From the Monster to the Oppres

Although no one knows what Shakespeare intended Caliban to be, it is clear that he used no single idea or figure as Caliban¡¯s model. It is extensively believed that a partial source of the model is the English wild man; however, other claims exist. Etymologically, since the words ¡°cannibal¡± was widely used in Shakespeare¡¯s day, many critics insist that this name suggests the savage¡¯s moral degradation. Some critics believe Caliban¡¯s name is kalebon, an Arabic word for ¡°vile dog¡±. Some argue that it deprives from the gypsy word cauliban, which means ¡°black¡± or

Alden T. Vaughan & Virginia Mason Vaughan, Shakespeare's Caliban: A Culture History, Cambridge University Press, 1991

The shift in Caliban's image from symbol of the oppressor to symbol of the oppressed occured when Latin American scholars began to stress indigenous heritage and emphasized cultural unity. In their interpretations, Prospero became the emblem of the menacing visage of the United States and Caliban took on the exploited Latin Americans. Like the colonized people, they argued, Caliban was disinherited, exploited and subjugated. He was forced to learn a conqueror's language and abandoned his own. He endured enslavement and contempt by European usurpers and eventually rebelled. He was torn between their indigenous culture and the culture superimposed on it by their conquerors. His foreignness and "otherness¡± was emphasized, and his implicit virtues-his innate sensitivity, rough dignity and intelligence were stressed. This identification has remained firmly entrenched in the region's cultural and political rhetoric until new dimensions added: Not only was Prospero the slave owner, Caliban the rebel slave, but Ariel symbolized mulatto slaves. And the reversal in Caliban's role from oppressor to oppressed inevitably led to the personification of evil from Caliban to Prospero. He, the representation of colonials, became a one who tended to be competitive, to crave power, to lack patience and to seek an outlet overseas for their deep insecurities. He treated the people he ruled as objects, as inferiors he could control through the magic of technology, political authority and language. Through language, Prospero controlled Caliban's present and limited his future. Language-deprived Caliban was also blamed for his own linguistic limitations: His warped nature was impervious to nurture's lessons. What he learned just was to curse his own fate and his oppressor's power: He, Caliban, was a linguistic boor.

From the late eighteenth century commentators began to associate The Tempest¡¯s plot, language and characters with Europe¡¯s exploration and colonization of America. At first critics did not take the allusion of Americanization-Caliban plausible although they began to realize there was some links between Shakespeare's play and the travel literature of his day. However, gradually assumptions about The Tempest's relations with American colonization accumulated and "American school¡± of Tempest interpretation began to emerge. Sidney Lee, the famous scholar knighted for his study of Shakespeare's work, firstly connected Prospero's island with Bermuda. By doing so he declared that Caliban was the representation of "the aboriginal American¡±. This view was widely accepted; however, few critics of that day showed sympathy toward Native Americans because they still described Caliban as a wild creature who had developed from a savage into a civilized under Prospero's education, as Native Americans under the white's enigmas.

The universality of the new Caliban metaphor concerned the two late-twentieth-century themes: apartheid in South Africa and French nationalism in Canada. Caliban, as well as Shylock and Othello, became the symbol of "apartheid¡±. They were "driven to reluctant subservience, smouldering hatred and fear, and clandestine schemes of revenge". Thus Caliban effectively represented native populations almost everywhere, especially in Africa, the United States and Australia. French-Canalians also borrowed Caliban's image to emblem their literature by regarding the

Some topics in this essay:
Indian African, Language-deprived Caliban, American Indian, World War, Latin Americans, Caliban Prospero's, American French, Third World, Latin American, Caliban Prospero, american indian, caliban¡¯s name, prospero's language, latin american, caliban american indian, shakespeare¡¯s original, critics argued, view prevalent, caliban's image, african slave, university press,