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Bryan Streit
ENGL 1500
7 October 2011
Kirstyn Leuner
Spirited Away
Shakespeare is known for his brilliant play on words and his work in The Tempest fully
shows off his ability. In The Tempest, the ex-duke of Milan, a Sorcerer named Prospero,
captures a ship at sea that contains The King of Naples, his son, Prospero’s brother, his two sons,
and their servants. Prospero uses his magic to control Ariel, an apparition, and Caliban, a
savage. Throughout the play, the word “Spirit” is used repeatedly and takes on many different
meanings. The use of “Spirit” ranges from being used as a pronoun, to a way to show
ownership, and a form of alcohol. But, the word is used most often to link the two most basic
types of characters featured in The Tempest. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the word “Spirit”
serves as a clear separation between the living and the non-living while also showing the living
and the non-living to be closely related.
The use of the word first is used to differentiate the characters from living to the nonliving ghosts and apparitions. “Spirit” is first used by Prospero when he addresses Ariel in
Shakespeare Act 1.2 on lines 312-313, “Hast thou, spirit, Perform’d to point the tempest that I
bade thee?” (Shakespeare). Without Prospero’s calling of Ariel “spirit”, the audience would not
have known Ariel to be a ghost, as it is never mentioned upon his entrance. The
acknowledgement of Ariel as a ghost gives the audience knowledge that there is a difference
between the characters that they will encounter throughout the play. This knowledge obtained
through the use of “spirit” immediately separates the living from the non-living.
Shortly after “Spirit” is used for the first time to differentiate Ariel from the other nonapparitional characters, it is used to show the power that the living have over the non-living.
Prospero claims ownership over Ariel when he says to him, “My brave spirit!/Who was so firm,
so constant, that this coil/Would not infect his reason?” (Shakespeare Act I.ii.326-328).
Prospero’s use of the possessive pronoun “my” before “spirit” demonstrates the livings control
over the spirits. “Spirit” in this sense is used as a noun to mean, “Incorporeal or immaterial
being, as opposed to body or matter; being or intelligence conceived as distinct from, or
independent of, anything physical or material” (OED). This form of the word “spirit” mixed
with Prospero’s possessive pronoun shows the control that the living have over the dead, which
serves to further the separation between the living and the non-living by setting up a master and
servant relationship. Prospero as the master and the spirits as the servants.
The word “Spirit” is again used to differentiate living from the non-living through a
character’s actions. When Ariel submits to Prospero and says that he will succumb to Prospero’s
will, instead of saying that he will simply ‘do the deed’, Ariel says to him, “I will be
correspondent to command/And do my spiriting gently” (Shakespeare Act I.ii.436-437). Ariel’s
use of this form of “spirit” further separates him from the living, as spiriting is solely, “The
action or work of a spirit or sprite” (OED). Due to this definition only an immaterial being
would be able to accomplish “spiriting”, further separating the non-living from the living.
The use of spirit, while being used to show the clear distinction between the living and
the non-living, also acts as a link between the living and the non-living. “Spirit” is often used in
the context similar to when Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples, claims, “So they are [vigorless]/My
spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up./My father’s loss, the weakness which I feel,/The wreck of
which I feel” (Act.I.ii.677-679). When “spirit” is used in conjunction with the living it comes to
mean, “The animating or vital principle in man (and animals); that which gives life to the
physical organism, in contrast to its purely material elements; the breath of life” (OED). This
use of “spirit” links the animation of immaterial elements in a living creature with the animation
of an immaterial being.
Whereas before, “spirit” was used to differentiate the living from the non-living, now
“spirit” is being used to differentiate the material from the immaterial. This use of “spirit”
referring to the immaterial of a being, regardless of its connection to a material body or source,
links the non-living characters to the living. “Spirit” is used as a means to discuss ones
immaterial essence again by Antonio, one of Alonso’s sons, when he describes Ferdinand as, “a
spirit of persuasion, only” (Shakespeare Act 2.i.921). Here the use of the word “spirit” refers to
Ferdinand’s character as a person, his non-physical essence. “Spirit” is used continuously to
differentiate the immaterial from the material. This linkage of the immaterial creates a
connection of the living to the non-living.
The connection between the living and the non-living is made clear when Prospero
summons spirits to perform for his daughter, Ferdinand, and himself. As the spirits dance in
front of the three of them, Ferdinand says, “This is a most majestic vision, and/Harmoniously
charmingly. May I be bold/To think these spirits?” (Shakespeare Act IV.i.1834-1836).
Ferdinand’s unsureness of whether what he is witnessing is indeed spirits or not hints at the
closeness of appearance that the living and non-living share, despite the living’s control over the
spirits. When Prospero eventually calls the spirits off to tend to other characters of the play,
Ferdinand becomes dismayed. Prospero tells Ferdinand to, “be cheerful, sir./Our revels now are
ended. These our actors,/ as I foretold you, were all spirits and/Are melted into air, into thin
air:/[…]We are such stuff/As dreams are made on, and our little life/is rounded with a sleep”
(Shakespeare Act IV.i.1878-1881,1887-1888). Prospero tells Ferdinand to not worry about the
disappearance of the spirits as they as not made of anything material, he then goes on to say that
in the end the spirits are no different from us and that we will eventually become them.
Prospero’s reveal of the spirits being a continuation of one’s self supports the connection made
between a living creature’s “spirit” and a ghostly “spirit”.
Shakespeare, the master of words and puns, used the same word effectively to mean two
separate ideas while relating both to a singular thought; The word “spirit” is used as a distinction
between the living and the non-living while being the ultimate unifier between the two. The use
of “spirit” as an apparition separated the non-living from the living and showed that there were
undeniable differences between them. Then, the use of “spirit” as the essence of a person
reunited the two ideas as a separation between the immaterial essence from the material essence.
Prospero’s reveal of the spirits to be the continuation of the living then completed the connection
between the living’s essence and the immaterial essence of an apparition.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William, and Peter Holland. The Tempest. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.
"Spirit." The Oxford English Dictionary. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. <www.OED.com>.