The spirit grumbled at the call of Prospero. “Now come, my Ariel: bring a corollary” Prospero called, but the spirit was too shocked to hear his full command (4.1.58). “My Ariel?” the spirit thought. When had possession of his fellow spirits passed to this usurper?
Alas, there was little to be done. Ariel had surrendered himself fully to Prospero, and would willingly bring Prospero’s wrath down on his fellow spirits if their actions strayed from Ariel’s. Obediently, the spirit answered the call and came to the stage, taking on the form of Ceres. Playing the part of the lady of the harvest, much to the joy of the human audience, the spirit silently fumes “How dare Prospero command them, who existed millennia before man? Even when the witch Sycorax came she respected their power and was smart enough to see that they were not her tools. If only this ‘noble’ man had the same sense as her or her child.”
Prospero interrupts the play, erupting in fury, “Well done! Avoid! No more!” (4.1.142-143). Startled, the spirit and his fellows disperse. Before long Ariel returns to them and informs them of Prospero’s plan against Caliban and his conspirators. Lacking a human face, the spirit’s form twists and darkens to express his disgust. “How can you serve Prospero, Ariel, and by your service bind us? After the freedom we’ve enjoyed for millennia, why empower this tyrant?” the spirit asks Ariel.
“I do what I must do to survive,” Ariel replied simply, before taking off to save his master. “But you will not survive! While Caliban is also under Prospero’s power, his resistance ensures that when there is no more Prospero there may yet be Caliban. I tell you truly, Ariel, that you will not survive Prospero.”
Analytical portion:
I chose to adapt Ariel in order to examine the question whether abiding a tyrant, namely accepting a temporary loss of agency, nevertheless does lasting harm to the individual. While Ariel believes that he can avoid the risk of losing to Prospero, and thereby any lasting harm, by serving him until his mortal life ends, the lesser, unnamed spirit I recruited as the main character challenges him on this point. In order to ground my adaptation in the original work, I used Prospero’s play for Ferdinand and Miranda in Act IV Scene I as a setting, while also referencing Prospero’s veiled threat to Ariel from Act I Scene II.
Creating the character of the lesser spirit allowed me to transform Ariel from an obedient servant and lesser character in The Tempest to an important facilitator of Prospero’s rule. The implication is that without Ariel and the spirits, Prospero might fall, but as is often the case actors focus on their own immediate danger, namely that Ariel might be imprisoned forever inside of a tree (1.2). However, adding this power to the character of Ariel, namely that he might successfully regain his freedom if he were to challenge Prospero, comes at a cost. Ariel can no longer continue untouched by the events in The Tempest because the lesser spirit exposes the flaw in Ariel’s calculation. By accepting a temporary loss of agency, Ariel now risks his identity.