It explores authority, forgiveness, colonisation and illusion.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare is a play set for IGCSE and International GCSE Literature (Cambridge International 0475). The board decides the set texts and the years they are examined, and your school confirms them. Our teachers teach whichever text your child sits.
What it is
Twelve years before the play begins, Prospero was overthrown by his brother Antonio and set adrift with his daughter Miranda, eventually reaching an island. There he has gained magical powers, served by the spirit Ariel and the resentful Caliban. When a ship carrying Antonio, King Alonso and others passes near, Prospero raises a storm and wrecks it.
Separated on the island, the survivors face tricks and temptations. Ferdinand, Alonso's son, falls in love with Miranda, while other characters plot against one another. In the end Prospero chooses reconciliation over revenge, gives up his magic and returns to Milan.
Themes and ideas to track
Power, authority and control
Prospero rules the island and its inhabitants, and the play questions how he uses that power. Rulers, servants and conspirators all struggle over control.
Forgiveness and revenge
Prospero has every reason for vengeance but turns toward mercy. The play's emotional arc is his decision to forgive.
Colonisation and servitude
Caliban and Ariel raise questions about who owns the island and who deserves freedom. Readers are invited to consider the cost of domination.
Illusion, magic and theatre
Prospero stages spectacles, and the island feels like a theatre. His final speech invites the audience to see the play as an illusion.
How the writer builds it
Shakespeare combines verse and prose, with Caliban and the comic characters often speaking in prose. Music and sound are central; the island is full of noise and song. The play observes the unities of time and place, compressing action into a single day on the island.
Imagery of storms, water and sleep recurs. Prospero's direction of events works like a playwright's, and his epilogue breaks the fourth wall. Consider how stagecraft and spectacle serve ideas.
How to write about it in the exam
Treat Prospero as both character and controlling playwright, and use that double role to build arguments about power. Choose a moment of manipulation or forgiveness and examine language, tone and staging.
Link the play's ideas on colonisation to specific methods rather than general history. Short attributed quotations are fine, but let analysis lead.
Studying The Tempest? The paid trial lesson can start with a key moment from the text.
An exam-style question to practise
How does Shakespeare present Prospero as a ruler?
Plan three points before you write, with a short quotation for each. Then check your plan against the mark scheme section below.
More question angles
- Explore the ways Shakespeare presents the relationship between Prospero and Caliban.
- How does Shakespeare use magic and music in the play?
- Discuss how Shakespeare presents ideas about forgiveness.
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark Literature answers against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards. For Cambridge International 0475, the objectives are summarised on our qualification page.
- AO1: Show detailed knowledge of the content of literary texts in the three main forms (drama, poetry and prose), supported by reference to the text.
- AO2: Understand the meanings of literary texts and their contexts, and explore texts beyond surface meanings to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes.
- AO3: Recognise and appreciate ways in which writers use language, structure and form to create and shape meanings and effects.
- AO4: Communicate a sensitive and informed personal response to literary texts.
- The four assessment objectives carry equal weight, about 25% each.
For The Tempest, build your argument around “Power, authority and control” and “Forgiveness and revenge”. Support each point with a short quotation. Then analyse the writer's method, using the section above.
Keep context about William Shakespeare brief and tied to the words on the page.
Read the text alongside these notes. This page is our own analysis and original teaching material. Where we quote this public-domain work, it is a short, attributed phrase.
Where to go next
Plan your essay with our guide to planning a literature essay, then see a worked answer in our literature essay structure model response. Browse more set-text notes or read about Literature in English tuition.
When you have written an answer on The Tempest, a paid one-hour trial lesson lets the teacher who would continue mark it with you.