Character analysis of Ariel and Caliban in Tempest
Caliban : Caliban is the beastlike slave of the magician Prospero. Before the time of the play, Prospero and his daughter Miranda took Caliban, the illegitimate son of a witch and a devil, into their home and taught him to speak and function as a human, but his response was to attempt to rape the girl. In the course of the play he and Stephano attempt to murder Prospero. Though Caliban is powerless to effect his schemes, his villainous nature is an important element in The Tempest's scheme of things. At the play's close a chastened Caliban declares, 'I'll be wise hereafter, / And seek for grace' (5.1.294-295) as part of the general reconciliation engineered by Prospero. Caliban is only partly human. He is a 'monster' (2.2.66), a 'moon-calf (2.2.107), a 'born devil' (4.1. 188), and a 'thing of darkness' (5.1.275). Because his father was a devil, Caliban is supernatural like Ariel, but unlike that airy spirit, he has no supernatural powers. He is more like a debased human than like any other supernatural creature in Shakespeare. He has intelligence enough to learn language, but he is seemingly incapable of moral sense; reminded of his attempted rape, he merely asserts his animal drive to procreate. Caliban serves as a foil for the
His proposed revolt is both repulsive and ineffectual, but Caliban's dislike for his enslavement is one with which we instinctively sympathize. But though he fulfils his tasks cheerfully, he yearns to be free again. It is precisely his naturalness that condemns Caliban. The young man knows that 'some kinds of baseness / Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters / Point to rich ends' (3. He can imagine a level below himself to which he does not want to descend, for he fears he and his companions will be 'turn'd to barnacles, or to apes / With foreheads villainous low' (4. Though he proclaims that his education has merely taught him 'how to curse' (1.
Common topics in this essay:
Prospero Caliban,
Prospero Miranda,
Freed Prospero,
Ceres Iris,
Montaigne Caliban's,
Ferdinand Caliban,
South American,
Epilogue Prospero,
Prospero Ariel,
Stephano Trinculo,
prospero caliban,
'natural man',
magician prospero,
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Acceptance Essays
