As you finish The Tempest, here are a few ideas to consider:
* Much of The Tempest reads like a play-within-a-play: how does Shakespeare achieve this quality? When do we feel we're watching the actors play roles inside their own, and when do we seem to be watching the "real" action?
* Caliban claims that "They all do hate him/As rootedly as I" (3.2). Is Caliban lying here? Is Prospero a much hated tyrant who the entire island wishes to dethrone? How might this compare with the reasons he was booted out of Milan many years ago?
* Though playing a somewhat comic role in a comic sub-plot, how does Shakespeare make Caliban surprisingly round in these acts? Why do you think he does so, since it slightly serves to unbalance the comedy of the plot?
* Why does Prospero threaten Ferdinand numerous times not to sleep with Miranda before their wedding night? Why would he assume Ferdinand would do so? (could he be setting him up??)
* What do you make of the elaborate play (or "masque," a 17th century genre where allegorical figures perform with song and dance) in 4.1 with Iris, Ceres, and Juno? What is the "plot" of this play, and why is it staged for Ferdinand and Miranda?
* Several of Prospero's late speeches are considered autobiographical for Shakespeare, though of course we can't really know what he thought or felt. What speeches seem to have a curious double meaning about the stage and/or the retirement of a famous playwright?
* At the end of Act 4, Prospero says, "At this hour/Lies at my mercy all mine enemies," though soon after, in 5.1, he suddenly says, "The rarer action is/In virtue than in vengeance." Did he always mean to pardon his enemies with a show of strength? Or does something convince him to abandon his plans?
* Is Caliban redeemed at the end? If so, is it believable? Has he changed--or has Prospero's vision of him changed? Does the play offer a happy ending between "father and son"?
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