Stephano: The Drunk Who Almost Becomes a God

Stephano survived the shipwreck on a barrel of wine and arrived on the island drunk. He meets Trinculo and Caliban in Act 2, Scene 2, and Caliban, who has never tasted alcohol before, immediately treats him as a god. Stephano, a butler, accepts the title without visible hesitation.

Caliban proposes in Act 3, Scene 2 that Stephano kill Prospero, take his books, and rule the island as king with Miranda as his queen. Stephano adopts the plan with enthusiasm. The comedy is the gap between what he is and what he imagines himself becoming: a drunken servant with no reliable followers, drunk on a power fantasy he cannot execute.

He is sober and diminished in Act 5, his scheme collapsed, his wine gone. Prospero returns him to service with a curt order. He loses the only thing that made him seem powerful on the island, and what is left is exactly what he was before the ship went down.