Caliban in The Tempest as a Colonized Native
Though
not a major character, Caliban in The
Tempest has become a central attention of the critics and readers of recent
post colonial studies, as Richard P Wheeler (2001: 320) comments,
Many recent readings have rigorously emphasized the
importance of the play’s relation to the colonialist enterprise. (p.320)
Hence,
Caliban is the primary source of evaluating the nature of European colonialism,
because Caliban is presented here as a symbol of a colonized native.
The name of Prospero’s
servant-monster, Caliban, seems to be an anagram or derivative of “Cannibal.”.
In The Tempest,
Caliban suffers the same fate as many New World
natives: He loses control over a domain he thought he ruled, becoming a virtual
slave of Prospero:
As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer,
that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island. (III, 2)
Almost all of the “colonizers” on the island treat
Caliban, the native, as “savage” and a type of meanest creature. Prspero calls
it “Caliban
my slave”,
“slave! Caliban!”(I,2) of “vile race”(I,2) and “savage”( I,2)
and “confin’d into […]his rock”. Even Stephano is surprised to see Caliban at first,
Moreover,
Prospero as a true colonizer begins to civilize, as Prospero considers,
Caliban’s behaviour, culture, and educate him. For his own benefit, Prospero
could teach him his language, and Prospero’s reaction was, “You taught me language;
and my profit on't
For
learning me your language!”(I,2)
I think this is
one of the most famous quotes often applied in post-colonial study which
resembles to Salman Rushdie’s famous words, “the empire writes back to the centre” That is the colonized
respond colonizer’s oppression and authority with the very language, education
and culture of the colonizer.
Work Cited:
Wheeler,
Richard P. “Fantacy and History in The Tempest.” The tempest: critical
essays. Ed. Patrick M. Murphy. Routledge, 2001
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