Everyone has lost something. One of my earliest memories is a road trip through the Arizona desert. We had just stopped at a gas station and after we got back on the road I realized I had forgotten a small toy I had gotten from McDonald's earlier that day. Even at seven I knew I would forget about the toy in a day or two, but for some reason I couldn't help but earnestly beg my parents to take it back. It wasn't until I lost the toy that I realized how much I wanted it. Shakespeare's characters also lost something: their freedom. The idea of ​​a "puppeteer" is not uncommon in classical literature. In Shakespeare's Macbeth we sense the subtle manipulations of the three witches in their treatment of Macbeth, and in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Final Problem" we see Sherlock Holmes struggle to free himself from the works of criminal mastermind James Moriarty. We also see it in children's literature through “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. Yet The Tempest is unique in that even the mind has lost its freedom. It's like watching the puppets dance, looking behind the curtain and only seeing more strings. Through reading The Tempest you come to understand that almost every character, even though seemingly in control of their own destiny, is trapped by something or someone, and it is only as they struggle to regain their freedom that each individual realizes how much they were taken for granted. The most evident loss of freedom is felt by the party in power made up of Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio and Gonzalo. Their first objective is to return to Naples, but the journey is interrupted by Prospero's storm and subsequent shipwreck on the island (1.2.205...... middle of paper ...... and regain control of Milan and Naples. But in the end the ruling party is spared, Antony regains his son while Prospero regains his kingdom, Ariel is freed and even Caliban takes a small ownership in his actions: “Yes, I will and I will be wise from now. onwards / And seek grace. What an ass thrice double / Was I, to take this drunkard for a god / And worship this dull fool with, the feeling that the characters have fought against fate without even knowing it and only now yes are realizing what they have achieved as a result. The future is uncertain and relationships are still being recreated, but each character leaves the island with a deeper appreciation of the importance of freedom. Works Cited Shakespeare, William The Tempest . New York: Modern Library, 2008. Print.