The Tempest Plot Summary

The Tempest Plot Summary
Alonso, the king of Naples, is returning from his daughter’s wedding in Tunis. He is accompanied by his son, Ferdinand, his brother, Sebastain, and Antonio, the Duke of Milan. An old Milanese courtier, Gonzalo, is also on board. The ship is wrecked in a storm and all the passengers and crew are thrown into the furious sea.
Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, and his fifteen year-old daughter, Miranda, are watching the shipwreck from an island. He tells her, for the first time, how they came to be on the island. Twelve years before, when he had been Duke of Milan, his brother Antonio, had usurped him, but with Gonzalo’s help he had escaped in a small boat with his baby daughter, Miranda, and his library of books about magic. They had ended up on the island and Prospero had turned the only inhabitant, Caliban, a deformed and savage creature, into his slave. There are also spirits on the island. One of them, Ariel, had been imprisoned in a tree trunk by Caliban’s mother, the witch, Sycorax, who had then died. Prospero used his magic abilities to rescue him and he made the spirit swear to serve him.
The ship’s passengers are cast up on the island unharmed, and even their clothes are not wet or damaged. Alonso believes his son to be dead but Ferdinand has landed on another part of the island. He encounters Miranda and they fall in love at first sight. He is the first man, apart from her father and Caliban that she has ever seen. Prospero puts Ferdinand to work manually, controlling all his movements with magic. Ariel pesters Prospero for his freedom and Prospero promises it once he has done some things for him, regarding the newcomers.
Arial leads the party towards Prospero’s cell. During this journey Antonio and Sebastian plan to kill Alonso so that Sebastian can be king. Two other members of the party, Trinculo, the court jester, and Stephano, a boisterous butler, are also wandering about on the island. Caliban recruits them to help him...