Caliban

In brief...

• A very earthy character.
• Physically strong.
• Although unintelligent, he is not stupid.
• Acts on instinct, both for food and has sexual desires as he tried to rape Miranda.
• He is ugly and described as such throughout “freckled whelp”, “strange fish”, “savage”, “abnormal”, “slave”.
• Educated by Prospero.
• He has to obey Prospero because of Prospero’s power.
• Needs to follow others and falls in with Trinculo and Stephano to overthrow Prospero.
• He speaks aggressively throughout, but some sensitivity is shown “be not afeared, the isle is full of strange noises” when calming Stephano and Trinculo.
• Learns from his stupidity in the end.

In depth...

What is the role of Caliban in “The Tempest?”

• Caliban shows intelligence. He knows that he cannot fight against Prospero’s power.
• He is also shown to have a better set of values than Stephano and Trinculo.
• His motive for murder is nobler than Antonio’s and Sebastian’s as they are killing for greed, whereas Caliban wants his island back.
• He is sensitive to beauty. III.ii. 133 – 41
• It is difficult not to sympathise with Caliban.
• Prospero has usurped Caliban’s island.
• He and Prospero were once friends.
• Caliban showed Prospero around the island.
• This gives us an idea of the Elizabethan treatment of difference.
• This is reflected in Prospero’s prejudiced view. Elizabethans believed in hierarchy with God at the apex.
• They view “uncivilized” cultures as being below their European counterparts.
• He is referred to as a “tortoise”, a “beast” and a “misshaped knave” (Animal Imagery).
• Caliban is an anagram of “cannibal” (old spelling).
• Raises colonial issues. “You taught me my language, and my profit on’t/Is, I know how to curse”. I. ii. 363 -4.
• Caliban resents being forced to conform to colonial ideas.
• He tries to fight the colonisers with the only tool he has; language.

Act 1. Scene 2

• Prospero, calling him a ‘dull thing’ reduces Caliban from a person to an inanimate object. Caliban stands up to Prospero; shows character.

Act 2

• Caliban’s willingness to serve Stephano and show him the natural riches of the island echoes his relationship to Prospero when he first came to the island.
• Trinculo is persistently contemptuous of Caliban, repeatedly calling him ‘monster’.
• Neither he nor Stephano see Caliban as a person, but as a thing to be used. Trinculo dislikes and fears Caliban.
• Caliban’s drunken cry of ‘freedom’ at the end of the scene is ironic; he has merely become another master’s slave. 
• Caliban’s unfamiliarity with Europeans other than Prospero and Miranda causes him to be easily impressed by Stephano and his ‘celestial liquor’. 
• To King Alonso’s servants, Caliban is merely a ‘monster’; an exploitable savage; to Caliban, these strangers might have ‘dropp’d from heaven’ and he foolishly believes they can free him from his servitude.

Act 4

• Ironically, it is Stephano and Trinculo who end up looking more foolish than the ‘monster’ Caliban.

Act 5

• Caliban’s natural intelligence makes him quick to see how he has misjudged Stephano and Trinculo; ‘what a thrice double ass was I’.