Do you believe that Shakespeare intended the audience to share Prospero's view of Caliban?

Essay on Shakespeare’s, The Tempest

“A Devil, a born devil, on whose nature,

Nurture can never stick” (IV, i, 189,190)

Do you believe that Shakespeare intended the audience to share Prospero’s view of Caliban?

I feel that through out the Tempest Caliban is portrayed as a dislikeable ‘creature’. However I personally think that the audience is supposed to learn to love him by the end as slowly we are told of all his good points.

In the Tempest we meet many characters, the first on the island being Prospero. Before Prospero we meet characters like Boatswain and Master, as well as Antonio. We are not sure at the start whether we like them or not as we haven’t been with them for a very long time. However as soon as we meet Prospero we are told the story of his past and sympathise with him. We also start to trust him, as we all believe beyond question his story of his and Miranda’s flight to the island. This principle is aided by the way Miranda believes everything without a doubt and as she is attractive our immediate thought is to trust her. This is our first instance showing just how important appearances actually are. From all this we start to abhor Antonio and all the others Prospero mentions except Gonzalo as he is described as “A noble Neapolitan”. So after the first two scenes we all ready have complete trust in Prospero, so therefore when we hear him describe another character like this:

“Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth.” (I, ii, 319,320)

This strong description of someone obviously disliked by a man we all trust makes us dislike him too. We are also alarmed when we first see Caliban as he is a monster and is not a nice thing to look at. This triggers the same prejudice as the one triggered with Miranda but it works in reverse, due to Caliban’s appearance we dislike him, even though we know nothing about him. Shakespeare probably used this technique as at that time in history people were judged by their appearance and treated well or badly depending on this. Shakespeare may have also used this as it brought in some current issues of the time.

As the play goes on we learn a big fault of Caliban’s. We realise that before the play he decided to rape Miranda, however he was unsuccessful. Caliban admits this by quoting:

“O ho, O ho, would’t be done!

Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else

This isle with Caliban’s.” (I, ii, 349-351)

This gives Prospero and us what seems on the surface a good reason to loathe Caliban. However when you look in to this fact in more detail you realise that it is actually natural for any animal to do this, even though it may seem unacceptable by ...

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As the play goes on we learn a big fault of Caliban’s. We realise that before the play he decided to rape Miranda, however he was unsuccessful. Caliban admits this by quoting:

“O ho, O ho, would’t be done!

Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else

This isle with Caliban’s.” (I, ii, 349-351)

This gives Prospero and us what seems on the surface a good reason to loathe Caliban. However when you look in to this fact in more detail you realise that it is actually natural for any animal to do this, even though it may seem unacceptable by human standards. This way that we judge Caliban is unfair as he is not human and neither was his parentage. His mother was an outcast witch so you could argue that he doesn’t know any better, however you could also say the opposite as in the play Caliban says “You taught me language...”. From this you can easily and convincingly say that if Caliban can learn a language; which is hard to do, he can learn what is right and what is wrong. From this the nature/nurture argument can really start. I personally feel that if you spend a long time in life doing what is natural (like Caliban did) you can never really be judged by human standards even if someone human has ‘nurtured’ you. Therefore personally I don’t think that this rape makes Caliban a bad being as he did what was natural to him and he didn’t understand the consequences. He probably felt that he had the right to do this as when Prospero and Miranda came to the island Caliban showed them where all the food, drink and shelter was. He worshipped them and helped them to settle in to island life.

“…Thou strok’st me and made much of me; wouldst thou give me

Water with berries in’t; and teach me how

To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night. And then I loved thee,

And showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,

The fresh springs, the brine pits, barren place and fertile;”

(I, ii, 333-348)

This speech proves what Caliban did for Prospero and makes me think that Prospero may have died without Caliban’s help and therefore Caliban must have some kindness in him. However Caliban makes his mistake now. This is that he raped Miranda, but as he helped Prospero could have thought that he had the right to own some of Prospero’s property, and in the time that the play was written in, women were the property of their fathers and then husbands.

By the time we meet Stephano and Trinculo we see a new side of Caliban. In the scene when we first see them we realise that they are in fact drunkard fools. We first think that Caliban is very gullible as he starts to worship Stephano and swears to “kiss thy foot”. This shows his absolute devotion to people. Some might say that he is dependant on others, yet I disagree. I feel that he is capable of being independent, in spite of that he prefers to be around other people for companionship, as he gets lonely. His kindness is also shown as he says to Stephano:

“I’ll show thee the best spring. I’ll pluck thee berries.

I’ll fish for thee and get thee wood enough.

A plague upon the tyrant that I serve;

I’ll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,

Thou wondrous man.” (II, ii, 161-165)

This speech shows that what he did when Prospero came to the island was not a one off incident for Caliban to do. In these lines he talks about showing Stephano where the best springs are and about fetching wood. This is very kind as often even ‘tamed’ human beings aren’t this kind. At this point the audience start to like Caliban. However during this quote we realise how intelligent Caliban actually is:

“The dropsy drown this fool. What do you mean

To dote on thus luggage? Let’t alone,

And do the murder first. If he awake,

From toe to crown he’ll fill our skin with pinches,

Make us strange stuff. (IV, i, 229-233)

This is taken from the part of the play when Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo are going to murder Prospero. This shows Caliban’s intelligence as in the cave he is not fooled by the rich garments and senses that they are a trick. This shows his intelligence is above Stephano’s and Trinculo’s as they are fooled by the clothing. This makes the audience actually start to respect Caliban. We also see his intelligence when he feel that to kill Prospero they must obtain his books as with them he is a threat and without them he is not.

From the lines at the top of this essay (“A devil……….never stick”[IV, i, 189-190]) we can really understand one of the plays main themes. This is of course the nature/nurture argument. This is based on the fact that even though Prospero has supposedly tamed Caliban he feels that he has been unsuccessful. He feels this as Caliban really still relies on his natural instincts, even though he has supposedly been nurtured. Prospero feels that this is bad and that to be considered good and liked by people you must have been nurtured. You can however argue that even though Caliban relies on his natural instincts he is infact better than Antonio. This is true as Antonio is planning to kill Alonso and he has already overthrown Prospero and basically left him for dead. These deeds have all been achieved by planning and scheming, and not by natural instincts like all of Caliban’s deeds have been. This was an argument that was being debated at the time of the play and most people at that time thought that nurture was better than nature. I feel that Shakespeare felt the opposite way about this argument and by doing this play he was showing a new side to the argument.

In the closing stages of the play Caliban realises that Stephano and Trinculo are not worthy of worship as at the end he says:

“…What a trice double ass

Was I to take this drunkard for a god,

And worship this dull fool. (V, i, 295-297)

After this Caliban is set free. This is lucky for him, as Prospero has mistreated him for a very long time. You also could argue that it was to avoid trouble that Caliban apologised, however this is unlikely as I feel that Caliban is a kind creature that is misunderstood. I think that Shakespeare wanted us to like him too; and for his audience at the time, he wanted them to realise their prejudice against people that looked unusual or different and change their views. Therefore Shakespeare didn’t want us to have the same opinion of Caliban as Prospero.