The play begins with a setting of a ship at sea. A terrible storm, a tempest, is raging and tossing the ship wildly. Aboard the ship are a number of Italian aristocrats:
Alonso, the King of Naples Sebastian, Alonso’s brother Ferdinand, Alonso’s son Antonio, the Duke of Milan
As the Boatswain (a minor officer aboard the ship) attempts to direct the sailors so that the ship will avoid crashing into the rocks, the aristocrats come out of their cabins and make a nuisance of themselves. They ask the Boatswain questions, but he is clearly too busy trying to save the ship and the lives of everyone on board to stop and respond to the imperious demands of the nobles.
The Boatswain even bluntly tells the aristocrats, “You mar our labour” (line 12). He is telling the nobles that they are getting in the way and hindering the sailors from doing their job. Shakespeare frequently hints at the conflict between aristocrats and commoners in his plays, and he is doing so here in this scene. The nobility always expected respect and obedience from the commoners regardless of the circumstances. King Alonso’s good counselor, Gonzalo, even warns the Boatswain to “remember whom thou hast aboard” (17). Gonzalo is warning the Boatswain to be respectful toward the King and Duke or else he will suffer punishment at their hands.
However, the Boatswain has no time to stop his work in order to be respectful to the nobles at such a dangerous time; and thus the aristocrats are clearly being foolish in worrying about their demands for respect over their own safety. As the Boatswain sarcastically indicates, “What care these roarers for the name of king?” (15-16). The roaring sea will just as easily drown a king as it will drown a commoner. The tempestuous sea makes no distinction of social class. And if Nature, of which the sea is a part, makes no such distinction; then such a distinction (as Shakespeare is subtly declaring) is clearly an unnatural one.
Of the distinguished passengers aboard the ship, only the honest counselor Gonzalo recognizes the wisdom of the Boatswain’s words despite the crude and disrespectful manner in which he utters them. Gonzalo is hopeful that perhaps the Boatswain can find a way to save the ship. However, when the timbers start to crack loudly and when the mariners start to shout that the ship is splitting apart, Gonzalo and the aristocrats believe that their death is at hand.