“Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep”. (Shakespeare 70).
Introduction
The Tempest is a literary work of the master playwright William Shakespeare. It is a unification of action, time and place, which made it easier for the audience of the play to believe that everything unfolding on stage is real. The Tempest is one of he shortest that Shakespeare had created and consists only of five acts and seven characters. Among the notable characters in the play Prospero the antagonist that upon learning about the threat in his life has gone weary. The play demonstrates the use of old English language, which is by far difficult to interpret as compared to the modern English. The objective here is to interpret a significant passage from The Tempest and discuss reference to today’s society.
The Meaning
At the Fourth act of The Tempest, Prospero spoke of the said lines after recalling of the threats about his life. As a result Prospero decided to send away the wedding masque to allow him to deal with the threats in his life. Reading the quote suggests an obvious feel of sadness in tis tone. The sadness in the tone can be related to the character’s forgetfulness within the significant part of the play. Prospero is so worn out by his visions as and drowned by the magic power he possesses that there are times he almost drift away from the norms of his life and its realities. From that point on the character repeatedly talks about the “end of his labor”.
Furthermore, Prospero constantly contemplates about destroying his staff and magic book. One of Prospero’s goals to bring his past enemies to the island appears to be extricating his from his position of reaching absolute power, which in effect makes him less concern about his real life. The character looks forward to going back to Milan where the third of his thoughts would bring him closer to his grave. In the epilogue part he mentioned that he already had given up his powers, which brings a sense of relief. Prospero’s statement in the scenes of Act IV of the play emphasizes the appreciation of the beauty of the world that he created for his won as well as the sadness of the truth that the real world is somewhat meaningless. This is because the character believes that real world is anything, but deprived of anything substantial.
The Great Globe as Prospero mentioned within the quote would certainly constitute a different meaning to the audience. It could possibly mean to the audience that the character is talking about the Globe Theatre. However, the character is actually referring to world in general. This delivery of speech define Prospero’s theatricality in such as way that the events are controlled such that of a playwright or a director. The character also mentioned about “rack”, in a literal translation, it would mean a wisp of smoke or a shipwreck where the first Act in the play began. The puns conflate Prospero’s island and the theater itself, but when he gave up his magical powers, it signified the end of the play and just like Prospero the audience too would return to their won realities. In addition, as Prospero abandon his powers there will also be no traces of the island left nor the shipwreck, for everything there is was just an illusion.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the quote from The Tempest character Prospero suggests a duality. At one end, the quoted speech can be interpreted literally due to its structure, tone and delivery. However, analyzing the speech and correlate them to the actions and other events in the play brings about its real meaning.
Works Cited
Shakespear, William. "Act II." The Tempest. Stillwell, KS: Digireads.com, 2005. 24. Print.
