My introductory lessons focus on the first two of these interpretations. Each is followed by a task:

1. Authority - make a diagram of the authority relationships in the play
2. Art/stagecraft - list the range of effects the playwright employs
3. Justice - is this achieved in the end, or has Prospero simply out-Machiavelled his brother (consider the symbolic importance of the chess game!)? Or, are we witnessing a theme of forgiveness and reconciliation?
4. Family - what are the positive and negative messages?
5. Colonisers and the colonised - what attitudes are represented through Prospero and Caliban?
6. Love - how many varieties can you detect here?
7. Magic - what is its function in a play which observes the 'realism' of the three unities?
8. Ambition - list the examples and the consequences
9. Revenge - list the examples and the consequences
10. Education, education, education - consider the play as 'Prospero's lesson plan for the education of the other characters'. How far does the ending support this interpretation? Look closely at not just what Prospero does, but how he speaks (eg to Miranda in Act 1, scene 2, sounding like a school teacher).
11. the natural as against the civilised man - how do we learn that the latter can rise above or sink below the former? (Clue: consider the comic characters)
12.Appearance and reality. Consider the misinterpretations of the tempest at the start, the gaberdine, the garments on the line, the very shipwrecking itself: if the play is about art itself, what is the message here? Or is there a message about power, or perception, or human fallibility?

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