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As an actor, select one character from ‘The Tempest’ and discuss how you would create the role, bearing in mind its function in the plot and its relationship to other characters.
I have chosen Caliban to discuss, since, as an actor, I find him the most interesting character and thus the most enjoyable to discuss.
Caliban’s function in the plot is one that is difficult to define. He is not the key protagonist, since this title belongs to the treacherous Alonso in his usurpation of Prosporo. Infact he does not at all directly encourage the conclusion of the play.
Caliban has many small but essential functions; one of which is to create Shakespearean comic relief in his drunken trio with Trinculo and Stephano. He also creates contrasts with other characters, such as Caliban’s association with the “earth” and evil magic (by being “got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam” who is Sycorax, a which). This is contrasted with Ariel whose very name associates him with the air, and being a spirit he is also seen as a positive embodiment of the super-natural.
Caliban’s lust for Miranda in “seeking to violate the honour” of her, is contrasted with Ferdinand’s true love.
Miranda: Do you love me?
Ferdinand: ...I...do love, prize, honour you.
There are many suggestions in ‘The Tempest’ that give us clues into the character of Caliban such as being referred to continuously as a tortoise, fish, cat, monster and a misshapen knave, his very name has similarities to Cannibalism.
His mother being a witch does him no favours, but her treatment of Ariel (who we believe to be a “fine apparition” with his beautifully energetic language) certainly reflects badly on Caliban as a blood link, since she imprisoned Ariel in a “cloven pine...(for)...a dozen years”. Then there is Caliban’s attempt to “violate the honour of” Miranda; and at present not to be filled with guilt at this event but to say “would’t had been done!...I had peopled else this island with Calibans”. This certainly portrays Caliban as cold, evil and relentless that he would have repeated the rape.
Then when worshipping the drunken fool Stephano as a “God” and promising to show him “every fertile inch of the island”, which is infact the same mistake he made with Prosporo, as he explains in Act one: “I showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle....Cursed be I that did so!”. And now he makes the same mistake.
Even Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, speaks in a way that categorizes Caliban as an uneducated and uncivilized savage. “I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour […] When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning […]” (1.2.356-359) Miranda doesn’t stop there; she continues labeling Caliban, “But thy vile race, though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures could not abide to be with; therefore wast though deservedly confined into this rock […]” (1.2.361-364). Exactly this kind of discourse turns Caliban into a subject. If Caliban had not been alone on the island, then Prospero and Miranda would have categorized a whole group of human beings rather than just one.
In the poem Caliban says that he is “damaged by history” and “the man in the darkness”. This quote from the poem shows an example of characters in the play saying Caliban is rude. Caliban is a character hurt from events in his past, so he acts rude, and lashes out at people.
Caliban is rude, crude, ugly and lazy. Speaking in a psychoanalytic manner, Caliban is going to be remembered as bitter and obsessed with sex. This sexual desire is going to be coincided first with thoughts of his mutation-- a feeling of inadequacy-- and then more significantly with the absence of his mother. That he had no parents on which to form an Oedipal complex and knows only who his mother was (nothing is mentioned of his father) makes for interesting observations on how he deals with sexuality. We learn that he does not deny that Prospero is the only barrier between him and the rape of Miranda. It is clear that he has developed only so far as Freud’s theory of id, with small touches of the superego. Caliban’s development of the superego is evident only when he does not wish to receive Prospero’s pinches and cramps. He is otherwise all for anything that will bring him pleasure. Being free of Prospero, fulfilling his sexual desires with Miranda and drinking liquor are all on his menu.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare is one of the most relevant and studied plays of the Elizabethan period among scholars, from both, ancient and actual times. One of the many readings that have prevailed suggests that the play’s protagonist, Prospero, and his two su-pernatural servants, Ariel and Caliban, can work as a single psychological unit is constantly discussed by the academics. This reading is not new; it has been considered for longer than the idea of The Tempest as an autobiographical allegory, being first proposed by Thomas Campbell in 1838 (Yachnin).
The Tempest reflects Shakespeare's society through the relationship between characters, especially between Prospero and Caliban. Caliban, who was the previous king of the island, is taught how to be "civilized" by Prospero and his daughter Miranda. Then he is forced to be their servant. Caliban explains "Thou strok'st me and make much of me; wo...
Caliban is the id, the one who seeks instant gratification and has no concern for morality. Everyone has a love-hate relationship with the id because it is the part of the psyche that seeks biological necessities, however, it is also the part which can create socially unacceptable impulses. Prospero and Caliban initially had a loving relationship with each other; the relationship with the id is fostered because of biological needs. Prospero is forming a strong connection with the id but it takes over when Caliban “didst seek to violate / the honour of [Prospero's] child” (1.2. 347-348). Caliban acts based on the biological necessity of reproduction and this parallels the socially unacceptable circumstances that occur when one lets the id take control in one’s life. The ego must counteract this impulsive behaviour; Prospero decides to cage Caliban to prevent him from acting impulsively again. However, completely abolishing the id is never an option. The id is the embodiment of biological necessity thus it is impossible to live without it. This idea is paralleled in The Tempest because Prospero cannot simply rid himself of Caliban, the one who provides the food and wood which sustains life. This is a visual representation of the necessity of the id in the human psyche. This love-hate relationship between Prospero and Caliban exemplifies the dangers
In this whimsical play, Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, after being supplanted of his dukedom by his brother, arrives on an island. He frees a spirit named Ariel from a spell and in turn makes the spirit his slave. He also enslaves a native monster named Caliban. These two slaves, Caliban and Ariel, symbolize the theme of nature versus nurture. Caliban is regarded as the representation of the wild; the side that is usually looked down upon. Although from his repulsive behavior, Caliban can be viewed as a detestable beast of nature, it can be reasonably inferred that Shakespeare’s intent was to make Caliban a sympathetic character.
Allan Gilbert’s article summarizes about the multiple parallels that can be found in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. While some of these parallels are more obvious in The Tempest, some require a scholar to fully comprehend them.
When Caliban is first introduced in the play it is as an animal, a lazy beast that tried to rape Prospero’s daughter, Miranda. Prospero wastes no time referring to him as, “Thou poisonous slave, got by the de...
“Absolute natural evil of Caliban in The Tempest in the case of Caliban, it we accept the absoluteness of his natural evil, we must accept what Charney describes as a necessary (and absolute) ‘discontinuity in his character:. . .” (Bloom 128)
The role of language in Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” is quite significant. To Miranda and Prospero the use of language is a means to knowing oneself. Caliban does not view language in the same light. Prospero taught Caliban to speak, but instead of creating the feeling of empowerment from language, Caliban reacts in insurrectionary manner. Language reminds him how different he is from Miranda and Prospero, and also how they have changed him. It also reminds him of how he was when he wasn’t a slave. He resents Prospero for “Civilising” him, because in doing so he took away his freedom.
In this essay I intend to explore the ways that William Shakespeare has presented the relationships between the main characters within his play “The Tempest”. I shall investigate Ferdinand and Miranda’s relationship, the father/daughter bond between Miranda and Prospero and Caliban’s lust after Miranda.
...rospero again. Caliban would never have been born, and Prospero would not have lived to tell his tale. Sycorax also provides the reader with the opportunity to evaluate the potential hidden meanings of the play. Maybe it is a reflection on the North American settlement, or maybe it is to criticise the fascist ideologies. Nevertheless, just because Sycorax is not present in the actual production of the play does not mean her roles can be replaced or ignored, for she is the source of speculations.
Caliban is evil is the fact that he tried to rape Miranda, Prospero’s daughter as states by Barbara Fuchs in her article Conquering Islands: Contextualizing the Tempest where it says, “Caliban’s attack on Prospero’s daughter once more genders the colonizing impulses” (61). This suggests rape and it is not inhuman and it shows that Miranda is not the first woman who this has happen to. It not right, it’s evil. Caliban’s character in this book is horrible in the things that he does, he starting off has an evil monster that was born from an evil parents and he goes around causing trouble wherever he goes. As a servant, he does evil deed and by himself he is evil.
Caliban whom we are told is “not honour’d with a human shape,” (1.2.419) is the son of Sycorax who inhabited the island Prospero was banished to. After the death of his mother, Sycorax, Caliban falls under the rule of Prospero and becomes one his servants. Caliban is very different from Ariel in the fact that while Ariel is pleased to serve under Prospero’s rule, Caliban is not. In fact, we find out that Caliban is far from happy to be Prospero’s servant and even plots with two other men to end Prospero’s life. As we discussed in class Caliban is also more of an angry individual than what Ariel seems to be and this comes from the fact that Caliban believes he is the rightful king of the island and that Prospero had robbed him of what was his, which we find out when he says that he is “subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island” (3.2.40-41). Ariel, who we are told in act one, scene two was the old servant of Caliban’s mother Syco...