Similarities of themes in “The Tempest” and Colonization of the 16th Century
Shakespeare’s literature, although used solely as entertainment during the 16th century, allows students of the modern day a window into what the society of the 16th century was like: an example is how his play, the tempest portrayed people’s views of colonialism. The tempest tells the story of Prospero, former Duke of Milan, exiled to an island inhabited by Caliban, who was portrayed as a monster in the play. Throughout the story, more characters arrive on the island and their interactions are an accurate reflection of the 16th century. The relationship between the different characters portrayed in William Shakespeare's play “The Tempest” with the idea of man vs monster
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To begin with, Prospero and Miranda view Caliban as a monster, however, readers were shown Caliban’s own logical perspective on how Prospero and Miranda infiltrated his territory.
Miranda, believing that Caliban is a monster because he attempted to rape her, said, “Being capable of all ill, I pitied thee, took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour...though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures could not be abide to be with. Therefore wast thou deservedly confined into this rock, who hadst deserved more than a prison.” (39, Shakespeare). Miranda believes that since she taught the monster how to speak, he should to pay her back, however, his actions of trying to rape Miranda shows that he is nothing but an ill-minded monster, and should be locked up to prevent harm. However, from another point of view, Caliban was living fine by himself when Prospero and Miranda stepped into his territory and forced
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Trinculo and Stephano, although having the same goal as Caliban, never viewed Caliban as one of them; their image of Caliban always remained as a primitive creature. Stephano, when he first saw Caliban, said, “Have we devils here? Do you put tricks upon with savages of men of Ind, ha? I have not ‘scaped drowning to be afeard now of your four legs.”(103, Shakespeare). This shows that Stephano and Trinculo were quick to judge Caliban simply because of his appearance, and throughout the play, always associated Caliban with terms such as monster. E ven after the three agreed on the same goal to kill Prospero, Caliban was still treated as nothing more than a monster. For example, Stephano said, “Monster, lay to your fingers. Help to bear this away where my hogshead of wine is, or I’ll turn you out of my kingdom. Go to, carry this.” After all of their interactions, and even after Caliban offered them resources of the island as well as a well devised plan to kill Prospero, Stephano still addresses Caliban as a monster and uses him as a slave. In addition, Stephano and Trinculo claims to be superior to Caliban although Caliban was crucial to help them kill Prospero. Caliban, on the other hand, viewed them as gods, as saviors who came to the island to free him from Prospero. He addresses them as kings,
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.
Except for his plot to kill Prospero, which can be explained as his vengeance for years of torment, the crime used to justify this torment is that Caliban had once sought “to violate / the honour” of Miranda (1.2.348-349). While this is indeed a heavy charge against him, this reaction can be traced to others’ visceral reaction to his form. Caliban justifies his attempt to rape Miranda as an effort to populate the island by revealing “Thou didst prevent me. I had peopled else/ the isle with Calibans” (1.2.350-351). The tone of this response does not show the beast’s inclination to propagate for propagation’s sake nor to violate for the sake of pure malice. Caliban wants to people the island, which he considers his own, with more of himself. It is a reaction to loneliness, a reaction that defies a cognition, not only that he is unique in his appearance, but also that his appearance makes him the “Other” in normal people’s eyes. This urge to reclaim his own, moreover, comes from the understanding that Prospero has disenfranchised him. One must note, moreover, whether his crime fits the punishment that has been bestowed upon him. While he tried to rape Miranda, the others had plotted to kill both Miranda and Prospero. Still, Prospero forgives the others, but not him. In fact, Prospero could have simply exiled Caliban from his presence and his daughter’s, given that he has the magic to do so. Instead, he enslaves Caliban and expends magic to torture him constantly. The only difference between Caliban and the others is that he does not bow down to Prospero’s
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.
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.
Caliban is, of course, the "salvage and deformed slave" of Shakespeare's dramatis personae in The Tempest, son of the deceased witch Sycorax, servant of the mage Prospero, consort of and bootlicker for Stephano and Trinculo, failed plotters and drunken buffoons. "As disproportion'd in his manners / As in his shape" (V.i.290-1), he has tried to ravish Prospero's daughter Miranda before being exiled to his cave, and in the course of the play attempts to overthrow Prospero himself and install Stephano on the throne of the island. At last, though, Duke Prospero comes to pardon even Caliban -- "This thing of darkness I / acknowledge mine" (V.i.275-6), and his drudge promises to "be wise hereafter, / and seek for grace" (V.i.294-5) or favor with his master.
Since the 1960s, several critics have found a critique of colonialism in their respective readings of Shakespeare's The Tempest. The most radical of these analyses takes Prospero to be a European invader of the magical but primitive land that he comes to rule, using his superior knowledge to enslave its original inhabitants, most notably Caliban, and forcing them to do his bidding. While the textual clues concerning the geographic location of Prospero's island are ambiguous and vague, there is a prominent references to the "Bermoothes." We know that shortly before he wrote his final play, Shakespeare read a contemporary travel account of the Virginia Company's 1609 expedition to the New World and its experience after being run aground on the island of Bermuda. Enslavement does surface in Prospero's realm. The grand magician/scholar inflicts "pinches" and "cramps" upon Caliban to keep him in line and he manacles the young prince Ferdinand's neck and feet together. The servile state in which he keeps Caliban is plainly and understandably a cause of the "ridiculous monster's" deep resentment toward his overlord, and it is with some justification that the spawn of Sycorax invokes nature's wrath upon his tormentor, as in his curse, "all the infections that the sun sucks up/From bogs, fens, flats on Prospero fall..." (II, ii., ll.1-2).
The first charge against Caliban is his shape. Prospero beckons him come by shouting, "What ho! Slave, Caliban!/ Thou earth, thou, speak!...Come thou tortoise!" Prospero does not even deign to place him among humankind; instead he is called "earth" as if he is part of the very ground-- the dirt that Prospero rules. Later, Trinculo calls him "A strange fish" and Stephano refers to him as a "monster of the isle with four legs." (2,2) Indeed, Caliban is never spoken of without some dehumanizing adjective added to the address. I would, however like to challenge the notion of his ugliness. During Shakespeare's day, there was a very narrow, very specific concept of beauty. For example, a woman was usually considered most beautiful if she was very fair. This showed that she was not exposed to the sun through any type of common labor and thus signified her gentility. To most of Elizabethan England, this concept of beauty was the only concept of beaut...
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...
This means that from a modern perspective, Prospero’s treatment of Caliban makes him a monster, due to the cruelty of his actions. The human want of justice, however, can justify the poor treatment of Caliban by Prospero, given that his status as slave is a punishment for the attempted rape of Prospero’s daughter. In this way, Prospero is not a monster, only a man seeking justice for a perceived wrong. Stephano and Trinculo are ignorant to the evils that make Caliban a monster independent of his appearance, making their actions towards Caliban inexcusable. Upon seeing Caliban, Trinculo states, “Were I in England now… and had but [Caliban] painted, not a holiday-fool there but would give a piece of silver.” (Act 2, Scene 2). Trinculo jests about the worth of Caliban, as if he were no more than a strange creature to take and sell. Stephano is no different in his first appraisal of Caliban, “If I can recover him, and keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he’s a present for any emperor…” (Act 2, Scene 2). Stephano, like Trinculo, plans to take Caliban away from his native Isle and sell him for a profit. This assessment of his worth comes from little more than a first glance at his person, selling a person for material gain is an act of evil, and considering it as seriously as both Trinculo and Stephano did, makes them not so much men as monsters. This assessment, however, is a product of modern perspective, and it puts into question the intentions of Shakespeare as to the portrayal of these three characters. In an earlier Shakespearean text, Macbeth, the character that exemplifies man, Macduff, says to Macbeth, “We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted on a pole, and underwrit, ‘Here may you see the tyrant.’” (Act 5, Scene 8) This shows that the displaying of monsters as exhibits is not rare, and nor is it frowned upon by the general public. This would mean that perspectives of
Caliban was a native of the island and inherited from his mother too before Prospero began his conquest. Once Prospero took over, Caliban became his slave. Once Caliban had succumbed to a greater force, he was demeaned as often times dictators of an official language are used in the “conquest of native peoples” (Schneider Jr.). This was portrayed as Calibans character was seen as uncivilized and animal-like. As a result, the characters of Prospero, Stephano, and trinculo attributed derogatory names to Caliban such as monster, mooncalf, strange fish, and demi-devil (Shakespeare).
Prospero appears to be a ruthless tyrant that strikes fear into Caliban to make him work but further on in the text we learn that this is not the case. Caliban's foul-mouthed insults,
This fuels Caliban hatred for Prospero, showing that he wasn’t raised right by Prospero. The way that Miranda treated him would be better, as she taught him how to speak and understand the human language, in a nice polite manner. Prospero on the other hand, has demonstrated his forceful bargainings on Caliban, with much disrespect and disregard for how Caliban feels. Caliban didn’t mean to become this way, if he was treated better, in the beginning, hatred wouldn't be such a prominent emotion.
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.
Prospero describes him as “A freckled whelp, hagborn - not honoured with / A human shape” (1.2.285-286). Shakespeare never gave us any exact physical trait of Caliban, meaning that he wanted the readers to view him in their own perspective based off of their interpretation. Throughout the play, we do learn more and more of his appearance from Stefano and Trinculo, who both describe Caliban as less than human. Shakespeare obviously didn’t give exact traits away in the play because he wanted the readers to imagine him from a clear mind, and have it not be based off of traits that he was described as. But, it is not Caliban’s appearance that makes Caliban seem like a monster in Prospero’s eyes, but it was his attack on Miranda that led to his enslavement and change in social position on the island.
Prospero’s trust is broken with Caliban because he tried to rape Miranda. There is no evidence of rape, however Miranda was the only female on the island practically supports the idea. Caliban being a natural creature he would not know the different in societies rule against sexual engagement. Prospero learns from his second betrayal, apparently tyrannical state is revealed in verbal abuse ...