72 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



and physical force. His friend and companion is Sebastian. He is morally guilty 

 of the murder of Alonso and Gonzalo,(iand even Prospero and Miranda were spared 

 merely from selfish policy. He is incapable of repentance or any generous senti- 

 ment. Prospero declares him to be an unnatural character. Hence he has the 

 contempt of Prospero as a fellow man, whose complete self-knowledge, however, 

 enables him to forgive his enemy, through a philosophic comprehension of causes. 



The character of Antonio appears in the Hght of facts to be clear and simple. 

 Not one word or action is unselfish, no scruple suggested by the sense of a common 

 humanity softens his hard purposes. Friendship, brotherhood, loyalty, honor, 

 law, self-respect, are bonds long since eaten through by ambition. The true human 

 instinct is a vital union of selfishness and unselfishness. Antonio is the type of 

 reason separated from human sympathy, of the reason that has no reason because 

 it is not fused with sympathy. Antonio embodies, Uke a figure in a new mythology, 

 the character of the rationally selfish. He is less a soldier than a schemer, and 

 hence we may conclude by saying that he is an intellectual egoist. 



He is a living embodiment of the second great social force — selfishness. Far 

 superior to lago in purpose and ambition, he is equally a villain. Far inferior to 

 Richard IH in courage, he is less capable of remorse. 



Looking at Gonzalo and Antonio, one wonders whether they were not, as types 

 of the extreme forces by which society moves forward, the greatest achievements 

 of their creator. It may appear that all former portrayals of devotion and villainy 

 tended toward the separation and clarification of these two pure types, marking as 

 they do the extremest departures from the middle line of human instinct. 



These characters are contrasted in a symmetrical manner rather unusual in 

 great literature. They are contrasted in their treatment of Prospero and Miranda 

 at the time of the banishment; in their bearing during the tempest; in their inter- 

 view in the third scene where the contrast culminates in the murderous attack of 

 Antonio. In the seventh scene the weakness of Gonzalo is contrasted with the 

 energy of Antonio. But the great and authoritative contrast is found in the pictures 

 of the two oflFered by Prospero in the final scene; where language is strained to 

 accentuate this antithesis. 



It may be said that all degrees of goodness and badness, as far as these term 

 denote unselfishness and selfishness, he between Gonzalo and Antonio; and yet 

 it would seem at a superficial glance that power belongs rather to Antonio. 



Sebastian : The Egoism of Mere Force 

 Sebastian appears in company with Antonio. His first speech in the shipwreck 



scene, is — 



" A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable, dog." 



As the catastrophe approaches, he says, " I am out of patience." When Antonio 



1 Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. 



