Thursday, August 20, 2015

Why does Caliban hate the way he is treated by Prospero in The Tempest?

Caliban hates the way he is treated by Prospero because, as he says himself, "This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, / Which thou takest from me." In this sense, Prospero is like a European colonizer, who lands in a foreign country and enslaves the indigenous people he finds there. Caliban also claims that Propero only ever treated him nicely when he first arrived so that Caliban would show him "all the qualities o' the isle." After Prospero had got all that he wanted from Caliban, he imprisoned him "in this hard rock" and treated him as a slave.
Prospero also tortures Caliban. He uses his magic to inflict Caliban with "old cramps" and "aches." Caliban describes the tortures as "like apes that mow and chatter at me, / And after bite me." He says that "sometime am I / All wound with adders who with cloven tongues / Do hiss me into madness." Thus, Caliban hates Prospero for two reasons. The first is that Prospero took from him the island which was rightly his. And the second is that Prospero has enslaved him and continues to torture him.
Prospero, in his defense, claims that he only ever started treating Caliban badly after Caliban tried to "violate / The honour of my child." In other words, Prospero treated Caliban kindly until Caliban tried to rape his daughter.


Caliban deeply resents being treated like a slave by Prospero. Yes, the exiled Duke of Milan did Caliban a huge favor by saving him from his evil witch mother, Sycorax. But Caliban doesn't think that gave him the right to take over "his" island and turn him into a glorified lackey. Although, to be fair to Prospero, he only started treating Caliban badly when Caliban attempted to rape Prospero's daughter, Miranda, so he has perfectly valid reasons for keeping this revolting brute under control.
Nevertheless, Caliban seethes with resentment at being under Prospero's thumb. In fact, he's so bitter at what he perceives as his unfair treatment that he actually tries to convince Trinculo and Stephano to kill Prospero. Caliban daren't do it himself; he's too scared of Prospero to even think of trying. But it's a measure of how hard he thinks he's been done by that he should want to see his lord and master dead.

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