"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." - Jimi Hendrix. The power of love is strong enough to open the hearts of powerful men, who abuse their power, to gain dominance, control and to seek revenge. The lust for power in The Tempest is a common theme throughout the work, pushing characters to do anything to gain more power, including betraying family and torturing innocent people. Several characters throughout the play use their power to control people for personal gain. In William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, the power of love is used to create harmony between the dominant characters, the power of magic and illusion makes Prospero superior to others, and Prospero uses his power over his slaves to his advantage. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The power of love is one of the ways it shows that The Tempest is about the use of power. The power of love is undoubtedly the strongest power in the play because it creates peace between the characters who are against each other, as they were all chasing power. The first victim of the power of love is Prospero, who in the final act of the play feels sympathy for those he terrorized and says to his slave Ariel: “Yet with my nobler reason 'against my fury / I take part. The rarer action is / In virtue than in revenge. Being repentant, / The sole scope of my purpose extends / Not a frown further. Go and free them, Ariel” (V. i. 27-31). In this quote, for the first time in the play Prospero feels compassion for the other characters and decides to break the spell he has on them. This is an important quote because Prospero decides to forgive the other characters and this leads him to give up magic and his quest for more power. Prospero's actions show the theme of forgiveness, which leads all the characters to forgive each other and abandon their pursuit of power. At the end of the play, the power of love leads Prospero to free Ariel and Caliban, to forgive his brother Antonio, as well as Sebastian and Alonso for what they have done, and Ferdinand and Miranda to obtain Alonso's blessing on their marriage. Shakespeare chose to portray a happy ending for The Tempest because the play is a comedy, which is why the characters forgive each other and end up giving up their childhood desire for more power. The play is set in the early 1600s, around the same time Shakespeare retired, which is why Prospero gives up his magic and will never use it again, to depict Shakespeare putting down his pen and ending his career of a writer. The power of love is the strongest power in the entire play and is a great example of how The Tempest is a play about the use of power, however Prospero's power of magic and illusion is another great example . Prospero is anxious to get his power back. and become the Duke of Milan again, and tries to do so using his power of magic and illusion. In the first act, Prospero's lust for power drives him to use his magic to create a storm, to test his enemies and bring them to his island. The storm he creates is horrible and his daughter Miranda shouts to him “If by your art, my dearest father, you have / Put the wild waters in this roar, calm them. / The sky, it seems, would pour out stinking pitch, / But the sea, rising to the cheek of the sky, / extinguishes the fire. Oh, I have suffered / With those I have seen suffer. A brave ship / that had, no doubt, some noble creature on board / torn to pieces. Oh, the cry knocked.