Caliban’s two faces in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest

Academic Paper from the year 2016 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,7, University of Wurzburg, language: English, abstract: A savage and deformed slave. Shakespeare uses exactly these words to describe the figure of Caliban in the dramatis personae of his play The Tempest . For almost four centuries, literary critics have dealt with trying to answer the question how Shakespeare’s character has to be regarded. Is Caliban to be considered as a monster representing humanity’s bestial side including all its vices, and thereby arousing the audience’s disgust? Or has he rather to be looked at as the victim of an imperial tyrant - personified by Prospero - who arouses the spectator’s pity? Among Shakespeare’s stage characters, Caliban has been interpreted in many different ways. He has been represented in theatre and in literary criticism as a fish, a tortoise, an American Indian, and an African slave. He is said to be one of the most abstract and wildest characters in Shakespeare’s plays.