lightning and the sea god “Neptune” overwhelm (“besiege”) the ship and ‘frighten’ the big waves

Theme: 

Magic and illusion

  • Shakespeare’s Ariel is a spirit-like being, not human, introducing the theme of magic and illusion

  • Ariel mostly speaks in dramatic, metaphorical language, often alluding to nature:

    • Here, he personifies “Jove’s lightning” and the sea god “Neptune”, attributing them such strength as to make the “bold waves” shake

    • The play often implies the island is magical, inhabited by spirits and gods

“Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,”
— Ariel, Act 1 Scene 2 

Ariel

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Toil” and “pains”

What the quotation means:

Ariel, frustrated he has to do more work (“toil”) for Prospero, reminds him of his promise to free him

Theme: 

Power and control

  • Shakespeare presents the relationship between Ariel and Prospero as complex, one of imbalanced and misused power:

    • At times they express love for one another, but Prospero exploits Ariel 

  • Here Ariel’s rhetorical question implies frustration:

    • Emotive language such as “toil” and “pains” suggests Ariel, although a devoted slave, finds Prospero a harsh ruler

“You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
That hath to instrument this lower world
And what is in ’t, the never-surfeited sea
Hath caused to belch up you;”
— Ariel, Act 3 Scene 3

Ariel

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Destiny” and “never-surfeited sea”

What the quotation means:

Ariel appears to Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio, explaining that fate, which controls their world, caused the sea to ‘burp’ them up as punishment for betraying Prospero

Theme: 

Loss and betrayal

  • The scene is dramatic and supernatural, a climax to the theme of betrayal:

    • Stage directions describe Ariel appearing to the men as a “harpy”, a mythical bird-like figure of justice sent to punish the men

  • In Ariel’s direct address, the capitalisation of “Destiny” elevates the power of fate, highlighting the idea that sin will always be punished by nature or the universe:

    • Additionally, the personification of the sea as ‘never satisfied’, able to “belch” up the men, presents nature as harsh deliverers of justice

Caliban

“and then I loved thee,
And showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,
The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and/fertile:
Cursed be I that did so!”
— Caliban, Act 1 Scene 2

Caliban

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Then I loved thee” and “Cursed be that I did so!”

What the quotation means:

Caliban tells Prospero that he once loved him, and that he regrets helping him survive on the island

Theme: 

Loss and betrayal 

  • Shakespeare presents Caliban as a tormented victim, his island taken over by settlers, perhaps alluding to British colonisation:

    • Cultural conflicts are revealed by other characters’ descriptions of Caliban as a “monster”, “strange”, and “savage”

    • His loss is demonstrated in the past-tense, single line: “Then I loved thee,”

  • His sense of betrayal is emphasised in an unstable voice that lists the ways he helped Prospero, speaks a single line, “fertile”, and exclaims his bitter self-pity

“Sometime am I
All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.”
— Caliban, Act 2 Scene 2

Caliban

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“All wound with adders” and “hiss me into madness”

What the quotation means:

Caliban describes himself as wrapped in forked-tongued snakes (“adders”) that drive him mad

Theme: 

Power and control

  • In a powerful soliloquy, Shakespeare presents Caliban’s inner torment:

    • An alliterative homonym, “all wound with”, connotes powerlessness

    • However, the word “wound” connotes to an injury as well

  • Caliban’s imagery heightens the pathos of the scene:

    • But his reference to snakes with “cloven tongues” that drive him mad alludes to the devil, and presents his rage as extreme and evil

“Be not afeared; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.”
— Caliban, Act 3 Scene 2

Caliban

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“Sounds, and sweet airs” and “delight and hurt not”

What the quotation means:

Caliban tells Stephano not to be afraid of the island, and that the noises he hears will not harm him

Theme: 

Magic and illusion

  • Shakespeare presents Caliban as a native of the island, one with a deep bond and understanding of its magical qualities:

    • The sibilance in “noises,/Sounds and sweet airs” reflects his enchantment 

  • This is emphasised with emotive language, such as “delight and hurt not” which present Caliban as calmed by the island and soothed by nature

Miranda

“O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d”
— Miranda, Act 1 Scene 2

Miranda

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“The cry did knock/Against my very heart”

What the quotation means:

Miranda, distressed about the sailors she thinks have died (“perish’d”), tells Prospero that she ‘heard’ their cries in her own heart 

Theme: 

Power and control 

  • Miranda’s reaction to the shipwreck and storm, which she knows her father has created, suggests she suffers under her father’s actions:

    • Here she expresses the pity she feels for the men on the ship, describing them with the emotive “poor souls”

  • Shakespeare presents Miranda as empathetic, though sheltered and naïve

    • The intensifier “very” in the metaphor, “knock/Against my very heart”, implies her physical and emotional distress

“O brave new world,
That has such people in't!”
— Miranda, Act 5 Scene 1

Image

Key word or phrase to memorise:

“brave new world”

What the quotation means:

Miranda, excited to have met and married Ferdinand, and about to leave the island, expresses her delight at the adventure 

Theme: 

Magic and illusion

  • Shakespeare’s comedies usually end ironically to imply a repeated cycle:

    • Miranda’s naïve hope is presented in the metaphor of “brave new world”

    • The world to which she returns is, arguably, old and corrupt 

    • Prospero cynically replies, “Tis new to thee”

  • Miranda, once again, reveals her innocent optimism as she expresses enchantment with the “people”:

    • But it is these characters who undermined and exiled her father 

Source

https://shakespeare.mit.edu/tempest/full.html


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    Author
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    Sam Evans

    Author: Sam Evans

    Expertise: English Content Creator

    Sam is a graduate in English Language and Literature, specialising in journalism and the history and varieties of English. Before teaching, Sam had a career in tourism in South Africa and Europe. After training to become a teacher, Sam taught English Language and Literature and Communication and Culture in three outstanding secondary schools across England. Her teaching experience began in nursery schools, where she achieved a qualification in Early Years Foundation education. Sam went on to train in the SEN department of a secondary school, working closely with visually impaired students. From there, she went on to manage KS3 and GCSE English language and literature, as well as leading the Sixth Form curriculum. During this time, Sam trained as an examiner in AQA and iGCSE and has marked GCSE English examinations across a range of specifications. She went on to tutor Business English, English as a Second Language and international GCSE English to students around the world, as well as tutoring A level, GCSE and KS3 students for educational provisions in England. Sam freelances as a ghostwriter on novels, business articles and reports, academic resources and non-fiction books.

    Deb Orrock

    Reviewer: Deb Orrock

    Expertise: English Content Creator

    Deb is a graduate of Lancaster University and The University of Wolverhampton. After some time travelling and a successful career in the travel industry, she re-trained in education, specialising in literacy. She has over 16 years’ experience of working in education, teaching English Literature, English Language, Functional Skills English, ESOL and on Access to HE courses. She has also held curriculum and quality manager roles, and worked with organisations on embedding literacy and numeracy into vocational curriculums. She most recently managed a post-16 English curriculum as well as writing educational content and resources.