This Month's Tempest Feature >>

The overarching thematic issue that Shakespeare presents to us in The Tempest is the question of what is human. The subject surfaces prominently in the text. When Miranda first sees Ferdinand being led to Prospero's cell by the enchantments of Ariel she exclaims: "What, is't a spirit?/Lord, how it looks about! Be me ,sir,/It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit. (I, ii.ll.410-412). Immediately thereafter, Ferdinand responds to Prospero's false charge that he is a spy by saying, "No, as I am a man" (l.457). Shortly thereafter, while Ferdinand is charmed motionless after trying to resist the magician's plans to manacle him, Prospero says to his daughter:

Thou thinks't there is no more shapes as he, Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench, To th' most of men this is a Caliban, And they to him are angels. (I, ii., ll.479-482).