In Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” Prospero is ultimately the main protagonist and controls the inhabitants of the island like puppets on a stage. While we are told his motivations towards revenge or redemption, the way in which he goes pursuing these goals is questionable.

Led to sympathize with his struggles of being exiled and overthrown by his brother, this is meant to provide a rationalization and reason to why he goes about stranding and torturing his old companions upon his island. Not only does he claim the island as his own, but in doing so he kills a woman and then enslaves her son. By claiming them to be evil, the reader is expected to be okay with his actions and agree with them as just reason.

Like in my previous post on Why Beowulf and I Would Not Be Friends, time has a way of mixing messages and themes in translation. I am sure that In Shakespeare’s day when colonialism and imperialism was the new black, it was completely fashionable to claim a land for your own and dehumanize the native inhabitants as property. This belief also ties into an idea I have on the modern day interpretation of literature in that we read the themes we want to read. Instead of seeing Shakespeare as a racist or pro-colonization, many scholars and students almost force themselves to believe that Shakespeare is making a statement upon these subjects opposed to supporting them.

It is worship of canonical authors like Shakespeare that we strive to believe that he was forward thinking and saw the world and society the way in which we see it today. While he did write amazing literature, it is my belief that Prospero is a protagonist of dislikable nature and that many people interpret his character to be either misunderstood or a statement in favour of modern day views.