The Monster Who Sings
📖 The Monster Who Sings
You hear about Caliban before you see him. Prospero calls him "a freckled whelp hag-born, not honour'd with / A human shape". You arrive expecting a monster.
Then Shakespeare gives the same creature the play's most beautiful lines: "The isle is full of noises, / Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not."
Shakespeare dares you to hold both things at once. The question the play asks — and refuses to answer — is: which version of Caliban is true?
English Literature glossary
- What is colonialism, as relevant to The Tempest?
- Colonialism: the practice of one group settling and taking control of another people's territory, imposing language, law, and labour. In The Tempest: • Prospero arrives on the island Caliban already inhabits • He teaches Caliban his language • He forces Caliban into servitude • He justifies control through Caliban's alleged inferiority All four steps mirror 17th-century colonial practice in the Americas.
Shakespeare introduces Caliban through Prospero's dehumanising description before he appears on stage — a deliberate choice. By the time Caliban speaks, the audience already carries Prospero's prejudice.
Earn the mark scheme marks
🧠 Caliban's Arc: DISPOSSESSED → DEGRADED → AWARE
Dispossessed — Emergence: his claim, his welcome-turned-enslavement, the colonial logic installed
Degraded — Development: worships Stephano, plans murder, BUT also sings about the island's beauty — the lyric paradox
Aware — Resolution: self-knowledge ("what a thrice-double ass"), Prospero's ambiguous acknowledgement, left behind
Anchor mnemonic: DDA — Dispossessed, Degraded, Aware. For each stage, hold the tension: the stage name is one pole; the counter-evidence is the other.
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 12
In Act 1 Scene 2, Caliban claims the island is his. How does he justify this claim?
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