The Tempest – Colonialism

“Colonialism is a way to be dominant , which involves having power or overtake powers from other people. Colonialism always involves political and economic control over a dependent territory. The term colony was found from the Latin word Colonus, that means farmer. “This root reminds us that the practice of colonialism usually involved the transfer of population to a new territory, where the arrivals lived as permanent settlers while maintaining political allegiance to their country of origin.” Negritude is a Caribbean ideological and a movement of the first half of the twentieth century that “brought together black French-speaking writers who proposed the recognition of the identity of the black man before the metropolitan policies of cultural assimilation.” Negritude also had a political character: its expression translated first the rejection of Antillean or African intellectuals to the contempt they always suffered from the white world, as individuals and as representatives of the colonized peoples. These intellectuals demonstrated against racism, but also against capitalist, materialist, rationalist and Christian values, all of which had consented to the injustice of slavery and colonization.

Prospero, Duke of Milan, was stripped of power by his brother Antonio, put in a boat and delivered at the mercy of the waves with his daughter Miranda. Prospero landed on a desert island in which the “sorceress Sycorax” had been banished. Thanks to his magical arts, Prospero freed several spirits imprisoned by the magician, among them Ariel, and submitted them to his orders. He now has at his service the son of the sorceress, Caliban, a monstrous, abject and naive creature who is the only inhabitant of the island. Prospero and his daughter Miranda have lived this way for twelve years. A ship in which the usurper Antonio travels, his ally Alonso, king of Naples, and Fernando, son of the latter, is shipwrecked on the coasts of the island due to the enchantments of Prospero.

The passengers are saved, but they believe that Fernando has died, while Fernando thinks that the others have drown. They meet Fernando and Miranda, they fall in love as soon as they see each other, and they promise each other. Ariel, by order of Prospero, prepares some scares for Antonio and Alonso. Antonio is struck down by terror, and Alonso repents of his cruelty, reconciles himself with Prospero and recovers his son Fernando. The ship is saved by the force of the spells, and Prospero and the others prepare to leave the island, after Prospero has renounced magic by getting rid of his magic wand. The island is in the power of Caliban.

The many scenes in which caliban presents himself with Esteban, a drunken dispenser, and with the buffoon Trinculo; is someone who behavior is a source of to entertain to others people by acting ridiculous, preserve the seal of the commedia dell’arte, which is its main source; he also has remnants of the commedia the comic contrast between the perfidy of the usurper Antonio, who lost the dukedom to Prospero, and the conspiracy of Caliban, which promises Esteban and Trinculo the dominion of the island if they kill their hated master. On the other hand, the gloomy impression that the group of the shipwrecked perfidious could produce is mitigated by the loquacious frankness of the good old counselor Gonzalo.

The relationship between Prospero and Caliban is a perfect match prospero could be interpreted as the” creator” and Caliban as an “unsophisticated” or unfinished spirit. On the other hand, the master can be seen as the “possessor” of the Greek logos, while his slave as a creature incapable of conquering that privilege. Also, we can identify parallels in the circumstances that accompany both the magician and his captive. If we see Prospero – at least in certain aspects – as Shakespeare’s alter ego, Caliban could be taken as a dark being from the imagination of the bard, who nevertheless is necessary to complete the substance of this work. Through an even more audacious interpretation and from a Freudian point of view, Prospero and Caliban represent different levels of consciousness, the first being the superego, and the second the id. All these perspectives will be analyzed throughout this article, in the understanding that the last word cannot be said regarding one of the works of greater richness and complexity created by the genius of Shakespeare.”

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