Beverley Ann Grannell

The Portrayal of Women in The Tempest

‘There is no gender imbalance so startlingly extreme elsewhere in Shakespeare’ (Buchanan,

2014, 338), as there is in The Tempest. The play seems to ‘deny the importance – and even in

some cases the presence – of female characters’ (Thompson, 1998, 242) but yet base

‘enormous power on female chastity and fertility’ (Thompson, 1998, 239) all while

portraying a patriarchal society. To best understand this absence and also the importance it

gives the remaining female characters, the reader must understand the complexity of the

physical character Miranda’s virtue, as well as the technique of bringing Sycorax, the dead

mother of Caliban, alive through conversations between other characters. As well as these

two points, readers should also see that despite sharing a common bond over being the only

two present female characters, Miranda and Sycorax play opposing roles with the latter being

more similar to Miranda’s father Prospero.

A central aspect of Shakespeare’s tragedies were that of the central female character’s

virtue, with the ‘questions about the chastity of wives [being] the source of intolerable

anxiety in the plays male protagonists’ (Wells and Orlin, 2003, 412). This is an issue which

comes to light in The Tempest in act one, scene two when Prospero exclaims that ‘in mine

own cell, till thou didst seek to violate, the honour of my child’ (76), revealing that Caliban

had previously tried to rape Miranda in order to repopulate the island with his own children

so that he can reclaim it as he believes that the island is his birth right as his Mother, Sycorax,

once ruled. This issue was one that early twentieth-century readers of The Tempest saw as

they believed that the play showed the ‘struggle over the angelic – but passive – soul

(Miranda), between the forces of divine enlightenment (Prospero, on the one hand, and

bestial desire (Caliban), on the other’ (Sanchez, 2008, 52). Although it does not directly

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speak of Caliban’s intentions, it does show that there is ultimately a struggle between

Prospero and Caliban over Miranda’s virtue.

As ‘marriage is so insistently the goal of every [Shakespeare] comedy’ (Howard,

2003, 414), one possible controversial source for Prospero’s urgency in ensuring that

Miranda is married and safely off of the island is so that ‘the danger of an incestuous

relationship between father and daughter’ (Vaughan, 2014, 349) is safely removed. As the

sole female on the island, it only seems plausible that the problem of repopulating the island

would fall to the father and daughter, meaning that an incestuous relationship may have

occurred if it weren’t for the opportunity of Ferdinand’s arrival. But, Miranda though is far

from the stereotypical ‘courtly lady’. She recalls that she does ‘not know/one of my sex; no

woman’s face remember,/save, from my glass, my own’ (48) and the lack of womanly

influence upon Miranda shows as she ‘instinctively shies away from archness or timidity as a

form of dissembling’ (Dusinberre, 1985, 71) when she approaches Ferdinand on the subject

of marriage, states ‘Hence, bashful cunning!/And prompt me plain and holy innocence!/I am

your wife if you will marry me;/if not, I’ll die your maid: to be your fellow/you may deny

me; but I’ll be your servant’ (50). Unlike Sycorax who opposes the patriarchal life, this also

shows that Miranda seems to have embraced her oppressive lifestyle and views herself as of

lesser importance than her Father. So by asking Ferdinand to marry her in this way, she is

thus showing how she has adapted to living in a patriarchal society because rather than accept

a rejection from, she is prepared to dedicate her life to him as his servant as she does not

know a life without some form of male dominance. In spite of Miranda being willing to

subject herself to Ferdinand, Shakespeare still manages to make the emotions felt reciprocal

and, as such, show the true nature of love rather than ‘create, as male idolatry does,

preconceptions about the nature of women’ (Dusinberre, 1985,157).

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 Just like Miranda, the Sycorax is a victim of male oppression too, although she is

‘suggestively present in The Tempest through rhetorical reference, [she] is physically absent

from Shakespeare’s play’ (Buchanan, 2014, 335-336) so therefore her ‘existence [is]

dependant on other characters’ (Buchanan, 2014, 336) within the play and it is this that

causes her to become oppressed. The technique used to bring the character to life, removes all

power from Sycorax as her memory is dictated by what others in the play wish to reveal, a

cast which is predominantly male. Ultimately, the absence of Sycorax and the use of her

memory, is an important tool for Prospero as ‘it licenses him to reach repeatedly, and

insistently, for versions of her as the neatly demonizable foil against what he can define

himself in reassuringly self-congratulatory terms’ (Buchanan, 2014, 338). This is shown

when, despite the fact that Sycorax was a powerful sorceress, Prospero reduces her to a ‘foul

witch’ (72) and ‘a blue eyed hag’ (73) when talking to Ariel in order to instil fear in him and

ensure that he remains loyal. Yet ‘the quality of Sycorax’s absence is, therefore, crucially

infused with a version of presence’ (Buchanan, 2014, 336) as ‘on the island, the female spirits

reign supreme’ (Vaughan, 2014, 354).

It is important to note though that before Prospero’s arrival upon the island, Sycorax

reigned supreme. She is a sorceress whose power is ‘so strong/that [it] could control the

moon’ (83) and also a match to Prospero, who now also rules the island. At first, it may

appear that the two characters have very little in common to the point where they are a

contrasting pair, but the truth is that there are a lot more similarities between the two then

initially believed. The major comparison between the two is that both characters have been

exiled from their native lands with their children, Sycorax for her sorcery and Prospero by his

usurping brother. This comparison brings the two to the island where Sycorax is capable of to

use her magic without limitations and Prospero is able to learn his sorcery, both to claim

leadership. Further on in Act V, Prospero’s speech blurs the line between the two even

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further. By claiming that he ‘set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder’ (73), Prospero

shows that there is not much difference between his magic and that of Sycorax’s as they are

both used malevolently. Prospero has used magic to attempt to bring harm to his brother and

also uses it to ensure that he is in control of the spirits on the island, despite him telling Ariel

that he ‘made gape/the pine and let [him out]’ (16), he consistently threatens to ‘rend an

oak/and peg thee in his knotty entrails’ (16), showing that he himself is not above using his

magic to enslave others.

In conclusion though, the plights of the women characters in The Tempest cannot be

put down to Shakespeare alone. 17th Century society was not as welcoming towards women

as they are today and this merely shows in, not just The Tempest, but in the majority of

Shakespeare’s writings. Although, the fact that Miranda is ultimately the saviour of the play,

as her romance with Ferdinand is the reason that they are capable of departing to Naples thus

leaving the island to Caliban and setting Ariel free from his own oppressive ruler. Sycorax on

the other hand, is mainly shown as breaking gender boundaries by baring remarkable

similarities to the major masculine character in the play and therefore showing that women

are capable of being equal to men, although, this maybe because in ‘his comedies

Shakespeare offers a world upside down in which women have powers not usually granted’

(Howard, 2003, 414) which may in fact be the only reason that Sycorax is given any freedom

at all.

Bibliography

- Buchanan, Judith. ‘Not Sycorax.’ Women Making Shakespeare: Text, Reception and

Performance. Eds. Gordan McMullan, Lena Cowen Orlin and Virginia Mason

Vaughan. Bloomsbury: London. 2014. 335-336

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 - Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. Macmillan: Hong Kong.

1985.

- Sanchez, Melissa E. ‘Seduction and Service in The Tempest.’ Studies in Philology.

105.1. (Winter 2008). 50-82.

- Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Middlesex: Penguin. 1983.

- Thompson, Ann. ‘”Miranda, Where’s Your Sister?”: Reading Shakespeare’s The

Tempest.’ Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ Eds. Virginia Mason

Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. Twayne: New York. 1998. 242.

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