Sycorax is still alive, while in The Tempest, she died before Prospero's arrival on the island.
Ariel is Caliban's younger sister, while in The Tempest, Ariel is a kind of spirit that was Sycorax's servant. (Ariel may have been Sycorax's servant before her arrival on the island, and not a "native" of the island. See ActI, scene 2: "Thou, my slave, / As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant; / And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate / To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands".)
The story is set in modern times on an island where Ariel speaks a language inspired by English creoles, possibly Jamaican Patois. (I wouldn't claim it is pure Jamaican Patois.) Assuming that the island is Jamaica or inspired by it, it may be worth noting that Jamaica was a British colony between 1655 and 1962. The Spanish were chased by the BritshBritish in 1655, they left behind many African slaves. The British later brought more African slaves.
The island in The Tempest is most likely a fictional island in the Mediterranean, since King Alonso's ship in the first scene was on its way back from Tunis (for the marriage of Alonso's daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis, see Act II, scene 1) back to Naples. However, the play was probably partly inspired by the shipwreck of the Sea Venture on Bermuda in 1609, and Ariel says in Act 1, scene 2 that Prospero once asked him to fetch something from the "still-vex'd Bermoothes". In addition, Gonzalo's speech in Act II, scene 1 ("I' the commonwealth I would by contraries (...") sounds very similar to an excerpt from Florio's 1603 translation of Montaigne's Essays, more specifically, the essay "Of the Canibales" / "Des Cannibales". These references, in addition to Prospero's treatment of both Caliban and Ariel (both are addressed as "slave"), invite retellings from a post-colonial point of view.
Malady
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