Name: Poojaba S.Gohil
Class: M.A. Sem. 3
Paper no.: 11
Topic: Post Colonial text Cesaire’s A Tempest
Submitted to: Smt.S.B. Gardi
Department of English
M.K. Bhavnagar University
'A Tempest'-Post Colonial Text
Bird view on the meaning of 'A Tempest':-
-A violent windstorm, especially one with rain, hail or snow.
-A violent commotion,disturbance or tumult.
-An unclassified term referring to technical investigations for compromising emanations from electrically operated information processing equipment;these investigations are conducted in support of emanations and emissions security.
Literary:-Storm,hurricane, gale, tornado, cyclone,typhoon, squall
Torrential rain and howling tempest
Brief about Colonialism:-
Colonialism is the establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory,and the subsequent maintenance, expansion and exploitation of that colony.the term is also used to describe a set of unequal relationships between the colonial power and the colony and often between the colonists and the indigenous peoples.
Collins English Dictionary defines Colonialism as "The policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas."
Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis.rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.
Class: M.A. Sem. 3
Paper no.: 11
Topic: Post Colonial text Cesaire’s A Tempest
Submitted to: Smt.S.B. Gardi
Department of English
M.K. Bhavnagar University
'A Tempest'-Post Colonial Text
Bird view on the meaning of 'A Tempest':-
-A violent windstorm, especially one with rain, hail or snow.
-A violent commotion,disturbance or tumult.
-An unclassified term referring to technical investigations for compromising emanations from electrically operated information processing equipment;these investigations are conducted in support of emanations and emissions security.
Literary:-Storm,hurricane, gale, tornado, cyclone,typhoon, squall
Torrential rain and howling tempest
Brief about Colonialism:-
Colonialism is the establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory,and the subsequent maintenance, expansion and exploitation of that colony.the term is also used to describe a set of unequal relationships between the colonial power and the colony and often between the colonists and the indigenous peoples.
Collins English Dictionary defines Colonialism as "The policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas."
Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis.rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.
Brief about Post Colonialism:-
Post Colonialism or Post Colonial studies is an academic discipline that analysis,explains and responds to the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism. Post colonialism speaks about the human consequences of external control and economic exploitation of a native people and its lands.
Post colonialism is the critical destabilization of the theories that support the ways of western thought-deductive reasoning, rule of law and monotheism by means of which colonialists Perceive, Understand and Know the world.
Post colonial literature is the literature of countries that were colonized by European countries and which exists on all continents,but Antarctica. Post colonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonisation of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people and themes such as racialism and colonialism. A range of literary theory has evolved around the subject.
Notable Theorists:-
Edward Said,
Gayatri Spivak,
Frantz Fanon,
Bill Ashcroft,
Chinua Achebe..and many more.
Definition of Post colonialism:-
As an epistemology ,as an ethics and as a politics the field of post colonialism address the politics of knowledge-the matters that constitutes the post colonial identity of a decolonized people which derives from-the coloniser's generation of cultural knowledge about the colonized people and how that western cultural knowledge was applied to subjugate a non-European people into a colony of the European mother country which after initial invasion was effected by means of the cultural identities of Coloniser and Colonised.
Brief about the play:-
A Tempest
A Tempest was originally written in 1969 in French by Aime Cesaire and translated into English in 1985 by Richard Miller. It is written as a post colonial response to the Tempest by William Shakespeare. The story is the same:-a big storm,an angry Duke who's been usurped by his brother, all the devoted courtesans and of course the natives. This play deals mostly with the natives, Ariel and Caliban. It is Cesaire's comment on the colonization of the "New World".He has many of the same ideas as C.L.R. James and Franz Fanon and he as inspired newer Caribbean writers like Michelle Cliff.
About the author:-
Aime Cesaire was born in Martinique in 1913.He is renown poet,playwright and essayist. He began a movement called Negritude Modernisme involving the work of native Caribbean writers and artists. His work has influenced other writers as well as sociologists like Franz Fanon.
How can we compare Shakespeare’s The Tempest with A Tempest?
Post Colonialism or Post Colonial studies is an academic discipline that analysis,explains and responds to the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism. Post colonialism speaks about the human consequences of external control and economic exploitation of a native people and its lands.
Post colonialism is the critical destabilization of the theories that support the ways of western thought-deductive reasoning, rule of law and monotheism by means of which colonialists Perceive, Understand and Know the world.
Post colonial literature is the literature of countries that were colonized by European countries and which exists on all continents,but Antarctica. Post colonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonisation of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people and themes such as racialism and colonialism. A range of literary theory has evolved around the subject.
Notable Theorists:-
Edward Said,
Gayatri Spivak,
Frantz Fanon,
Bill Ashcroft,
Chinua Achebe..and many more.
Definition of Post colonialism:-
As an epistemology ,as an ethics and as a politics the field of post colonialism address the politics of knowledge-the matters that constitutes the post colonial identity of a decolonized people which derives from-the coloniser's generation of cultural knowledge about the colonized people and how that western cultural knowledge was applied to subjugate a non-European people into a colony of the European mother country which after initial invasion was effected by means of the cultural identities of Coloniser and Colonised.
Brief about the play:-
A Tempest
A Tempest was originally written in 1969 in French by Aime Cesaire and translated into English in 1985 by Richard Miller. It is written as a post colonial response to the Tempest by William Shakespeare. The story is the same:-a big storm,an angry Duke who's been usurped by his brother, all the devoted courtesans and of course the natives. This play deals mostly with the natives, Ariel and Caliban. It is Cesaire's comment on the colonization of the "New World".He has many of the same ideas as C.L.R. James and Franz Fanon and he as inspired newer Caribbean writers like Michelle Cliff.
About the author:-
Aime Cesaire was born in Martinique in 1913.He is renown poet,playwright and essayist. He began a movement called Negritude Modernisme involving the work of native Caribbean writers and artists. His work has influenced other writers as well as sociologists like Franz Fanon.
How can we compare Shakespeare’s The Tempest with A Tempest?
There is not much difference between Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Aime Cesaire’sA Tempest. But ‘A Tempest’ presents colonial aspect and mentality of master-slave relationship. Here in the play Caliban and Ariel portrays as a different way. Prospero is also a good example of the role power plays in the story. Character of Stephano is another example of power in the play. Miranda plays very innocent role in the play and she is only one character who presents woman role in the island.
Prospero asked question to Caliban.
Prospero: What would you be without me?
Caliban: Without you? I’d be the king, that’s what I’d be, the king of the Island. (Original text A Tempest, Page no. 12)
So, in this question we can find that how Prospero overpower and make his self superior to Caliban. But Caliban also very talkative and give appropriate answers to the questions of Prospero and can’t bear him. Here, Aime Cesaire gives voice to Caliban, the subaltern identity of The Tempest. Caliban tells Prospero that “I am not interested in peace; I am interested in free will.” Here Caliban presented as free individualistic person and rebel.
Prospero asked question to Caliban.
Prospero: What would you be without me?
Caliban: Without you? I’d be the king, that’s what I’d be, the king of the Island. (Original text A Tempest, Page no. 12)
So, in this question we can find that how Prospero overpower and make his self superior to Caliban. But Caliban also very talkative and give appropriate answers to the questions of Prospero and can’t bear him. Here, Aime Cesaire gives voice to Caliban, the subaltern identity of The Tempest. Caliban tells Prospero that “I am not interested in peace; I am interested in free will.” Here Caliban presented as free individualistic person and rebel.
Post- Colonial Reading of 'A tempest'
“When the work was done, I realized there was not much Shakespeare left.”
–Aimé Césaire
Interpreted as white man’s burden, colonization was a means of conquering new lands and imposing the colonizer’s culture from on the native people. Prospero’s capture of Sycorax’s land and his treatment of the natives of the island have prompted many critics to interpret the play as working out the drama of colonization. Caliban’s protest against Prospero and his resistance to colonial power using the language taught by the colonizer helps us interpret the play as a postcolonial text.
The Tempest has often been interpreted as a play about colonialism primarily because Prospero comes to Sycorax’s island, subdues her, rules the land and imposes his own culture on the people of the land. Pushing the native to the side, he places himself at the helm of affairs. He displaces Caliban’s mother and treats her as a beast. He has full control over everything on the island. He makes Caliban work as his servant and calls him a thing of darkness. Caliban is being dehumanized or treated as subhuman. This shows the colonizer’s attitude of looking down on the colonized people. Caliban is seen as a despicable entity. The whites looked down on the people of other color. Some are born to dominate while others are born to be dominated. Caliban is treated as inferior. The colonizer used words like light, knowledge and wisdom to refer him while he used terms like darkness, ignorance and elemental to describe the colonized. This binary opposition shows how Prospero as a colonizer creates essences about the colonized people. Prospero sees himself as a ruler carrying out the project of civilization mission. Prospero as a colonizer educates and civilizes Caliban but without much success. The civilizing mission is always accompanied by the politics of domination over the colonized. These elements allow us to study the play in the light of colonialism.
A Tempest by Aime Cesaire is an attempt to confront and rewrite the idea of colonialism as presented in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He is successful at this attempt by changing the point of view of the story. Cesaire transforms the characters and transposes the scenes to reveal Shakespeare’s Prospero as the exploitative European power and Caliban and Ariel as the exploited natives. Cesaire’s A Tempest is an effective response to Shakespeare’s The Tempest because he interprets it from the perspective of the colonized and raises a conflict with Shakespeare as an icon of the literary canon.
We can read the text with certain means and certain ideas presented in the text itself.
Prospero Complex
Fanon has coined the term ‘ Prospero Complex. Europeans in Madagascar exhibit the need to feel highly regarded by others. The dependence versus inferiority relationship has already been established prior to each individual European entering a colonial situation. An inferiority complex occurs specifically for those colonizers whose “grave lack of sociability combined with a pathological urge to dominate” urges them to seek out a situation with servile people. This complex falls into place especially for the colonizer with self-esteem that is not quenched, or more specifically raised, while in the presence of his own people, where he feels that he cannot compete. They have sexual guilt in their minds. The guilt constantly challenges the masculinity of the white man. The inferior they feels, the more they dominates. They dominate the natives and tries to mould them as their convenience in power politics. Moreover they would rather like to dominate from.
–Aimé Césaire
Interpreted as white man’s burden, colonization was a means of conquering new lands and imposing the colonizer’s culture from on the native people. Prospero’s capture of Sycorax’s land and his treatment of the natives of the island have prompted many critics to interpret the play as working out the drama of colonization. Caliban’s protest against Prospero and his resistance to colonial power using the language taught by the colonizer helps us interpret the play as a postcolonial text.
The Tempest has often been interpreted as a play about colonialism primarily because Prospero comes to Sycorax’s island, subdues her, rules the land and imposes his own culture on the people of the land. Pushing the native to the side, he places himself at the helm of affairs. He displaces Caliban’s mother and treats her as a beast. He has full control over everything on the island. He makes Caliban work as his servant and calls him a thing of darkness. Caliban is being dehumanized or treated as subhuman. This shows the colonizer’s attitude of looking down on the colonized people. Caliban is seen as a despicable entity. The whites looked down on the people of other color. Some are born to dominate while others are born to be dominated. Caliban is treated as inferior. The colonizer used words like light, knowledge and wisdom to refer him while he used terms like darkness, ignorance and elemental to describe the colonized. This binary opposition shows how Prospero as a colonizer creates essences about the colonized people. Prospero sees himself as a ruler carrying out the project of civilization mission. Prospero as a colonizer educates and civilizes Caliban but without much success. The civilizing mission is always accompanied by the politics of domination over the colonized. These elements allow us to study the play in the light of colonialism.
A Tempest by Aime Cesaire is an attempt to confront and rewrite the idea of colonialism as presented in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He is successful at this attempt by changing the point of view of the story. Cesaire transforms the characters and transposes the scenes to reveal Shakespeare’s Prospero as the exploitative European power and Caliban and Ariel as the exploited natives. Cesaire’s A Tempest is an effective response to Shakespeare’s The Tempest because he interprets it from the perspective of the colonized and raises a conflict with Shakespeare as an icon of the literary canon.
We can read the text with certain means and certain ideas presented in the text itself.
Prospero Complex
Fanon has coined the term ‘ Prospero Complex. Europeans in Madagascar exhibit the need to feel highly regarded by others. The dependence versus inferiority relationship has already been established prior to each individual European entering a colonial situation. An inferiority complex occurs specifically for those colonizers whose “grave lack of sociability combined with a pathological urge to dominate” urges them to seek out a situation with servile people. This complex falls into place especially for the colonizer with self-esteem that is not quenched, or more specifically raised, while in the presence of his own people, where he feels that he cannot compete. They have sexual guilt in their minds. The guilt constantly challenges the masculinity of the white man. The inferior they feels, the more they dominates. They dominate the natives and tries to mould them as their convenience in power politics. Moreover they would rather like to dominate from.
The Caliban Complex
There is the dependence complex. After being forced out of the stable routine of their tribal society by colonizers, they are able to do the thing. It is believed that the lack of stability caused a strong reliance on the colonizers. There are differences in how each group of people handle a difficult situation. When the Europeans entered a difficult situation they were more concerned in proving that they were not inferior. Colonised were more interested in avoiding The drive to avoid a sense of abandonment results in dependence.
Language
Language is essential. Whether written or spoken, the need for human beings to communicate is intrinsic to our social development and so language is the first thing to be passed on from coloniser to colonise. This we see in The Tempest as Caliban has been taught English by Prospero and Miranda and seems to speak it with a certain amount of fluency. But this an entirely positive experience?
“CALIBAN: Call me X. That’s best. Like a man without a name. Or, more precisely, a man whose name was stolen. You speak of history. Well that’s history, known far and wide! Every time you’ll call me that will remind me of the fundamental truth, that you stole everything from me, even my identity! Uhuru !” (Act 1, Scene 2)
The language is the part of identity. Due to the language of Prospero Caliban felt that he has lost his own identity. Then he uses the language of protest and rebale.
“Ay, that I will, and I’ll be wise hereafter
And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
Was I to take this drunkard for a god
And worship this dull fool!”
Caliban is conscious for his identity and race. He is also well known about his colonisation. He is not sorry for hus rebel and wants freedom. These all the rebel he presented through his language.
Miranda obviously believes it to be a great honour and reminds Caliban how she "took pains to make thee speak" and describes Caliban's previous way of speaking as "gabble". However Caliban himself obviously takes a very different view and in a quote that is often cited by anti-colonialist critics he tells them, "You taught me language; and my profit on't is I know how to curse" and he goes on further to wish "the red plague rid you for teaching me your language!" clearly not sharing Miranda's view that she has done him a great service.
Caliban however does recognise the importance of education, citing Prospero's books as the source of all of his magical power and when Stephano and Trinculo fail to see the importance of the books and are more interested in the fine clothes they find, Caliban is incredibly scathing of them.
Thus, we can conclude that ‘A Tempest’ is the Caliban represents the more Black Nationalist ideas. He wants his ideas, his culture and his identity back. The emergence of postcolonial rebel is given flame in the work.
There is the dependence complex. After being forced out of the stable routine of their tribal society by colonizers, they are able to do the thing. It is believed that the lack of stability caused a strong reliance on the colonizers. There are differences in how each group of people handle a difficult situation. When the Europeans entered a difficult situation they were more concerned in proving that they were not inferior. Colonised were more interested in avoiding The drive to avoid a sense of abandonment results in dependence.
Language
Language is essential. Whether written or spoken, the need for human beings to communicate is intrinsic to our social development and so language is the first thing to be passed on from coloniser to colonise. This we see in The Tempest as Caliban has been taught English by Prospero and Miranda and seems to speak it with a certain amount of fluency. But this an entirely positive experience?
“CALIBAN: Call me X. That’s best. Like a man without a name. Or, more precisely, a man whose name was stolen. You speak of history. Well that’s history, known far and wide! Every time you’ll call me that will remind me of the fundamental truth, that you stole everything from me, even my identity! Uhuru !” (Act 1, Scene 2)
The language is the part of identity. Due to the language of Prospero Caliban felt that he has lost his own identity. Then he uses the language of protest and rebale.
“Ay, that I will, and I’ll be wise hereafter
And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
Was I to take this drunkard for a god
And worship this dull fool!”
Caliban is conscious for his identity and race. He is also well known about his colonisation. He is not sorry for hus rebel and wants freedom. These all the rebel he presented through his language.
Miranda obviously believes it to be a great honour and reminds Caliban how she "took pains to make thee speak" and describes Caliban's previous way of speaking as "gabble". However Caliban himself obviously takes a very different view and in a quote that is often cited by anti-colonialist critics he tells them, "You taught me language; and my profit on't is I know how to curse" and he goes on further to wish "the red plague rid you for teaching me your language!" clearly not sharing Miranda's view that she has done him a great service.
Caliban however does recognise the importance of education, citing Prospero's books as the source of all of his magical power and when Stephano and Trinculo fail to see the importance of the books and are more interested in the fine clothes they find, Caliban is incredibly scathing of them.
Thus, we can conclude that ‘A Tempest’ is the Caliban represents the more Black Nationalist ideas. He wants his ideas, his culture and his identity back. The emergence of postcolonial rebel is given flame in the work.
No comments:
Post a Comment