The Oppression of Caliban in The Tempest Essay -- Tempest essays

The Oppression of Caliban in The TempestWilliam Shakespeares, The Tempest, provides insight into the hierarchy of command and servitude by order of nature. This routine uses the relationship between its characters to display the control of the conqueror over the conquered. It also shows how society usually places the undesirable members at the bottom of the chain of command, even though they may be entitled to a higher social status. For example, the beginning of the play opens with a scene on a boat in the thick of a terrible storm. The boatswain, who is under the command of the royal party, attempts to keep the boat from sinking. Members of the royal party, however, persist in interfering with his duties. The boatswain retorts, What cares these roarers for the name of the king? To confine Silence Trouble us not(I, I, 16-18). He is trying to warn his superiors that if he does not let him do his job, everyone will die, and it will not result who has power over whom. The superiors , however, still take offense to this comment and label him a blasphemer. Caliban, an unfortunate character in this play, suffers from similar constant abuse because he is of the lowest social rank in his community. Critic John W. Draper describes Calibans position in relation to the other characters when he says, Of all the characters in Shakespeare, Caliban is the most richly and repeatedly/ described, though not always consistently and his bodily parts seem to show little/ relation to his humor or his character provided that both are monstrous. Monsters/ were popular and, as Trinculo ... ... Monster Caliban..Caliban. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishing, 1992. 89-94. Evans, G. Blakemore. Ed. The Riverside Shakespeare. by William Shakespeare. 1552- 1616. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. Leininger, Lorie Jerrell. The Miranda Trap Sexism and Racism in Shakespeares Tempest. The Tempest decisive Essays.Ed. Patrick M. Murphy. New York Routledge, 2001. 22 3-229. Smith, James. Caliban. Caliban. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishing, 1992. 124-150. Vaughan, Virginia Mason. Calibans Theatrical Metamorphoses. Caliban. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishing, 1992. 192-206. Vaughan, Alden T. & Virginia Mason. Shakespeares Caliban A Cultural History. New York University Press, 1991. Wilson, Daniel, LL.D. Caliban The Missing Link. London Macmillan and Co., 1873.