He seems to be rather obtuse. Certainly Gonzalo is plain, blunt courtier who understands little of the intricate movements of the human mind. After all he means well, when he seeks to divert the king's thoughts, but he fails to understand that a man in grief would rather like to be left alone.
The Tempest : Character Sketch of Gonzalo. Character Sketch of Gonzalo Gonzalo is an honest old counsellor at the court of Naples. Alonso says - "You cram these words into mine ears against The stomach of my sense".
The Tempest: Character Sketch. In one voyage Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis, And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves When no man was his own.
Literary critic Robert Langbaum writes that Gonzalo's speech sums up the philosophy of the genre of tragicomedy—that we lose in order to recover something greater, that we die in order to be reborn to a better life. Notice the way Prospero associates Gonzalo with "fate"? Earlier, we saw how Gonzalo believes that "fate" determined whether or not he and the rest of the party would drown during the storm. Here, Prospero directly associates Gonzalo with the workings of "Providence divine," as if Gonzalo is an agent of fate.
This is a pretty big deal because, in the play, we get the sense that some force greater than even Prospero's magic is at work guiding the lives of each of the characters. Gonzalo also makes a big utopian speech that literary critics like to compare to a passage from Montaigne's "Of Cannibals," a famous essay that Shakespeare totally cribbed when he wrote Gonzalo's lines. We talk about this more in " Symbols " so check it out if you want to know more.
When the ship is split he still clings to the hope that he would fain die a dry death. When the king is sad at the loss of his son he takes infinite care to minister to him by indulging in a kind of merry fooling with Antonio and Sebastian. Thus throughout all misfortunes, his conduct is marked by courage and calm cheerfulness. The source of this cheerfulness, it may be noted, is the complete absence of any guilt in him. His loyalty: He is a typical courtier, faithful and loyal to the king, and in peace with all his fellows.
He loves the king with all the warmth of his heart. He ministers to the king when he is depressed by the supposed loss of his son. He has remarkable patience earned with age.
Once washed ashore, the whole group is divided under the magic spell of Prospero. Gonzalo finds himself with Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio, and others. The personalities of Sebastian and Antonio are constituted of meaner elements. When Antonio and Sebastian plan to kill King Alonso, Ariel whispers in the ears of Gonzalo to stop them from doing it.
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