It is popular belief that Shakespeare’s character, Prospero, a ‘reworking of Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and of the Duke in Measure for Measure’, was based on the Elizabethan Magus, John Dee. Yates argues that an ‘Elizabethan revival in the Jacobean age’, was partly signified by Shakespeare’s depiction of Prospero and its likeness to John Dee. He claimed that Shakespeare was ‘daring’ to portray a ‘good conjuror’ when conjuring was a ‘dreaded accusation. However, the play depicts ‘good’ magic through Prospero, and ‘bad’ magic through Sycorax, this ‘raises a question which haunts the play’,1 regarding ‘how magic can and should be used’. There can be no doubt that magic is a central theme in the play, the surface story is a comedy, wherein Prospero uses magic to regain his dukedom. The statement of Yates, that Prospero is a ‘good’ magician, is questionable. Some of his actions are deeply unpleasant. Although somewhat understandable
considering his attempt to ‘violate’ Miranda (1.2.361-119), his treatment of Caliban is cruel,

"For this, be sure, tonight though shalt have cramps,
 Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
 Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
 All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinched
 As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
 Than bees that made ‘em."
(1.2.326-117)

He bids his daughter ‘sleep’ for his convenience,

"Thou art inclined to sleep, ‘Tis a good dullness, And give it way; I know thou canst
not choose.’ (1.2.185-108)

It is possible he is protecting her from his conversation from Ariel, but given Prospero’s request, ‘Here cease more questions’, the likelihood is that Miranda’s questions have become tiresome. The most remarkable treatment of another character by Prospero is that of Ariel. If Oberon is a reworking of Prospero, then Ariel is the same of Puck. However, where Puck associates with Oberon by choice, Ariel is bound to Prospero by force and is threatened into submission when requesting his freedom,

"If thou more mumur’st, I will rend an oak
 And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
 Thou hast howled away twelve winters."
(1.2.294-115)

This seems severe before we know the play, being a comedy, has a happy, or ‘complete’ ending. Ariel is set free and Miranda is happily coupled with Ferdinand. What Prospero is, is not outstandingly ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but human, and of great power symbolic of ‘the art’ in which Shakespeare was ‘supreme’, words. If any character is a depiction of ‘good’ in The Tempest, it is likely to be Ariel.

Ariel is an archangel, also known as Uriel or Auriel. This is ‘agreed upon in Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions and probably predates all three’. Unlike his fellow archangels, Micheal, Gabriel and Raphael, he, or she, is yet to be canonised by the Catholic Church. This is probably because very little is known about Auriel in comparison with the others, other than from the book of Genesis, where he wrestled Jacob. Auriel is
thought of as the ‘guardian and representative of the Earth’, and therefore is intrinsically linked with nature, much stronger than Puck’s tenuous link to nature through the legend of the Green Man. When concluding that Ariel is a representative of the Earth, and of nature, one raises the question of why Prospero commands him,

"My industrious servant Ariel!" (4.1.34-181)

‘The immortal portrayal of the benevolent Magus’; Prospero’s powers are such that he can figuratively control the Earth. This could be Shakespeare’s way of illustrating that magic, and words, can be used to control the Earth, and not always harmoniously. If Prospero represents magic and literature, indeed, Shakespeare himself, and Ariel the Earth, the other characters may have some deeper meaning. The superlative place to find this is most likely in the antithesis of Prospero, Sycorax, and her offspring, Caliban. If Prospero is, as Willis calls him, a ‘white witch’ then Sycorax is representative of the black arts.