Caliban was not always a slave, in fact his mother Sycorax had been banished to the island after which Caliban was born. Sycorax died when Caliban was young and never really taught him any communication skills. Prospero tried to befriend Caliban by teaching him to talk and including him into his own family in order to gain his affections and trust. Caliban is distinguished by his inability to communicate which causes him to be unable to move beyond the position in which Prospero has placed him. This changes when Miranda choses to teach Caliban the power of language, and he tries to violate her saying “I pitied thee/Took pains to make thee speak/taught thee each hour/ One thing or other/When thou didst not, savage, /Know thy own meaning/but wouldst gabble like /A thing most brutish/ I endow'd thy purposes /With words that made them known.” (Act 1 Scene 2, 353-58) …show more content…
This is a pointless act because the island only consists of three people for twelve years, but it allows Prospero to have what he considers justified superiority over someone. Even though Prospero is the only one who gains from Caliban’s work, “But, as ’tis,/We cannot miss him/He does make our fire/Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices/That profit us.” (1.2.313–16). The message here is that the members of a lower caste of society can never truly join the higher. Their membership only degrades high