Caliban and the Curse of Language
Repeatedly, throughout The Tempest, Caliban is referred to by Prospero and Miranda as “my slave … a villain … [t]hou earth” (1.2.306–14). In relation to the topic, ‘Caliban and the Curse of Language,’ this paper predominantly argues how such dehumanizing categorization and naming of Caliban by authoritative figures are what caused Caliban to act in a way befitting to his new title, “slave.” Using the nature versus nurture model, my argument rests with the belief that Caliban is not a creature of evil nature but a victim of abusive nurture done by Prospero. Despite the continuous name-calling which simplifies Caliban’s being as a demonic figure, Caliban exhibits multi-faceted characteristics and exemplifies Shakespeare’s complex understanding of human nature, even more so than Miranda herself. The irony here is that despite Prospero’s intricate plan to educate Miranda as an aristocratic lady and debase Caliban as a monstrous slave, Caliban demonstrates a much more complex, human persona than Miranda. Therefore, this paper will further de-exoticize and humanize Caliban by unearthing his character buried beneath the layers of Prospero’s language of control and subjugation, which belittled Caliban to the role of a monster and a slave.
Before delving into various dehumanizing nicknames associated with Caliban, I will focus on the name “Caliban” itself. It is uncertain whether “Caliban” is a name his mother, Sycorax bestowed on him. There is no exact evidence in the text, which describes Caliban’s method of communication before the arrival of Prospero. The islanders’ mode of communication, which helped to develop a familial bond between Sycorax and Caliban, must have been very different from the Italian language. There is also no definitive evidence of whether Caliban’s native language was reliant on oral speech or kinesthetic movement. If Caliban conversed with Sycorax through bodily gestures and noises, Prospero could have been the first one to name the native being Caliban. Caliban’s name implies the colonizers’ perception of savagery and exotic culture outside Europe during Shakespeare’s historical time period. Caliban’s name is most likely derived from the word “cannibal,” which Shakespeare would have referenced from Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals,” a popular essay during his time period on native South American tribes. Prospero’s choice of words to name the islander “Caliban” already strips the being from any humanistic value from the European perspective. Whether Caliban is actually a non-human entity or simply a person of colour is not an issue for Prospero when stigmatizing Caliban as an inferior “other.” From Prospero’s point of view, non-European immediately equates to non-human. Therefore, Prospero acts as a mouthpiece for the European public and their racism against foreigners outside of European civilization. By using the word “Caliban” to mark another as subhuman, Prospero has already willfully given himself an excuse to subjugate Caliban and justify his inferiority, even when the two once shared a friendly, symbiotic relationship:
CALIBAN. … When thou cam’st first,
Thou strok’st me and made much of me …
and then I loved thee,
And showed thee all the qualities o’th isle (1.2.332–37)
Even before Caliban attempts to rape Miranda and is forced into slavery, he is automatically regarded as lower-class to the extent of losing his human status.
PROSPERO. … I have used thee-
Filth as thou art — with humane care …
till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child. (1.2.344–47)
Here, there is an indication that it is not Caliban’s behaviour which initially triggers Prospero’s denigration of him. It is simply Caliban’s existence, his physical being, which proves his inherent baseness as “filth,” that gives Prospero an appropriate excuse to enslave him, whether Caliban shares an affinity with him or not.
Even though Prospero calls Caliban, “Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself,” this argument that Caliban is the spawn of Satan is problematic and unpersuasive considering Caliban’s inherent hospitable nature when Prospero first arrives on the island (1.2.319). The one devilish deed Caliban commits, which can be seen as morally unjustifiable, is when he “didst seek to violate / The honour of [Miranda]” (1.2.347). However, if we view Caliban’s attempt to rape Miranda as a political action to rebel against Prospero’s tyranny, Caliban’s choice of action is more human and Prospero-like than demonic. After Caliban is usurped from his island, using female bodies for political advancement has become a common scheme in the new patriarchal universe, consolidated and maintained by Prospero. For example, Prospero uses Miranda to arrange a marriage with Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples, in order to regain his dukedom and to assure that Miranda’s heirs will be royalty.
FERDINAND. O, if a virgin,
And your affection not gone forth, I’ll make you
The Queen of Naples (1.2.448–49)
Therefore, it is obvious for Prospero to obsess over Miranda’s virginity. Prospero also uses magic to control Miranda’s consciousness when she asks too many questions, which goes against Prospero’s plans to use Miranda as a political tool for the smooth transition of returning to his dukedom: “Here, cease more questions: / Thou art inclined to sleep … I know thou canst not choose” (1.2.184–86). While Prospero blatantly manipulates his own daughter to fit his political agenda, both Prospero and Miranda “don’t acknowledge [Caliban’s] overtly political motives [behind the rape attempt]. They don’t acknowledge the possibility that his service and education politicized him” (Lindsay 422). In a sense, when Caliban decides to rape Miranda, he is subversively mimicking what he learned from Prospero and the patriarchal European culture induced in his upbringing. When Caliban lashes out his anger at Prospero, he exclaims:
CALIBAN. You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language! (1.2.362–64)
The term “language” may also signify the behavioural attitudes of men who use this “language,” and it explains how Caliban has absorbed the harmful sexism and its justification of control over women via Prospero’s education. “Caliban behaves like someone whose youthful training should have turned deference and submission into a channel toward independence and advancement. When such things weren’t forthcoming, he sought them in a direct and violent way, through political rape” (Lindsay 423).
Caliban’s desire for rebellion and to overthrow Prospero may align his character with Lucifer, who announces war against Heaven and tries to overthrow God. Yet when analyzing Caliban with reference to Genesis, it is more plausible to form a correlation between Caliban and Adam, thus projecting the Everyman figure on Caliban. Similar to Adam who names every living creature in Eden and lives in peaceful coexistence with nature, Caliban knows “all the qualities o’th’ isle, / The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile-” while he lives in close rapport with the natural environment that surrounds him (1.2.337–38). Caliban may be considered a dumb brute whose only profession is the mundane task of carrying logs, within Prospero’s dominion. However, in the world of nature the island offers, Caliban regains a sense of agency and his area of expertise over the diverse natural components that inhabit the island.
When judging Caliban to be Adam, it is easy to create a correlation between Prospero and God, who creates the universe with the use of speech. However, Prospero’s universe in The Tempest serves as an antithesis to Genesis’ Garden of Eden; while God’s language generates life, Prospero’s authority goes against life and nature. The Tempest demonstrates the curse of language instead of its blessing. Unlike the biblical God, Prospero does not create the island; he controls and manipulates it with the use of spirits and magic. Prospero’s language and custom do not give life to nature, but instead, they utilize and commodify nature. For example, Prospero’s deforestation of the island, by forcing Caliban to continuously chop firewood, is unsustainable. Prospero’s enslavement of Ariel, the airy spirit, against its will, also proves his scheme to manipulate nature for his political ambition. Moreover, Prospero’s magical power through language is of private ownership to keep the role of pseudo-Creator for himself. Such privatisation of power is shown by his refusal to free Ariel since Prospero knows that his magical power over the island is dependent on Ariel.
If Caliban represents Adam, Prospero is more closely akin to the Serpent that entices Eve (and then Adam) to taste the forbidden fruit of Knowledge. Prospero’s magical power over nature, which controls the tempest and exploits the island, does not serve nature’s interests but his own, and it is, therefore, unnatural. Adam biting into the fruit of Knowledge is similar to Caliban learning Prospero’s language along with the new hierarchical order of the island, where Caliban is situated in the lowest class. Knowledge of shame and one’s inferiority tends to force one to be defensive. In comparison to how Adam becomes ashamed of his own nakedness and attempts to cover his body after eating the Forbidden Fruit, Caliban also learns his place as a shameful slave in Prospero’s cell and plots a rebellion to defend himself against Prospero’s tyranny. As Adam is forced to wear garbs made of fig leaves and toil the Earth, the egalitarian lifestyle where mankind and nature were once equalled is destroyed; Adam must now utilize nature as a tool for survival. In parallel to Adam’s fate, Caliban must also carry logs and is forced into arduous toil where nature is now commodified under European rule. To further this claim, Adam’s relationship to the Fruit is also a symbol of European influence over Caliban and the colonized population, such as the alcoholic drink offered by Stephano and Trinculo and their comment on the commodification of exoticized display of Indigenous people: “When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian” (2.2.31–32).
Despite the onslaught of Eurocentricism forced upon him, Caliban’s way of resistance does not always follow Prospero’s model of violence and usurpation. At times, Caliban resorts to violence with the Europeans’ (Stephano and Trinculo’s) aid to seize the island from Prospero’s domination. Caliban’s alliance with the European visitors to depose Prospero mirrors Antonio and Alonso’s alliance to usurp Prospero’s Milan and Prospero’s expropriation of Caliban’s island. Forceful acts to wrest power away from another is a common political phenomenon in European society. Nevertheless, another form of resistance against the status quo, other than brute force, is presented in Caliban’s use of language when expressing his interaction with nature.
CALIBAN. Be not afeared, the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not …
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again. (3.2.133–41)
While Caliban’s speech, when interacting with Prospero and Trinculo, is mainly consisted of curses and swears, this passage proves that he is capable of wondrous speech in awe of nature. When interacting with his island home, away from Prospero’s control, the Caliban who does not appear in the play, the Caliban of the past before the arrival of Prospero, manifests in the form of poetic language in admiration and respect for nature. This is Caliban’s truest form of resistance against Prospero’s influence. Despite fighting against Prospero’s brutality with physical violence (e.g. rape of Miranda), Caliban still manages to keep the integrity of his character, the part which he retained from besmirching European influence when he “names elements of his island world using language unmediated by someone else’s culture” (Lindsay 419). Caliban’s poetic speech and his relationship to nature also juxtapose Prospero finding value in nature only when it benefits his political cause of regaining his dukedom. While Prospero uses magic via nature, thus exploiting Ariel in the process, Caliban finds magic within nature and purely appreciates it for its existence. Why seek out magic when all of nature is magic? The sweet dreams and sounds of the isle are magic to Caliban’s senses, and this speech represents the value of human feeling and sensation that have been obscured by European values placed on intellect, reason, and language, which are dangerous when they have no place for sympathy or pity. Lindsay also remarks how Caliban’s cry to “dream” expresses his “desire to evade or ignore his political struggle with Prospero” and return back to the time when it was safe to be innocent and vulnerable (421).
While Prospero uses language for exploitation, Caliban’s language is a mode for emotional expression, whether it be anger or bliss. Even though Prospero has absolute control over Caliban’s physical body through enforcement of physical labour and punishment, there is still hope for Caliban’s autonomy in his mind. Despite the years of indoctrination to learn Prospero’s language and way of life, Caliban still clings on to what characterized his identity in the past. As a result, Caliban continues to resist, whether it be through rape, rebellion with the aid of outsiders, or poetic language because he is critically sensitive to understanding the value of what he lost. Ironically, Caliban’s mind is freer than that of Ariel, a spirit that freely travels through the air, while he is grounded on the earth. While Ariel never once tries to rebel against Prospero, Caliban continuously plots for his freedom despite previous failures.
Caliban is a character foil of Miranda as well, who is also raised under Prospero’s guidance. Miranda’s first encounter with an outsider apart from the dwellers of the cell is Ferdinand, and she treats him as if he is a god: “A thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble” (1.2.419). Caliban too reflects this reaction of reverence when meeting Stephano for the first time: “These be fine things, an if they be not sprites. That’s a brave god” (2.2.111–12). While Miranda continues to worship Ferdinand and accepts him as a husband according to her father’s wishes (even though she thinks she succeeded in her youthful rebellion), Caliban soon realizes that Stephano is not the saviour he has been hoping for. Unlike Miranda, Caliban sees through the facade of his own idealization and admits to how futile his plans were; “What a thrice double ass / Was I to take this drunkard for a god” (5.1.295). In contrast to Miranda, Caliban is a dynamic character, who changes his worldview in the end. Such change of thought and self-reflection are qualities for human progression and growth. Compared to Miranda who lacks the insight to see through her father’s manipulation and Ariel who mostly remains complacent under Prospero’s commands, Caliban is a character who demonstrates the most active dynamics of human nature — like an ocean that never stays still and the waves that continuously move and thrash during a tempest.
Can it be that Caliban is the ideal citizen in Gonzalo’s dream of peaceful anarchy? Caliban easily fits into the framework of mankind marked by natural innocence before the advent of Western civilization of language, hierarchy, and colonialism induced by capitalism. If Caliban never met Prospero and remained untouched from contact with the Italian courtiers, would he have been allowed to remain in the Garden of Eden, like Adam, before his contact with the Serpent?