The Tempest- colonialism quotes analysis Flashcards
“My brave spirit”
Prospero to Ariel
-possessive
-fond of Ariel, unlike caliban
“All hail, great master, grave sir, hail! I come to answer thy best pleasure”
Ariel to Prospero
-shows Ariel’s willing servitude and reverence to Prospero
-could be compared to Caliban’s hatred of Prospero and servitude
“I have done thee worthy service, Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv’d without grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise to bate me a full year”
Ariel to Prospero
-belief that total servitude with no complaint is the only way to earn freedom contrasts Caliban’s indignance and eternal servitude
“Dost thou forget from what torment i did free thee?”
Prospero to Ariel
-using his saving of Ariel as a reason for keeping them as a slave
-reminicent of oppressors using the excuse of the enslaved land being savage and needing help to become ‘civilised’ (i haaate that word)
“Thou liest, malignant thing”
Prospero to Ariel
-refers to Ariel similar to Caliban as soon as they mention their freedom
“Hast thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax(?)”
Prospero to Ariel
-Caliban’s mother, true queen of the island
-when Prospero, a rich white man, has magic he is a ‘great master’ but when Sycorax, a woman indigenous to the island, has magic she is a ‘foul witch’
Ariel- an airy spirit
Caliban- a savage and deformed slave
character descriptions
-ariel is portrayed as a delicate, pale, feminine ‘spirit’ but caliban is the only one described as a ‘slave’ despite them both serving Prospero
-double standards that parallel colourism affecting treatment of slaves with lighter skinned slaves being kept closer to the master and darker skinned slaves being forced to do the harder work outside
-see ‘Une Tempete’ the 1969 play by Aime Cesaire- postcolonialist adaptation of the play
“If thou murmur’st, I will rend an oak and peg thee in his knotty entrails till thou hast howl’d away twelve winters”
Prospero to Ariel
-threatening to re-trap Ariel but ironically, Prospero is not yet planning to release Ariel yet anyway so Ariel would be trapped anyway but they don’t realise it themself
“my noble master”
Ariel to Prospero
-Ariel still ‘likes’ Prospero despite him threatening them and enslaving them, shows Ariel’s Stockholm syndrome
“Thou poisonous slave”
Prospero to Caliban
-contrasts ‘my brave spirit’
-Caliban is more clearly a slave and this is treated as a result of his ‘poisonous’ attitude towards serving Prospero despite Ariel also being a slave, just not adressed as such
-Caliban is treated like a slave and Ariel is treated like a possession
“thou did’st seek to violate the honour of my child”
Prospero to Caliban
-tells us Caliban was only imprisoned for trying to rape Miranda to justify Caliban’s treatment
-could represent the white supremacist propaganda used to justify slavery that poc, especially black men were too ‘savage’ to be free because they would rape their white master’s daughters, which obviously wasn’t true but is apparently true in the play, was shakespeare playing into this or against it?
-is Caliban written as a characateur of clearly untrue ideals or is he actually just the base level villain he looks like
“This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother”
Caliban to Prospero
-Caliban is the rightful owner of the island, taken from him by a coloniser
-see ‘Des Cannibales’ for how colonisers paint rightful owners of other lands cultures as ‘savage’ as an excuse for enslavement and providing ‘civilisation’ (ew) rather than understanding and comparing their traditions to western culture, which is equally, often more, brutal in a lot of aspects
“I pitied thee, took pains to make thee speak”
“I loved thee, and show’d thee all the qualities o’th’ isle”
Prospero to Caliban and Caliban to Prospero
-Prospero believes he was helping Caliban and he was clearly grateful for it but Caliban would have done well on the island alone and taught Prospero as much as he was taught
“When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian”
Trinculo soliloquy
-talking about England’s willingness to fund hatred and brutality towards other cultures while refusing to help their own people
-trinculo is a court jester/fool so is able to say things that would get others beheaded without repercussions, could show these are Shakespeare’s real thoughts disguised by a character allowed to voice them
“Have we devils here?”
Stephano to Trinculo about Caliban
-one of many comparisons between Caliban and the devil
-shows western countrie’s demonisation of poc
