He is not a man of perfect judgment. He has lost his position of political authority by failing to attend to his duties. Now he has this one chance to revise that mistake or it will never be corrected. This chance comes not entirely through Prospero but, by accident most strange and a most auspicious star. Let s look at the tempest, the island and Prospero s agents of effecting the changes on the island.
Water symbolizes the spirit.
The tempest is a disarrangement of that spirit. It is Prospero s wrath, his temper, anger. The island represents an enchanted locality where things do not work by the normal rules of time, space and physical action and reaction. The rules of the known world may or may not apply. Time and space are not obstacles for him, but he is the rational and logical means by which Prospero effects changes in the outer world.