Say whose side you are on in the contest between Prospero and Caliban as it appears at the end of Act 1 Sc 2.

In act 1 scene 2 of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest we are first introduced to the character Caliban. In this scene we see Caliban and Prospero arguing about how Caliban has not been a good slave. On my first read of this play, I sided for Caliban even though it was stated that he tried to rape Miranda, “In mine own cell till thou didst seek to violate/ The honor of my child.” (Shakespeare 3064). I had sided for Caliban as he reminded of the native people throughout history who have been suppressed from colonisation as he states “This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,/ Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first,” (Shakespeare 3064). For me this was all too similar to the history I learnt throughout all my schooling about Aborigines and their suffering of losing their land to foreigners. For me, it was easier to sympathise with Caliban as I feel as if I was able to connect more with his suffering through what I have learnt about Australia’s past in comparison to Prospero losing his Dukedom. This is not the only reason why I sided with Caliban. In this scene, Prospero treats Caliban extremely harshly continually talking about how he needs a beating in order to do any work or that he should be punished for trying to disobey Prospero. This made Prospero look like the monster instead of Caliban. However when seeing the production in class from The Globe theatre I had a swift change in judgement when i saw how Caliban was portrayed.

The monster-like of this character as the actor is painted red honestly terrified me and made me think if he was truly who i wanted to side with. While I had this change of sides I thought to myself nothing about Calibans character had really changed he still spoke the same words that i read that made me feel sorry for him so his appearance shouldn’t change anything.

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Shakespeare, International Student Edition (Second Edition). New York: Norton, 2008.