'Ariel and Caliban are equally enslaved' Use your knowledge of the play as a whole, and show how far you agree with this view.

Ariel and Caliban are two characters liberated at the end of the play, and left behind on the island when Prospero, their master, leaves. It is made clear very early on that neither creature is at liberty to refuse Prospero, despite their desires otherwise. With Ariel, this is most apparent in Act 1 Scene 2, when he requests freedom and is angrily denied by Prospero – ‘If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak / And peg thee in his knotty entrails’. Caliban, on the other hand, constantly expresses his dislike of his enslavement and, by extension, Prospero, and thus he is punished constantly. It is perhaps interesting to note that Ariel only ever seems to face threats of violence, whereas Caliban is well-acquainted with the reality of Prospero’s power, having been cursed with ‘cramps/ Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up’ amongst other discomforts throughout the play.
The difference between the two is most apparent in Prospero’s attitude towards them; Ariel is referred to as his ‘brave spirit’, and treated with affection for the majority of the play, whereas Caliban is frequently referred to as a ‘slave’ and associated with a negative semantic field of natural imagery. Both are repeatedly associated with magic, the force that is even shown to enslave Prospero, to some degree, forcing him to leave it behind at the end of the play in order to be free of the island. Caliban clearly represents the darker side of magic with his mother, the ‘foul witch Sycorax’ and his physical deformity, manifested in stage works such as Gregory Doran’s 2016 production as a limp and an unearthly silhouette. Ariel, in stark opposition, is associated with air and light, a ‘nymph’ and a ‘spirit’, magical terms more in line with Prospero’s own form of magic. In this sense, magical enslavement would arise out of necessity with Caliban and for Prospero’s own gain with Ariel, who is often shown to perform Prospero’s magic for him, most notably at the beginning of the play with the tempest itself.
To summarise, it is clear that both Ariel and Caliban are slaves to Prospero, both unable to escape the bond of servitude despite their clear dislike of it. The difference in how they are treated does not diminish the fact that they are fundamentally in Prospero’s control and unable to achieve the sense of freedom both clearly had prior to the beginning of the play. [To develop this further I would go on to discuss Caliban’s self-enslavement to Stephano, and how this complicates his status as an enslaved being. I would also suggest significant examination of the relation of the play to colonialism, and indeed how Caliban is often represented on the stage.]