When we began
studying The Tempest, I thought it was an odd story about a powerful mother
trying to manipulate her daughter for her own benefit. Nevertheless, after
reading the article: Caliban: Notes Toward a Discussion of Culture in Our
America, I understood that I was wrong. Through The Tempest, Shakespeare
actually “ [alluded] to America,
that its island is the mythification of one of our islands” in Latin America.
As I continued reading the article I realized how
obvious this idea was. When Shakespeare introduces this deserted island, one could
relate it with when the colonizers arrived to Colombia. Colombia was an unknown
place, where the Spanish colonizers barged in making the indigenous people
their servants, and converting them into the Spanish culture. The Spanish
slowly but sharply took away the indigenous people's culture by not allowing
them to speak their language, obligating them to convert into Catholicism, and invading
their lands and constructing a little Spain.
This may seem like a history class, but this is
what happens in The Tempest. Caliban serves as a representation of the
indigenous people, and Prospero serves as the colonizers. Prospero, as
mentioned previously is the powerful character that manipulates everything to
get what she wants, specially Caliban who she uses as her slave. To make
Caliban her slave, she empowers herself even more by taking away his own
culture and introducing him to her own, but not for his benefit, its for hers.
She does this by teaching Caliban her language, just as the Spanish did. When
he learns this language she is able to communicate with him and tell him
exactly what she wants. Although Caliban is a slave, just like the indigenous
people, he is not stupid. He tells Prospero that "You taught me language,
and my profit on't / Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you / For
learning me your language!" (1. 2.362-64). This means that Caliban was
aware that Prospero was trying to exterminate his culture, so that the only
thing he actually understood was Prospero’s orders.
After reading the article, I wondered what was my
culture? Since I am Colombian, my ancestors were products of “mestizaje” (mixture
between an indigenous person and a Spanish person). This means that there is
not a defined culture because if I am more indigenous than Spanish, my
ancestors culture was erased away. If I am more Spanish, well the culture also
gets complicated because they mixed so much with people of different parts of
the world that their own race was already a mix. I can conclude that there
isn’t really a pure culture. The culture that I have now in Colombia is a
mixture of African, Indigenous, and European cultures. This can be seen with
the traditional dances such as Mapale that are from African decent or our language,
which comes from Spanish descent.
In conclusion, what Prospero is doing with Caliban
is exactly what happened in Latin America. I infer that Caliban is going to be
forced to forget his culture because unfortunately there are not many people
like him in the island with which he can continue to speak his language. The
enforcement of Propsero’s culture towards Caliban will eliminate poor Calibans
culture.
