The Willing Suspension of Disbelief, Part 4
by Roman Sympos​

 

(Parts 1-3 of this essay can be found at https://www.romansympos.com/copy-of-monthly-essay-2 and in the Archives)

 

An audience's willing suspension of disbelief, so crucial to the success of any dramatic representation, cannot be coerced. And neither can the willing obedience of its participants. At the heart of the lessons The Tempest has to teach us lie the dangerous and counterproductive tendencies of coercion and the delights of obedience to legitimate authority.

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The play, as we've seen, is about many things, ranging from the rule of monarchs to the labors of true love to the demands and obligations of colonial rule. But it is, first and foremost, about putting on a play, which for Shakespeare is the model for any hierarchical arrangement that depends for its success on the competence of a legitimate authority who’s in charge at the top and has in mind the happiness of every subordinate on down to the bottom.

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Shakespeare’s poster child of the unwilling servant is, of course, Caliban, native inhabitant of the enchanted isle and offspring of a witch named Sycorax and the devil. Stephen Greenblatt taught several generations of Shakespearean scholars how to read The Tempest as an apology for British imperialism by zeroing in on Caliban as Prospero's enslaved colonial subject. Granting all of Greenblatt's claims, I want to zero in on Caliban as Shakespeare's exhibit A of the grudging and rebellious subordinate, a role thrust forward by the curses he addresses to Prospero and Miranda at his first entrance in Act 1, scene 2, in response to Prospero's summons: 

 

As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both. A southwest blow on you
And blister you all o’er.

 

Prospero responds in kind, with threats of physical punishment, and the acrimonious exchange continues until Caliban is sent off to fetch firewood.

 

It was not always thus. Prospero and Miranda remind Caliban that the two of them treated him kindly, with “humane care,” taking him into their home and teaching him to speak, until he tried to rape—“violate the honor”—of Miranda. Rather than deny their account, Caliban gloats over it: “O ho, O ho! Would ’t had been done!/ Thou didst prevent me. I had peopled else/ This isle with Calibans.”

 

It’s hard to believe that Shakespeare meant for us to share Prospero and Miranda’s loathing of Caliban, one of his most popular (and comical, and sympathetic) creations. Caliban's maleficence is as boundless but, in the final analysis, as impotent as that of a child who acts on impulse without considering the consequences, or the odds of success. Miranda furiosa, angrily seconding her father's denunciations of the creature’s treachery—“Abhorréd slave,” and so on—seems quite up to the task of defending her own honor.

 

Caliban’s curses and threats are never taken seriously, either by Prospero or by Shakespeare’s audience, not even when he allies himself with the two buffoons Stephano and Trinculo in a botched attempt to assassinate the Magus and make Stephano king of the island. Even if we accept the legitimacy of Caliban's complaints as a subjugated indigene, the exchange of acrimony between master and servant in Act 1 reveals the poisonous and irreconcilable nature of their relationship, in which neither party can find gratification, peace of mind, or happiness.

 

Nothing will set things right except Prospero’s willingness to acknowledge his responsibility toward Caliban as his subject—“This thing of darkness/ I acknowledge mine”—and forgive him. In the final scene, Prospero allows Caliban to join his entourage and accompany him back to Milan without punishment.

 

“I shall be pinched to death,” says Caliban, but his fears turn out to be groundless. His pardon is not without conditions, however. “Go, sirrah, to my cell,” says Prospero. “Take with you your companions. As you look/ To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.” And Caliban does, with alacrity, new resolve, and good will:

 

Ay, that I will, and I’ll be wise hereafter

And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass

Was I to take this drunkard for a god,

And worship this dull fool!

 

The lesson it takes Caliban five acts to learn, Ariel has learned in one. When summoned to recount the events of the storm and shipwreck, he responds with hearty good cheer:

 

All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come

To answer thy best pleasure. Be ’t to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task

Ariel and all his quality [his subordinates].

 

In the course of his debriefing, Prospero showers Ariel with generous praise for his punctilious execution of his master’s commands: “My brave spirit!” “Why, that’s my spirit!” But when Prospero says there’s more work to do, Ariel balks, reminding Prospero of his promise to free him. “Before the time be out?” Prospero demands, reminding his subordinate in turn that the promise was conditional on the successful completion of the tasks he was assigned.

 

Had Shakespeare stopped here, with a simple acknowledgment from Ariel that he forgot the terms of his service, we’d be left with little more than a photographic negative of Prospero’s sour relationship with Caliban: the servant glad to obey so impressively powerful a master, the master delighted to praise his most able and worthy servant. But Ariel pushes back, cataloguing his merits: “Remember I have done thee worthy service,/ Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served/ Without or grudge or grumblings.”

 

In the twinkling of an eye this scene of comity and good cheer devolves into recrimination, insult, and threats. Prospero's indignation pushes him over the edge into fulmination and rant. He accuses Ariel of ingratitude and when Ariel denies it, calls him a liar, “malignant,” and stupid ("dull"), and threatens him with further torments.

 

Ariel turns things around by asking Prospero’s pardon and reaffirming his loyalty, and when Prospero relents, he leaps to attention: “That’s my noble master./ What shall I do? Say, what? What shall I do?” Ariel’s puppy-like eagerness to please may look like craven capitulation, but what matters to Shakespeare, and should matter to us, is how sharply it contrasts with Caliban’s grudging obedience immediately afterwards. Both Ariel and Caliban are in debt to Prospero, the first for food and shelter and, via Miranda, the gift of speech, and the second for his release from an eternity of excruciating pain. But only the fairy appears to take genuine delight in repaying what he owes.

 

Ferdinand, Miranda’s “patient log-man” completes Shakespeare’s tryptic of obedience. Ordered to fetch firewood to prove himself worthy of marrying Prospero's daughter, Ferdinand is the superego counterpart to Caliban's rapist id. The latter is commanded to perform the same task as the former, but as a punishment and under the threat of worse if he disobeys. The former obeys not only willingly and eagerly, like Ariel, but also with delight at the prospect of love’s labors rewarded. His task keeps him in close proximity to the woman he loves and his humble acquiescence acknowledges Prospero’s legitimate authority as Miranda’s sole surviving parent. Whatever we may think of patriarchy as a system of oppression, it enjoins, though it cannot enforce, responsibilities on those who are privileged to stand at its apex. Prospero clearly takes them seriously, and Ferdinand respects that.

 

Ferdinand, like Ariel, recognizes Prospero’s authority, but unlike Ariel or Caliban, he owes the sorcerer nothing. His bondage is imposed, like theirs (he’s threatened with death if he resists), but he gladly endures it to gain the inestimable prize of Miranda’s hand in marriage. In all three cases, nonetheless, the servant must submit to the power of his master. In this respect the three resemble Alonso, Antonio, Sebastian, Gonzalo, and the rest of the castaways on the island: none can suspend his disbelief because none has any disbelief to suspend. They are all coerced into obedience.

 

We, their audience, are not. We know that Prospero is a character in a play, a role animated by an ordinary human being. Nothing can change that belief but a blatant demonstration of his power over us, which is impossible. We are, however, free to suspend our disbelief in Prospero’s “potent art” for the length of a few hours. In doing so, we willingly entrust our imaginations to the power of William Shakespeare. Does he merit our trust?

 

Not if his dramatic counterpart, Prospero, is anything to go by.

 

To judge from his violent response in Act 1 to any hint of resistance to his authority, Prospero still has much to learn about the duties and responsibilities of sovereignty and the sources of its legitimacy. His years of study in the arts of white magic when he was Duke of Milan distracted him from the only study appropriate to a head of state, the arts of ruling and administration. His neglect led to his downfall at the hands of his Machiavellian brother, Antonio, and exile for himself and his daughter.

 

Antonio’s usurpation hardened Prospero’s heart and, aided by his ignorance of the arts of governance, taught him the wrong lesson, namely, that power is authority. On this island, nothing has taught him otherwise. His magic has enabled him to coerce obedience from his subjects—not just Caliban and the spirits, but also his own docile daughter, whom he can conveniently keep in the dark by putting her to sleep with a wave of his magic staff. The result has been friction, unhappiness, and anxiety for all concerned.

 

Prospero wants to resume his throne, but he’s not ready to do so when the play opens. Loyalty, gratitude, admiration, trust, the lubricants of state machinery that ensure not only its stability and longevity, but also the happiness of all concerned—these cannot be coerced. They must be solicited, freely given, and reciprocated. Clearly, Prospero still has much to learn about the need for, and the real power of, praise, mercy, and forgiveness in ensuring loyalty. Ironically, it takes a non-human creature to persuade him of this truth.

 

When, in Act 5, Ariel describes the piteous condition of King Alonso and his court, the fairy is so moved by his own account that he adds, “Your charm so strongly works ‘em/ That if you now beheld them, your affections/ Would become tender.” “Dost thou think so, spirit?” asks Prospero. “Mine would, sir,” Ariel replies, “were I human.” “And mine shall," says Prospero:

 

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling

Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,

One of their kind, that relish all as sharply

Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’quick,

Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury

Do I take part. The rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent,

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel.

My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore,

And they shall be themselves.

 

Freeing Ariel, forgiving Caliban and his enemies, and bestowing on Ferdinand his daughter’s hand all show that Propero has learned his lesson well by the final curtain, and his two most memorable speeches drive the point home.

 

In the first, at the beginning of Act 5, Prospero, as he just promised Ariel, “abjure[s]” his “rough magic” and announces his intention to "break [his] staff,/ Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,/ And deeper than did ever plummet sound . . . drown [his] book." On the verge of achieving his goals, he need no longer coerce obedience because he now knows how to merit it.

 

In the second, the play’s Epilogue, Prospero returns to the stage after the cast’s final exit (they are dropping Alonso and his court off in Naples on their way to Milan). His final words bring the lesson he has learned to bear on the crucial importance of his audience’s willing suspension of disbelief, which, freely given, obliges him and everyone else involved in staging Shakespeare’s play, from the Bard himself down the lowliest stage hand, to reciprocate with a performance worthy of the trust that gift signifies. Until the audience shows, by its applause, that this obligation has been fulfilled, Prospero must remain, like Ariel confined by Sycorax to the center of a “cloven pine,” here on stage. Only his audience's applause will break the spell.

 

Now my charms are all o’erthrown,

And what strength I have ’s mine own,

Which is most faint. Now ’tis true

I must be here confined by you,

Or sent to Naples. Let me not,

Since I have my dukedom got

And pardoned the deceiver, dwell

In this bare island by your spell,

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands.

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,

And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself, and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardoned be,

Let your indulgence set me free.

 

Stripped of his power to “enforce” or “enchant” obedience, the actor playing Prospero is now at the mercy of his audience and in need of forgiveness should he have fallen short of reciprocating the solemn obligation enjoined by their willing suspension of disbelief, which placed their imaginations, for this brief interlude, in his care.

 

He, and by extension the company he represents, did everything he could to please us. We did everything we could to help, despite missed cues, poor projection, implausible accents, and wandering spotlights. Together we conspired to make a figment of the playwright’s imagination walk and talk in real time and space. Together we brought make-believe to life.

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