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The Tempest Research Paper

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During the time of The Tempest, the world was evolving and had become much larger. The Tempest portrays colonialism primarily due to Prospero when he comes to Sycorax’s island and subdues her, rules the land and introduces his own culture on the people of the land. He has full control over everything on the island and makes Caliban works as his servant and calls him of a thing of darkness. Not only does Prospero dehumanise and view Caliban as a subhuman, but views him as inferior. This shows the coloniser’s attitudes looking down on the colonised people, whereby they use words such as knowledge, light, wisdom, to refer to the colonising people, opposed to the terms darkness and ignorance to describe the colonised. The civilising mission of …show more content…

Once being banished along with his daughter Miranda from dukedom of Milan by his brother, Antonio, it can be said that his initial thought of his power had been removed from his hands. Upon arrival on the uninhabited island, Prospero managed to seize power by dispossessing Caliban of his rightful inheritance. Caliban curses Prospero and conspires against him along with Stephano and Trinculo to murder Prospero. The other side of power in The Tempest is through the forms of the supernatural and the spiritual. Throughout Prospero’s quest for his supernatural power, he had neglected his worldly duties in Milan, not only to be banished by his brother not long after. Determined in continuing his studies on magic on the uninhabited island with the help from the books of Gonzalo along with providing a boat taking him to the island, he freed Ariel from his torment as he was imprisoned in a cloven oak tree by the Witch Sycorax and turn Caliban into a tormented monster. This embodies the spiritual or supernatural powers ultimately leading to temporal …show more content…

There had been no change in Caliban’s nature. Through Prospero’s actions displays how white men is stuck in an illusion that they are working for them. However, through this notion, Prospero has failed as Caliban strictly refused to learn the language, even at the end of the play.“You taught me language, and my profit on’t is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you for learning me your language!” (Shakespeare, I.ii) The speech delivered by Caliban towards Prospero and Miranda, shows a concise form of the vexed relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. Prospero’s narrative is one in which Caliban is still ungrateful for the help and hopes of growth in civilisation. Language on the other hand to Prospero and Miranda is a form of knowledge itself, and Caliban has in their view shown nothing but scorn for this gift. Self-knowledge to Caliban is however not empowering as it is a constant reminder of how he is different to Prospero and Miranda and their constant push to change his identity. Ultimately, Caliban’s only wish is for his identity separated from the ones who had invaded his home and to use what they have given them against them. This shows the resistance of the dominating class where Caliban is protesting the colonisers, which in a way interprets the play in a post-colonial

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