spero, the "right duke of Milan", and Caliban, the "salvage and deformed slave." They represent two different extremes on the social spectrum: that of the natural ruler, and the naturally ruled. Their positions on the social hierarchy are largely due to the fact that Caliban responds almost wholly to passions, feelings of pleasure -- his senses, while Prospero is ruled more by his intellect and self-discipline -- his mind. However, the fight that Prospero has against his own natural tendency to ignore the discipline of his intellect, and give in to pleasures such as vanity and self-indulgence, cannot be ignored. Caliban was born of a witch; Prospero is a magician. However, the types of magic practised by Sycorax and Prospero differ greatly: Sycorax, in many respects a traditional witch, worked within Nature and as a part of it. She worked with devils and the lowest orders of spirits. Prospero, on the other hand, exercises his magic by means of strict discipline and study, rising above the natural order by means of his greater knowledge, and actually coercing spirits of a fairly high rank, such as Ariel, to do his bidding and control other spirits for him. In the Arts which both represent, Prospero certainly reflects the world of the mind. [And Sycorax does not?] However, in the use of his Art, Prospero reveals himself as not wholly disciplined. [okay] Prospero enjoys using the power of his Art, as he tells us in his monologue just before his forgiveness of the court party -- "graves at my command ... op'd ... By my so potent Art." He has also shown that he enjoys using it to show off, as he did during the masque he provided for Ferdinand and Miranda, which he indulged in even when Caliban's plot and the court party both urgently required his attention. Although we are not given details of Caliban's birth, it seems likely that a creature as subhuman in appearance as Caliban was not born of a human union. It has been postulated that, to q...
