caliban Flashcards
prospero and caliban
Caliban showed him friendship, and in return Prospero educated Caliban. But Caliban eventually came to realize that Prospero would never view him as more than an educated savage.
“Thou strok’st me and made much of me”
caliban’s feelings
Though capable of sensitivity and eloquence, Caliban mainly shows a bitter and angry side of his character
cannibal
Caliban’s name is a near anagram for the world “cannibal,”
language
“You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse.”
bedfellows
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
isles of noises
“a thousand twangling instruments”
“The clouds methought would open, and show riches”
Caliban’s language and demeanor are gentle and lyrical, expressing a heartfelt love for the island. The speech makes it difficult to see Caliban as a brutal savage, and emphasizes the depth of his human desire for freedom and autonomy.
darkness
“thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine”
It’s unclear whether Prospero’s comment about Caliban suggests that he sees him as his property, or that he takes some responsibility for what has happened to Caliban.
Prospero and Miranda call him
“poisonous slave,” “monster”, “A thing most brutish”
Prospero first befriended Caliban, educated him, and then enslaved him is similar to methods of European explorers
” “human care”
savage
“savage”
comes from the French word ‘sauvage’ meaning wild - Caliban is “the epitome of all things natural” - Joanna Williams
torture
Caliban describes in vivid language the various torments Prospero uses to subdue and punish him. These examples supply motivation for the murder plot Caliban will devise in the next act.
“bite me”
“pricks at my footfall”
“wound with adders”
Caliban and S+T
Trinculo’s instinct to capture and sell the “strange fish” reflects the desire common among Europeans in Shakespeare’s time to exploit the people living in lands visited by European explorers and colonized by European nations.
violence towards Prospero
“batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, or cut his wezand with they knife”
planned to murder Prospero
Prospero’s attitude to slavery
Prospero’s remark about Caliban that certain races are naturally indecent and inferior. This rationale was a common justification for colonization and slavery.
“a born devil, on whose nature nurture can never stick”
Caliban’s naivete
it’s hard not to pity Caliban’s ignorant naiveté when he curses himself for worshipping Stephano
“What a thrice-double ass was I to take this drunkard for a god and worship this dull fool!”
Concept of ‘the other’
process by which society excludes ‘others’ whom they want to subordinate or who do not fit into their society
the concept of ‘otherness’
people construct roles for themselves in relation to an ‘other’
