Blooms Literary Themes - THE TRICKSTER.pdf - ymerleksi - home

Th e Tempest 205
meets the brutal. Of a kindred mind are Stephano and Trinculo, the
representatives of folly and perversity, and of the want of mental and
moral culture. In the case of the latter, the evil does not consist in the
evil Will but in the unconsciousness and indeliberateness with which
they indulge their natural desires. In this they diff er from the deliberate
and conscious wretches, Antonio and Sebastian, in regard to whom
the poet leaves it undecided whether they are ultimately converted, or
whether they persist in their evil ways. Th ey thus form the transition to
the indeed morally polluted, but in itself nobler and merely misguided,
character of the King, who is in the end purifi ed from sin by his sincere
repentance. Miranda and Ferdinand, and honest old Gonzalo, on the
other hand, follow the power of the good and join Prospero. Between
them we have those that are indiff erent, lukewarm, neither black nor
white, but who turn about, like weather-cocks, as the wind happens
to be blowing; these are the courtiers Adrian and Francisco. Th ey are
the dummies, and represent that large indiff erent class, which seems to
exist only in order to fi ll up the gaps between good and evil, so that no
space is left unoccupied on the stage of history. Th us all the characters
are arranged into harmonious groups between the great contrasts which
run through the whole drama.
[ . . . ]
What I have called the ideal point of unity, the fundamental
motive, the leading thought of the piece, is expressed by old
Gonzalo—not indeed in the form of refl ecting thought, but still as a
simple statement—when at the close he says:
Set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage—
Did Claribel her husband fi nd at Tunis;
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero, his dukedom,
In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves,
When no man was his own.
Indeed the very fact of all the characters losing and recovering not
only their outward fortune but their own selves, forms the actual
substance of the drama. Th is utterance is the strongest proof of
the eff ect which a general state of excitement and stormy commotion
in life must exercise upon individuals. But in reality, our life is