Plan:
· Ariel’s point of view
· Mixed feeling towards p
· 14 lines
· Sonnet
Prospero my saviour, he set me free
From the place where one’s self was bound by greed.
Saved from the hell that Prospero ripped through.
I am one with the never-ending blue.
The fire, the sea and celestial light,
I thought would grace me when I set to flight
But they did not and I am stuck again
Stuck serving others greed, pride and pain
How the dirt found place with spirit like me,
It seems my freedom is still out of reach
With the earth below and the gods above,
I am now stuck between abuse and love
In a new hell less painful than the last
But still a hell, still a prison alas
Commentary
My creative writing piece is set in the point of view of Ariel after he is set free from the tree Sycorax trapped him in. Through the poem it strongly hints as it goes on that Ariel is not discovering the freedom he once thought he was going to get. I wanted to highlight the fact that Ariel doesn’t understand the relation between himself and Prospero, as even in the play it shows that Ariel was in a place between being a son to Prospero and being a slave. Ariel is shown to both have a side fury and also confusion in my piece of writing, this style of character description where the writer purposely created better and worse side was popular in Shakespearean writing and very popular in The Tempest.
In the play Ariel seemed to have a difficult relationship with Prospero which I wanted to express in my poem. He was always loyal and put him on a pedestal calling him ‘great master’ and ‘great sir’ (Act 1, Scene 2). In the first lines Ariel calls Prospero ‘my saviour’ which is referring to the fact that Prospero saved him from the tree Sycorax had trapped him in before the play started. He is also shown to have a negative relationship with Prospero for example in the early parts of the play we learn that Ariel is primarily focused on her freedom and found annoyance that he STILL hasn’t got it. Ariel said 'I prithee, remember I have done thee worthy service, told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served without or grudge or grumblings. Thou didst promise to bate me a full year. Prospero, dost thou forget from what a torment I did free thee?' (from Act 1, Scene 2). These cold words make some believe that Ariel was like Caliban in that Prospero thought nothing of them and just used them for services and power. In my poem I talked about the how the things that Ariel expected from becoming newly free and made it fall flat putting the word 'thought' in italics to underline the fact to the reader that he has been deceived by this idea of freedom.
Through out my sonnet I use a lot of elemental language and frequently reference the Great Chain of Being. On the fourth line Ariel says 'the never-ending blue'. This is supposed to symbolise the element of air. Ariel is commonly portrayed as a spirit of the air but you could also interpret this metaphor as the ocean, which would tie in with the prologue of the play when Ariel controls the sea. On the next line down it talks about other elements including fire, sea and light however, Ariel does not say earth. This is because Ariel does not regard earth highly. In the Great Chain of Being, earth is considered as the lowest class out of all the elements. Later in my sonnet, Ariel says ‘How the dirt found place with spirit like me’ which in literal words mean, how did I become so worthless.
As mentioned before, my creative writing piece is indeed a sonnet. This is a popular structure of writing used in the Shakespearean era. A sonnet is a fourteen-lined poem with iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. The use of rhyming couplets was also used in the Tempest frequently. This style of writing was often spoken by the higher class; even Caliban who was considered of the lowest class had lines like this. Shakespeare himself wrote many plays of his with rhyming couplets and throughout his career, he experimented with poetic forms, and he does this with rhyme as much as he does with blank verse. For example, in Othello, Lago’s attempts to influence Othello against Desdemona are in poetry, and rhymed couplets punctuate the progress of the argument. He pretends to be hurt that Othello challenges his motives: I thank you for this profit, and from hence. I’ll love no friend, since love breeds such offence. Here Shakespeare uses both iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets.
In conclusion, I wanted to show Ariel as a character who thinks that he will never get the freedom that he deserves and will never truly be happy. Now he has been freed from the tree Sycorax trapped in him, he has only been trapped again by Prospero. He shows his loyalty but as the sonnet goes on he thinks of the situation he is in and speaks his mind freely. He uses the elements to symbolise his feelings and show others how he feels.
