Ariel (The Tempest)

Ariel is a spirit who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprisoned by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Prospero greets disobedience with a reminder that he saved Ariel from Sycorax's spells, and with promises to grant Ariel his freedom. Ariel is Prospero's eyes and ears throughout the play, using his magical abilities to cause the tempest in Act One which gives the play its name, and to foil other characters' plots to bring down their master. Ariel means "Lion of God" in the Hebrew language. Ariel may also be a simple play on the word "aerial". Scholars have compared Ariel to spirits depicted in other Elizabethan plays, and have managed to find several similarities between them, but one thing which makes Ariel unique is the human edge and personality given to Ariel by Shakespeare. Because the stage directions in The Tempest are so precise, critics and historians are better able than with other Shakespeare plays to see how this play may originally have been performed. Several of the scenes involving magic have clear instructions on how to create the illusion required, causing critics to make connections and guesses as to exactly what sort of technology would have been used in Shakespeare's troupe to stage Ariel's role in the play. Also, a line by Ariel in Act IV allows scholars to ask whether, due to a shortage of boy actors, the original actor playing Ariel also played the part of Ceres. Ariel is widely viewed as a male character, although this view has wavered over the years, especially in the Restoration when, for the most part, women played the role.