This essay is a critical conversation piece that looks to integrate my own personal opinion into the contemporary discourse on Caliban’s place as a colonial threat within the play. Noting how Deborah Willis refutes Paul Brown’s claim that Caliban represents a hazardous “other” to Prospero by casting him aside as a silly, sympathetic comic relief, I attempt to bring Caliban back into the discussion by suggesting that perhaps his sympathy-inducing qualities are in fact what makes him such a problem for Prospero’s colonial mission–and Prospero’s ultimate goal to usurp every bit of the audience’s attention and favor. To do so, I examine much of the same evidence as Willis to establish Caliban as a sympathetic character, but draw its implications further by noting how desperate Prospero is to be the “hero” to the audience, and if Caliban can steal the audience’s favor from him, Caliban becomes an entirely new sort of threat. While this essay therefore begins as an argument-and-response organizationally, it transitions into my own personal close readings and presents them as the main body of the essay. I step out of Willis’ and Brown’s shadow–and set out to add my own argumentative voice.
A Different Kind of Threat: How Caliban Regains his Place in The Tempest’s Colonial Discourse
