A Tempest Postcolonial Lens Essay

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Anything written with a postcolonial lens will have a racist twist, or at least focus on the external traits. Aime Cesaire’s A Tempest paid specific detail to the characters having black attributes. However, in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest it does not put much emphasis on the color of the characters, but their roles in the play. Caliban is only a prisoner and not described by color as well as Ariel who is only mentioned as Prospero’s spirit servant. Aime Cesaire's A Tempest is putting great emphasis on the racial aspect between the characters. In this version of the play, Caliban is known as the black slave. He is talked down upon by Prospero who calls him a “monster”. Ariel on the other hand is a spirit servant,

Cesaire’s Caliban is blatantly degraded, he is called names that are not tolerable in present times. Since he is a full black human, he is veered as someone who is barely human, almost animalistic, and a beast. Caliban in Cesaires play also gives him a name for himself, referring to Malcolm X. He is using a persons name to represent an entire race. Shakespeare’s Caliban represents a land that is being colonized and enslaved by another country, not so much a different race. The people in Shakespeare’s play would have to get accustomed to new customs that Prospero would instill in them. Cesaires Caliban is involving something bigger, race. The concept is the same in both plays, it’s to be colonized. The racist affects that Cesaire implies throughout the play involving Caliban take the play to a deeper and a relatable level. The degrading factors throughout both plays were evident and obvious, but the degree of the degrading definitely varied. Cesaires Caliban was spoken to like a postcolonial slave, where racial slurs were popular to use. On the other hand, Shakespeare’s Caliban was degraded the way an author would depict it. Cesaires choices of derogatory words made his version as up to date, somewhat relatable and as realistic as can