The Man Who Knows Everything — Except Himself
📖 The Man Who Knows Everything — Except Himself
Prospero has spent twelve years on an island with total control over the air, the sea, and every living creature on it. He has raised a child, enslaved two beings, and engineered the return of the men who wronged him. By any measure, he has won. And then Ariel — his servant, his instrument — says: if I were human, I would feel pity for them. And Prospero stops. Something in that tiny observation from a spirit who cannot feel breaks through twelve years of righteous anger. That moment, in Act 5 Scene 1, is the hinge of the entire play.
English Literature glossary
- What is hamartia, and does Prospero have one?
- Hamartia (from Aristotle's Poetics) is the fatal flaw or error at the heart of a tragic hero's fall. Prospero's hamartia is not a simple vice — Shakespeare presents it as an excess of a virtue: his capacity for control, which is also knowledge and love, tips into tyranny, enslavement, and the suppression of his own compassion. Unlike classical tragedy, he does not fall — he chooses to give the power up.
Shakespeare introduces Prospero simultaneously as victim and oppressor. He has been wronged — Antonio usurped his Milan dukedom; he and Miranda were cast adrift "to cry to th' sea, that roared to us." He is a loving, if controlling, father. He is also, unmistakably, a master who enslaves.
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🧠 Memory Aid: Prospero's Three-Stage Arc
CONTROLLER → CRACKING → SUPPLIANT
CONTROLLER (Acts 1-3): He engineers everything — the storm, the romance, the guilt-confrontation. He is victim AND oppressor simultaneously.
CRACKING (Act 4): The masque dissolves; the "revels" speech exposes fragility beneath control. He is not as omnipotent as he appeared.
SUPPLIANT (Act 5 + Epilogue): He chooses forgiveness (prompted by Ariel), renounces magic, and asks the audience to free him. The controller becomes the one who cannot control.
The arc is a single reversal: the man with all power ends with none, and finds that human connection — not magic — is what matters.
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 12
In Act 5 of The Tempest, Prospero says he will 'break my staff' and 'drown my book'. What does breaking the staff most clearly symbolise?
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