Caliban: the Other in the European ethnocentric discourse
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DA BAHIA (UFBA) INSTITUTO DE LETRAS / DPTO. DE LETRAS GERMÂNICAS / LITERATURA INGLESA I
Prof. Dr. Décio Torres / Date: 15.09.1998
William Shakespeare
History is established in discourse. It is neither defined by events in time nor in the “evolution” of the production of meaning. Although the many "histories" are the sum of all private and public aspects of those in power and those under it, History doesn't exist out of discourse (Orlandi, 1990). Looking from that perspective, the English History had to be as great and powerful as it was (or has been), once there was (is) Shakespeare, just to name the greatest of all. The greatest producer of discourse in the English language (and, considering the not very clear question of authorship, he himself may be a product of that historical discourse or discursive history). That is precisely what makes him the most important still (and perhaps more intensely) today on all the stages around the world (Cruz, 1997). After all, “All the world is a stage...”, as he himself stated in As You Like It.
You taught me language, and my profit on’it
Is, I know how to curse: the red-plague rid you,
For learning me your language (The Tempest, I.2, l. 353-366)
That is how Caliban - “the baleful slave, whose deformed body and half-human nature represent the ethereal and the base aspects of humanity”[i] – responds to Miranda’s insult. In this paper, therefore, we will analyze how Shakespeare’s discourse - as the most outstanding (himself invented or not) representative of the English constructed imperialism - gave voice to both the conqueror and the conquered in The Tempest. In Caliban’s speech there is resentment and pain. He is resentful of Prospero’s “invasion” of the island, of his island. Anachronically, we could also regard this relationship between Prospero and Caliban as an allegory to the twentieth century's striking quarrel between those who possess and control the capital and those who work hard to keep that status quo.
Here, it is the voice of a fictional conquered creature of the new world - the great Other: “A thing most brutish”, as Miranda sees Caliban: (The Tempest, I.2.359), which was found in the Americas – that seems to be heard. Although the location of the island is not given, it is surprisingly revealing how Shakespeare could, in the early times of colonization, picture the power of the greatest encounter ever – the European and the savage Indians - which founded our present western identity (Todorov, 1996).
2 Invasion and Invention
Whether Shakespeare was not overtly or even subtly consciously referring to the European colonialism and imperialism all over the “savage” world is not the objective of this paper to prove. However, based on the concept of the construction of History through discourse, Caliban and Prospero can be seen as an allegorical representation of the“invasion” of the new world – the paradisiacal land found by chance or by the power of a divine intuition and providence by the latter and the enslavement of the first.
Caliban’s island – now Prospero’s – is also the locus amoenus (Hollanda, 1991), a place of exception and pleasure, so many times described in literature – in Camões’s Os Lusíadas and in Homer’s The Odissey, for instance. For Prospero - “philosopher and deposed Duke of Milan, [who] has been marooned on an enchanted island for twelve years with his daughter Miranda[ii] - fate does not seem to have been all that bad since he became the Lord of the Land that served as his home in exile. Let Ferdinand - another character in the play, who is all in love with Miranda - give us a more precise picture of the prize it is to be the “owner” of such a piece of paradise:
Let me live here ever –
So rare a wond’red father and a wise
Makes this place paradise. (4.I.123-125)
The invasion is clearly depicted by Caliban in many passages of the play:
This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me: when thou cam’st first
Thou strok’st me, and made much of me; woudst 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,
[...]
Curst be I that did so! [...] (I.2, 333-340)
Caliban complains about having been enslaved where he once was the king – for which position he returns in the end when Prospero renounces his magic and destroys his book and his staff in a moving speech taken from a passage of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”[iii]. This voice is that of all Indians tortured and killed in the 500 years since the discovery/invasion of the “brave new world”. A voice that was in the mainstream discourse 400 years ago through the genius of the bard of Stratford-upon-Avon – and performed before King James! The main discourse is also characterized by the appeal to explore the “savage” land to take its riches away to Europe, as in Sebastian’s speech regarding King Alonso’s presumed intentions about the island:
I think he will carry this island home in
his pocket, and give it his son for an apple. (2.I.89,90)
To make the idea of “invasion” more consistent, we should take a look at how Caliban faces the arrival of the Europeans on the island, or how he receives them:
Hast thou not dropped from heaven? (2.2.141)
I’ll show thee every fertile inch of the island:
And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee be my god. (2.2.153,154)
Although here Caliban seems to be using some malice to force the newcomers to kill Prospero, it is very likely that he behaved similarly when he first saw the latter. In many passages there are references to language, the greatest tool of domination ever. Through it, Caliban was “invented” in the European discourse. He learned “[...] how / To name the bigger light, [...]”, but mostly he learned how to curse. We could even say he learned of his existence. Or more: he began to exist, and in a miserable position, since the imposed discourse was that of an almighty ethnocentrism, as it was for all the Americas (Cunha, 1992). Let us observe that there is no reference to a language of Caliban’s, as though he did not exist before the encounter with civilization. Thus, Caliban is this very Other that had to be (destroyed) invented in order to be understood and possessed by the domineering discourse, that is, by History, which is the same process found in Robinson Crusoe in "Friday"´s figure. The primitive had to be sacrificed so that a whole new concept of life and death could be implemented in the newly found lands.
3 Caliban or Cannibal?
Caliban is a gypsy word for “black” or “blackness” and Arabic for “vile dog”.[iv] It is also an anagram for “cannibal”, which is the most common qualification given by the Europeans of the time to describe the recently discovered/invaded “people” and land.
Caliban is, in a certain sense, all the marginalized and dominated peoples of the world. Caliban is the name of those who could/cannot stand for themselves. Cannibals, after all, were those who came from Milan to Caliban's island in The Tempest. Or, allegorically, all the Europeans in the Americas, in Africa and in Asia. They, not the many “Calibans” Caliban was not allowed to spread over the island (I.2. 350-352), were able to "cannibalize" whole cultures and other “civilizations”.
Here we are not judging History as an autonomous entity, since we ourselves are an outcome or construct of it. We want to take a look at those facts that may bring some light into the products of intolerance shown throughout History, such as the great wars and genocide in the name of progress and exploration, for instance. The most glaring form of intolerance is that pertaining to cultural values. The "discovered" peoples have always been forced into the "discoverers"’ values and habits. However, certain steps can not be taken by the colonized/"invented" towards the colonizers’ world. Caliban was accepted and taught by Prospero and his daughter, but he could not even consider the possibility of being one of them, for he was not. He was the other, "the difference", the savage. We can have a clearer picture of that in the following passage of the play:
PROSPERO: Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness: I have used thee –
Filth as thou art! – with human care, and lodged thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honor of my child.
CALIBAN: O ho, O ho! Would’t had been done!
Thou didst prevent me – I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans. (I.2.345-352)
Was Caliban’s attempted rape of Miranda out of hate and malice, or did he just not know any better?[v]. That may be a final question not to be answered. Maybe because the “answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind”[vi] of History.
4 Concluding remarks
Being, in a certain sense, more contemporary than many of our current playwrights and writers in general, Shakespeare chose his themes as though he were compiling an encyclopedia of human vulnerabilities. Being History the construction of life and reality through discourse – the dominant discourses -, Shakespeare has his place as a “historian”. Being Caliban and Prospero the two sides of a historical process – as defended in this paper – they’re the representations of the discourse of the time, which can very well suit today’s reality on many other “islands” of the world. Hopefully this paper hasn’t “colonized” The Tempest when attempting to make Caliban speak for those who have not had a voice, a choice. Hopefully Caliban did speak for them and will keep on doing it, since he is now universal in literature.
Notes
[i] Description found in the introduction of SHAKESPEARE, William: “The Tempest”. Hertforshire.
wordsworth Editions Limited (complete and unabridged), 1994.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid. The passage of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is the epilogue of the play
[iv] (Lunar Caustic, 1997, on internet: http://www.shakespeare.com/qandr/lazy/3.15.97/messages/156.html)
[v] (1997, on internet: http://www.shakespeare.com/qandr/lazy/3.15.97/messages/156.html)
[vi] From the song "Blowing In The Wind" by Bob Dylan (International Lyrics Server: http://www.lyrics.ch/query/get?s=27648. Non Album Tracks.Copyright Warner Brothers, Inc.
References
SHAKESPEARE, William. The Tempest. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1994.
TODOROV, Tzvetan. A Descoberta da América. In: A conquista da América. A questão do outro. Trad. Beatriz Perrone Moisés. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1996, p. 3-14.
ORLANDI, Emi Pulcinelli. Terra à Vista!. In: Discurso do Confronto: Velho e Novo Mundo. São Paulo: Cortez, Editora da Unicamp, 1990. p. 13-17.
CRUZ, Décio Torres. Contra a Podridão. In: Jornal A TARDE – A TARDE Cultural. Salvador, 1997. p. 1-5.
HOLLANDA, Sérgio Buarque de. O Mito Americano. In: Capítulos de Literatura
Colonial. São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1991, p. 79-115.
CUNHA, Eneyda Leal. Os Lusíadas no Recôncavo Baiano - Emergências do Imaginário Colonial. In: AMÉRICA: Descoberta ou Invenção (4º Colóquio UERJ). Série Diversos; Direção Jayme Salomão. Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora, 1992. p. 185-190.
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