The idea behind the banquet scene in the tempest?

Answer 1

Ariel's appearance as an avenging harpy represents the climax of Prospero's revenge, as Antonio, Alonso, and the other lords are confronted with their crimes and threatened with punishment. From Prospero's perspective, the disguised Ariel represents justice and the powers of nature. He has arrived to right the wrongs that have been done to Prospero, and to punish the wicked for their sins. However, the audience knows that Ariel is not an angel or representative of a higher moral power, but merely mouths the script that Prospero has taught him. Ariel's only true concern, of course, is to win his freedom from Prospero. Thus, the vision of justice presented in this scene is artificial and staged.

Ariel's display has less to do with fate or justice than with Prospero's ability to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of others. Just as his frequent recitations of history to Ariel, Miranda, and Caliban are designed to govern their thinking by imposing his own rhetoric upon it, Prospero's decision to use Ariel as an illusory instrument of "fate" is designed to govern the thinking of the nobles at the table by imposing his own ideas of justice and right action upon their minds. Whether or not Prospero's case is really just-as it may well be-his use of Ariel in this scene is done purely to further his persuasion and control. He knows that a supernatural creature claiming to represent nature will make a greater impression in advancing his argument than he himself could hope to. If Prospero simply appeared before the table and stated his case, it would seem tainted with selfish desire. However, for Ariel to present Prospero's case in this fashion makes it seem like the inevitable natural order of the universe-even though Prospero himself is behind everything Ariel says.

This state of affairs gets at the heart of the central problem of reading The Tempest. The play seems to present Prospero's notion of justice as the only viable one, but it simultaneously undercuts Prospero's notion of justice by presenting the artificiality of his method of obtaining justice. We are left to wonder if justice really exists when it appears that only a sorcerer can bring about justice. Alternatively, Prospero's manipulations may put us in mind of what playwrights do when they arrange events into meaningful patterns, rewarding the good and punishing the bad.