The Loss of Prospero in the Tempest Shakespeare's The Tempest is a play about loss, more specifically, about the loss of Prospero. Prospero is a tragic hero, in a sense, because he goes from having everything to having nothing. He loses his daughter. He brings his enemies under his power only to lose control and set them free. Ultimately, he gives up his influence on the world, including his incredible power over nature itself. The Tempest can be seen as a tragic work due to some elements: Prospero is a dominant figure who must take revenge in return for the wrongs inflicted on him and, in his fury, manages to destroy his enemies as well as himself. humanity and her daughter's future. Prospero is shown as a kind of dictator in The Tempest. He doesn't speak to the other characters, but dictates "a" to them. Instead of conversing with her daughter Miranda, Prince Ferdinand, and Ariel, she tells them her thoughts with no intention of receiving a response. At the end of Act IV Prospero is gripped by the ecstasy of punishing and determining the fate of... middle of paper... William Shakespeare. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1958. xlii.Palmer, DJ (ed.) The Tempest - A Selection of Critical Essays London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1977.Shakespeare, William. The Storm. The bank of the Shakespeare River. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans, et. al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. Solomon, Andrew. "A reading of the storm." In Shakespeare's last works. Ed. Richard C. Tobias and Paul G. Zolbrod. Athens: Ohio UP, 1974. 232.John Wilders Lecture on The Tempest given at Oxford University - Worcester College - 4 August, 1999.