Tempest: In Major and Minor

¶ … Tempest: In Major and Minor Strains of Character -- From Prospero to Trinculo

There are no small parts -- there are only small actors. Even a child can see through the uncertain logic of this reasoning, when given the part of the 'first sheep' in the school nativity play, or the 'first spear carrier' in the high school production of Henry V." But Shakespeare's "The Tempest" depicts a world that seems to confirm the 'no small parts' idea, namely that it is not the size or even the plot significance of a character that matters in terms of that character's impact upon the audience. Rather, what matters is how significant that minor character is, in terms of underlining the themes of the play, and what that character represents in the world of the play. Moreover, by making all of his minor characters three dimensional and multifaceted in their complex psychologies, Shakespeare creates an island world that is fully populated with beings that have a sense of psychological verisimilitude, even if they are airy sprites and earthly devils.

At first, "The Tempest" depicts a world that is entirely dominated by the figure of Prospero. All of the other characters are dwarfed to his prominence as a figure of manipulation. He causes the tempest that propels the plot of the action on stage. But the emotional effect of the resolution of the play, that of Prospero's reinstatement to his former place in society that takes place after Act 5, is less intense that might be expected, given that Prospero only meets his usurper in front of the audience face-to-face at the end of the play, after his daughter Miranda has become betrothed. "The Tempest's" onstage conflicts are really more compelling in the way that minor characters are actively paired against one another as dual forces, more strikingly than the main plot of the play.

Thus, Shakespeare reinvents the notion of the minor character as a fully characterized psychology that can still function as an archetypal and thematic force. Unlike, for instance, static minor characters that merely show off the major characters in a good or a bad light, Shakespeare's minor characters have emotional depth. Ariel and Caliban pine for freedom, Trinculo plots his great and ambitious return to the civilized world with living relics of a primitive civilization. However, unlike conventional major characters, these minor characters can still starkly embody forces of nature that exist in opposition.

This duality is most strikingly evidenced in the pairing of Caliban and Ariel. These two creatures are spirits. They are not human, and they do not marry and fall in love like men and women. Yet they are capable of human urges and both cry out for freedom. Both symbolize Prospero's incarceration on the island -- Caliban is kept in a cave because he tried to rape Miranda. Ariel is kept under Prospero's control because Prospero freed him from the clutches of the evil sea hag. But even as these minor forces represent something beyond their own emotional needs and function in the plot, they are still rounded characters. With one breath, Caliban curses Prospero, "All the infections that the sun sucks up/From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him/By inch-meal a disease!" (Act 2.2) But at the same note, he is also capable of tremendous poetry, a poetry that paints a physical picture of the island for the audience that the spiritual Ariel's words lack, as he offers Trinculo, "I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts;/Show thee a jay's nest and instruct thee how/To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee/To clustering filberts and sometimes I'll get thee/Young scamels from the rock."(2.2)

And although is obedience and airiness marks him as different from the sea hag's "whelp," Ariel is really no less captive than Caliban, although Prospero sets Ariel free at the end of the play. Both of these dual forces that pine for freedom highlight the plays continued contrasts between prisons of various kinds and freedoms, as well as show different responses to incarceration, both good and ill. The similar treatment of these very different minor characters highlight's Prospero's obsession with control, as well as his own return to the human world. Consider that although Prospero mourns his exile, he even uses captivity as an enticement for Miranda and Ferdinand's courtship, forcing the young man to carry wood like he does Caliban. The young man responds cheerfully, "There be some sports are painful, and their labor/Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness/Are nobly undergone and most poor matters/Point to rich ends. (3.1) But the comparison as well as the contrast between the suitor and the rapist in their similar labors and different emotional responses to that labor adds further depth to the pairing of freedom and captivity themes that structure the play.

Thus, all of the minor character in "The Tempest" highlight different forms of freedom and incarceration, and exist in binary oppositions only in their differing psychological and emotional responses to these themes. But even of the minor characters that are elemental in their depiction, there is some variation. Consider the freedom of language and rage that Caliban exhibits and the tyranny of Prospero's control over his body, and the similar plight of his mirror image Ariel, who also verbally bridles, then is silenced at the idea of being captive.

But Shakespeare's greatest contribution to the notion of minor or emblematic characters that represent different variations on a play's theme is that, although these characters are thematic in their significance on stage, this does not mean that Caliban does not suffer, any more than Ferdinand does not love Miranda. Even Ferdinand's cheerful rather than angry response to his enforced labors under Prospero's control are more significant to the plot in the way that they show his fitness as a human being, as well as what they represent.

Even the archetypal Caliban's suffering is perhaps most poignantly revealed when Trinculo notes, upon seeing him, "This is some monster of the isle with four legs, who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil should he learn our language? I will give him some relief, if it be but for that. If I can recover him and keep him tame and get to Naples with him, he's a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's leather." Like Prospero, but for a different reason, Trinculo wishes to captivate the monster for his own ends -- as Prospero extracts a price from Ariel for his own ends. But Caliban, even in his dreams as he writhes before Trinculo, raves "Do not torment me, prithee; I'll bring my wood home faster," as if Prospero has not only possessed his language but his entire mind and body with fear.