This definitions covers Key Terms for Prospero within Prospero (character) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Prospero (character) in The Tempest for GCSE English Literature with 12 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic shows up very often in GCSE exams, so students should be able to explain it clearly, not just recognise the term. It is section 11 of 17 in this topic. Make sure you can use the exact wording confidently, because definition marks are often lost through vague language.
📖 Key Terms for Prospero
- Hamartia
- The tragic flaw or error that drives a tragic hero's downfall (from Aristotle). Prospero's hamartia is not a simple flaw — Shakespeare presents it as the excess of a virtue: his need for control tips into tyranny.
- Stage-manager figure
- A character who engineers and controls events within the drama — analogous to a playwright or director. Prospero functions as a stage-manager: he scripts, stages, and oversees all plots.
- Dramatic irony
- The audience knows something a character does not. Prospero uses dramatic irony as a tool of control — other characters act in ignorance of what he knows and has engineered.
- Metatextual
- A text that refers to its own nature as a text. The Epilogue is metatextual: Prospero as character and Shakespeare as playwright collapse into one figure asking to be released.
- Colonialism / dispossession
- Colonialism = the political and economic domination of one people by another, often through settlement. Prospero's governance of the island — including enslaving its original inhabitant — carries colonial resonance that Shakespeare stages without resolving.
Practice questions for Prospero (character)
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?
Identify ONE technique Shakespeare uses to create moral ambiguity in Prospero's characterisation in Acts 1-2, and explain its effect.