The Character Caliban in The Tempest

Terri Tims

Dr. Michael

English 5303 VC01

17 October 2013

“What have we here, a man or a fish?”: Caliban in The Tempest

For a character with only 180 lines in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, Caliban has drawn much attention and much debate (Vaughan 137).  What does the character represent?  Is he Shakespeare’s depiction of a Native American or a natural beast (Bulger 41)?  Is Caliban a picture of each person’s struggle between passion and reason (Cox 33) or good behavior and bad behavior (Schneider 131)?  Could Caliban be a justification of slavery (Cohen 169) or could he be an Everyman figure who proves the need for good governance (Willis 282)?  Truly, “The play is too large to look at through the knothole of colonialist discourse” (Schneider 140), and those who become blinded to Caliban’s multi-faceted nature by the neat package of colonialism miss many other possible messages in The Tempest.

Much of the proof that is given to support the claim that Shakespeare was referring to British efforts to colonize America in The Tempest comes from a comparison of writings about journeys to the New World and the play.  Cawley, in his 1926 article, makes an in-depth comparison of several accounts of travels to the New World, events in England, and The Tempest. For example, Cawley points out similarities between Prospero’s (and perhaps Stephano’s) education of Caliban and the British education of the Native American: “This concern with sun and moon and worship of white men as god are definite reflections of the voyagers’ accounts” (717).   Cawley claims that Shakespeare was criticizing colonizers of the New World because they “were not intellectually honest enough to confess their real purpose.  He saw clearly that much of what the white man taught his red brother was of a deleterious nature” (716).  Though Stephano’s education of Caliban, particularly in the benefits of wine, could be seen as deleterious, much of Prospero’s education of Caliban was sincerely for Caliban’s benefit, though it later became part of Caliban’s slavery.  Cawley also points out that Stephano’s plan to tame and exhibit Caliban (2.2.76-79) is reminiscent of other natives who were brought to England and displayed, “From the time a Brazilian cacique was exhibited at the court of Henry VIII, it was regular practice to exhibit Indians in London” (720).  Cawley’s arguments are convincing, and they in fact served to continue the building of the foundation of “the Americanization of The Tempest” (Vaughan 144) that had begun in the end of the nineteenth century (Vaughan 139). 

However, as neat a package as the idea of The Tempest as a commentary on British colonialism in the New World seems to make, is that conclusion true, or does it simply seem to make the most sense to modern readers and viewers of the play?  Schneider reminds us that often, as we look back on literature, we become so wrapped up in an understanding of the piece in our own time that we forget the author’s world view (127).  As Vaughan so aptly noted, “If Shakespeare, however obliquely, meant Caliban to personify America’s natives, his intention apparently miscarried almost completely for nearly three centuries” (138).  In fact, “We have no ‘external’ evidence that seventeenth century audiences thought the play referred to the New World” (Skura 48).  Added to this uncertainty over early audiences’ interpretation of the play’s focus is Prospero’s action of freeing Caliban and leaving the island at the end of the play.  These actions go against everything colonial (Cox 44), especially the British attitude during the early years of British colonialism when Shakespeare wrote The Tempest.

Much of recent commentary on non-colonialist interpretations of The Tempest can be divided into two camps: interpretations that craft the play as a message about human nature and interpretations that carry a more political message.  Sometimes the distinction between the two types of messages is blurred.

Perhaps Shakespeare is using The Tempest to explore issues that are common to every person.  In the character of Caliban, we see a childlike being, who, as he matures, must be denied his desires by society.  As Skura points out, Caliban’s childishness is seen in his thoughts of his mother, his dreams of wealth, and his love of learning (64).  All readers and viewers of the play can relate to the anger of Caliban as his ideal state of childhood is subjected to the responsibilities of maturity.  “Childhood is the period in which anyone- even the most powerful Elizabethan aristocrat- can experience the slave’s side of the master/slave relation, its indignities and the dreams of reversal and revenge it can imbue” (Skura 64).  Shakespeare may have been particularly drawn to this subject as he wrote The Tempest late in his life as he looked retrospectively over a lifetime of experiences.  Perhaps the plight of Caliban is so stirring because it is common to all humanity, and Caliban’s anger is the anger from which none of us ever fully recover: “For those who rage against the dying of the light, it is a crisis that awakens the old infantile narcissistic demand for endless fulfillment and the narcissistic rage and vengefulness against a world that denies such satisfactions” (Skura 67).  Caliban is the frustrated child in all of us, and therefore, we love him and sympathize with him.

Another more individually focused way of looking at The Tempest is in terms of the rules of behavior in relationships.  Schneider makes the point that Elizabethan audiences were familiar with “the vast ocean of moral discourse on which Shakespeare’s plays float” (131), but too often modern critics forget that discussions of morality and right behavior were ubiquitous in Shakespeare’s society.  In The Tempest, we see Prospero portrayed as an angry man who cannot control his own emotion but attempts to control others (133).  Throughout the play, Prospero struggles with his anger at Caliban, but Schneider explains that through the action of the play, Prospero learns “that a cruel master cannot ever have the joy of a willing servant” (137).  Prospero is also able to overcome his anger at Alonso, and through a mutual giving of their children in marriage, “this ancient ritual of gift exchange signifies peace between them” (Schneider 136), may finally bring peace.  Shakespeare has used The Tempest to remind his audience of moral lessons about maintaining relationships.  In the end, “The poet says good-bye and good luck.  He has shown the audience what they are capable of (both good and evil).  Now they’re on their own” (Schneider 139).  The audience leaves the play not contemplating a confusing message about British colonialism but instead content in the reaffirmation of moral lessons with which they were already familiar.

Along with these personal messages in the play, Shakespeare could also be giving his audiences political messages about the rights and responsibilities of governors and those who are governed.  Perhaps one of the most obvious political dynamics in the play is that of slavery.  In The Tempest, we see Ariel and Caliban as two types of slaves, with Caliban being the slave who never willingly accedes to Prospero’s commands (Cohen 161) and Ariel who submits to Prospero upon the promise that he will be freed (Cohen 162).  Shakespeare is making statements here about slavery, its costs to the slave, and the meaning of submission or lack of submission in some slave/owner relationships.  Perhaps Shakespeare could also be analyzing whether slavery is ever justified as “Prospero seems to have a stake in demonstrating Caliban’s slave-worthiness.  He constantly adverts to the justice of Caliban’s low social position on the island by reference to his unfitness for human company” (169).  However, as we have seen before, the audience sympathizes with Caliban.  Shakespeare’s statement on slavery may be that subjugated peoples are still people and that no matter how base or unrefined, no one deserves to be enslaved.

However, the baseness in people does need to be controlled before it becomes a threat to the order of civilization.  Bulger shows us that not only in Caliban but also in Stephano and Trinculo. We see “a dimension of human nature that cannot be eradicated or educated and therefore must be curbed” (42).  Shakespeare’s audience would be very familiar with this type of individual, the rabble-rouser who seems to look for opportunities to destroy the peace rather than maintain it.  For Cox ,the figure of  “a merely bestial Caliban, whose lawless impulses require the control of royal knowledge and power, is a potent image of lawless commoners who were likely to run amok and assassinate their royal lord, as the English commons had done in 1649 (41).  Though Shakespeare’s play was performed in 1611, the rumblings of political dissatisfaction were ever present in England, as in most societies, and Shakespeare’s audience would have easily seen in Caliban, as well as Stephano and Trinculo, the types of individuals who stirred political dissent and who “can only be controlled, because they are inherently destructive, but that can never be expected to change, at least for the better” (Cox 33).

Peace and prosperity are the desire of the populace in most every age, and Elizabethan England is no exception.  The “masterless man” (Brown 52) must be kept in check.  England of this time period was going through enough political and socio-economic change without the threat of revolution brought about by malcontents.  As Flagstad points out, England was moving from the Middle Ages, and facing the dissolution of the feudal system and the arrival of mercantile capitalism (226).  The contrast between order and disorder represented in The Tempest would have been particularly meaningful to audiences of the time period. 

Along with possibly embodying his audience’s apprehension over economic changes going on in society, Shakespeare’s The Tempest may also speak to the political uncertainty of the time based on the natures of “factious and rebellious aristocrats” (Willis 286). Willis makes the very strong argument that Caliban is not the “threatening ‘other’” (279) in the play, and that in fact “the play invites us to sympathize with and to laugh at Caliban, but not to perceive him as a real threat” (279).  In reality, according to Willis, the real threat and the threat that the audience would have most recognized in the play is Antonio.  “His (Antonio’s) overreaching aggression is simultaneously an act of rebellion against the state and a betrayal of family bonds” (281).  Shakespeare’s audience could relate to being at the whim of aristocratic families who could manipulate war and peace, prosperity or ruin, all through their own desires for power and their own willingness or unwillingness to get along.  Shakespeare shows his audience that “Antonio clearly would be a much worse ‘master’ than Prospero, and the audience is encouraged to feel that a controlling authority is needed to contain his overreaching” (Willis 282).  Shakespeare could be saying that the ruler on the throne is better for the audience than the ruler they do not know. The underlying message could be seen as “Support the monarch to maintain peace and prosperity.”

Through all of these various interpretations of the action of the play and the character of Caliban, it is clear that focusing solely on the issue of colonialism in interpreting the play ignores other meaningful messages the play has for viewers and readers.  Perhaps Shakespeare did have a comment to make about colonialism, but perhaps we should follow Willis’ advice that “Rather than a failed attempt to endorse a vaguely defined colonialism unequivocally, the play should be understood as an extremely successful endorsement of the core’s political order” (280).  Surely, the king, an important sponsor to have, would have appreciated Shakespeare’s confirmation of the rightness of kingly rule. 

In the end, when we look at the character of Caliban, we see a figure who

crosses several boundaries: half-human, half-devil, or perhaps half-human, half-fish; abnormal mentally and physically; savage, ‘strange beast’ and ‘mooncalf.’  As ‘wild man,’ he is also a composite, possessing qualities of the ‘noble savage’ as well as the monster.  He is capable of learning language, of forming warm attachments; he is sensitive to beauty and music; he speaks- like the aristocratic characters- in the rhythms of verse, in contrast to the prose of Stephano and Trinculo; he can follow a plan and reason; yet he is also physically deformed, ‘vile’, credulous, and capable of rape and brutality. (Willis 284)

In this character, everyone who experiences The Tempest can see some aspect of him or herself.  Had Shakespeare been solely creating a figure who represented the object of British colonialism, he could have much more plainly and obviously created such a character. However, in the art of Shakespeare, the art that takes one word or object and makes it possible for that word or object to represent so much more to so many more people, Shakespeare gave us Caliban, so that we can see ourselves, our neighbors, other citizens of the world, and our rulers, and understand each more.

                                                        Works Cited

Brown, Paul. “'This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine': The Tempest and the Discourse of

Colonialism.” Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism. Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1985, 48-71. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Bulger, Thomas. "The Utopic Structure of The Tempest." Utopian Studies. 1 (1994): 38-47. JSTOR Arts & Sciences VIII. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Cawley, Robert Ralston. “Shakspeare's Use of the Voyagers in The Tempest.” PMLA .41(3) (1926): 688-726.  Modern Language Association. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Cohen, Derek. "The Culture of Slavery: Caliban and Ariel. (Characters In William Shakespeare's Play 'The Tempest')." The Dalhousie Review. 2 (1996): 153-175. Web. 16 Oct. 2013

Cox, John D. "Recovering Something Christian about The Tempest." Christianity and Literature. 50.1 (2000): 31-51. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.

Flagstad, Karen. "'Making This Place Paradise': Prospero and the Problem of Caliban in The Tempest." Shakespeare Studies. 18 (1986): 205-233. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.

Schneider, Ben Ross, Jr. "'Are We Being Historical Yet?': Colonialist Interpretations Of Shakespeare's Tempest." Shakespeare Studies. 23. (1995): 120-145. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 8 Oct. 2013.

Shakespeare, William. "The Tempest." The Necessary Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Longman, 2014. 849-878. Print.

Skura, Meredith Anne. "Discourse and the Individual: The Case of Colonialism in The Tempest." William Shakespeare: “The Tempest”: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. 286-322. Boston, MA: Bedford, 2000. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 Oct. 2013.

Vaughan, Alden T. “Shakespeare's Indian: The Americanization of Caliban.” Shakespeare Quarterly. 39: 2 (1988): 137-153. JSTOR. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.     

Willis, Deborah. "Shakespeare's Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism." William Shakespeare: “The Tempest”: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. 256-268. Boston, MA: Bedford, 2000. MLA Interna