The Tempest Group

Topic: As Caliban, describe how you feel about Prospero and Miranda. Was it better or worse before they came along?

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gonzoandjon

As Caliban, describe how you feel about Prospero and Miranda. Was it better or worse before they came along?

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"This island's mine", Caliban says at one point, claiming that he was bequeathed it by Sycorax his mother: which pretty much gives you the recurring theme Caliban and Prospero argue about. This is the speech you need to look at:

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first
Thou strok'st me and made much of me, wouldst give me
Water and berries in't, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less
That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee,
And showed thee all the qualities o'th‘ isle
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile—
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king, and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o‘th’ island.

Caliban hates Prospero, then. But if he wishes Prospero had never come, he has, in the past, tried to rape Miranda: Prospero accuses him of trying

to violate
The honour of my child.

Caliban's response is in the affirmative:

O ho, O ho! Would't had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.

Whether you read it as simply an attempt to repopuluate the island with his followers, and thereby usurp Prospero, or simply a sexual urge, Caliban's attitude to Miranda is, in some twisted way, positive.

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