Pop
music follows a pattern: a catchy tune and a theme of love, typically sexually
centered. Fantasy stories follow a pattern: an otherwise minor character
undergoes an adventure and becomes a big shot hero. There is a good reason that TvTropes seems as
accurate as it does: because every form of entertainment media follows the same
patterns in some sense. In this way, The Tempest follows the standard pattern
for Shakespearean comedy. For instance, Ferdinand and Miranda fall in love at first sight in Act I, although they exchange vows earlier
than in most comedies (Act III, with Prospero’s approval in Act IV, rather than Act V) because,
unlike most comedies, the center of focus of the play is not on their love
affair but on Prospero, the proper comedic character, and because their love
does not require the end of the book’s façade.
Prospero
is the proper comedic character because, unlike Miranda, he is responsible for
his own position; in his obsessions with his books, he abandoned his position
to his brother and was surprised when his position was usurped. While he may be
somewhat nonsensical in his obsession, it is an understandable nonsensicality –
he is not randomly crazy, merely obsessed, which is an understandable
circumstance that maintains his sanity as a character while allowing him to
guide most of the insanity in the play. His return to his senses, when he
breaks his staff and abandons his magic, ends the magical, dream-like element
to the play and concludes the play with a comic solution that both resolves the
situation of the magic and the character Prospero’s obsessions by indicating
that he has given up said obsessions with the sacrifice of his magical power.
