Caliban: His Influence and Importance

We all know how Shakespeare tried to not have women have a main lead or part of a play, which evidently made her look weak. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Juliet was subservient and not a strongly written character, and the same goes with Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

However, Caliban, one of the primary antagonists of The Tempest, and one of the most developed roles in all of Shakespeare's plays, has other, more important and global influences. Caliban in Arabic means the same as a wild hog/dog, something that makes noise instead it being the follower of something else. A great example would be a mustang, which is a wild horse, not bred to race or be trained to ride humans (a generally accepted position a horse should endeavor). And so, Caliban is a captured immigrant, lured by Prospero and treated like an outcast, a no good and vicious person and in most cases, not even human. I think Shakespeare may have created Caliban's character after reading and witnessing imperialism of the Romani people. He may have been influenced by their exotic and different looks and walks of life. Even though the world is a colossal melting pot, the views of imperialism, its pitfalls and successes, pinpointed that power can do serious damage if not contained. The same goes with Prospero’s desire to always be superior to one another in his crew.  Prospero pushes people around, a lot like a child bully, not knowing that it could get the best of him. So, with Prospero’s attitude toward Caliban form the beginning of the play to the end, Caliban gradually grows as one of the lead antagonists, hating on Prospero as his journey becomes more and more treacherous.

If you study civilizations that were taken over by a steady force, like the Aztec’s Civilization, one would learn that it took very little time to get an empire mad and fight for what they believed in, even with disease fluttering in the air, no weapons of destruction, or even horses to ride and attack the enemy with, the civilization was doomed to fail against the Europeans, and metaphorically speaking, Caliban’s people had no chance against the imperialistic Prospero.

The Tempest Act 1

In Act 1 of Shakespeare's The Tempest, the main character or protagonist is Prospero, who uses his words more so than his magical powers. He manipulates his daughter, noblemen, and servants through the use of words and gestures, creating illusions. He creates a goal and sets forth to it—to prosperity. Prospero’s desire for power and control through knowledge plays a great deal with his plans to seek vengeance for loosing his dukedom to the King of Naples. Prospero’s influence on the crew is all about control. I mean he has pride and an ego, but he also wants to be able to control and use his resources well in order to survive or prosper. In relation to the subject of power and knowledge, in George Orwell’s 1984, Winston deals with the struggles and forces of the government—the brainwashing methods and how to overcome such painful experiences. Both Prospero and the government want to take over the masses (people) and use them for one goal, which usually is closed-minded and ill-advised.

The influence of knowledge being powerful is profound in both works, where Prospero’s knowledge of magic makes him Duke of Milan, and how the government in 1984 pushes citizens to learn, do, and speak a certain way. For example, Prospero uses Caliban as his servant—acquainting him to the island which Prospero stole from him. Caliban speaks with a brutal and vice words to all of the crew members and denounces the language that he was taught in order to communicate with Prospero. I know it is a handful, but my point is that Caliban is so far the second most established character even after Scene 1 (the storm), and I think William Shakespeare wrote the play this way so Caliban’s character could be loved, hated, or neither.   

Overview of our First Socratic Circle

The Socratic Circle's main goal was to make people understand by asking questions to collectively seek a deeper understanding of complex ideas. From these conversations I learned a great deal about the concept of an 'unbiased textbook' and how the Texas History Curriculum has a very conservative textbook--making it biased and non-informative to the reader. I learned that even though the history curriculum is biased towards something, I learned that the bias is a view, an opinion that we should respect because after all every view is different and unique in their own way. Both of the articles presented were mostly informative of the mixing of views around how history is taught, how it should be taught, and how we learn from history. My group accomplished three main points: (1) History is never accurate since it is a collection of knowledge of the past that the present has not been through or witnessed (2) History teaches us to not repeat itself, but after 9/11, the war in Iraq, and new President Obama (who brought a surge of democratic or liberal views to the US)-people in areas like Texas wanted to create a resurgence of conservative views in their children's education. This being my opinion that history does repeat itself. (3) No matter how many documentaries there are from the past or even the present, the creator's opinion or view will always be a key component to their recollection of that time. The same goes with famous people like Mother Teresa, who devoted herself to civilian volunteer work, but still to this day, the Nobel Prize board members have not decided whether Mother Teresa should be declared a priest or not. Some people believe that living voluntarily throughout harsh times with people who had leprosy for 35 years is not enough to pronounce Mother Teresa into the priesthood while others think that she is more than qualified. 
All of these points pertained to George Orwell's 1984 in that these main points reflected the many themes that Winston and O'Brien go through. From the dangers to totalitarianism to the dangers of psychological manipulation, physical control, technology, history, and information/language; Orwell sculpted a world that only happens everyday-however subtle.