retamar caliban Read Free

precisely in the essay on cannibals. This fact makes the form in which Shakespeare presents his character Caliban/cannibal even stranger. Because if in Montaigne—in this case, as unquestionable literary source for Shakespeare—“there is nothing barbarous and savage in that nation . . . , except that each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice,” 7 in Shakespeare, on the other hand, Caliban/cannibal is a savage and deformed slave who cannot be degraded enough. What has happened is simply that in depicting Caliban, Shakespeare, an implacable realist, here takes the other option of the emerging bourgeois world. Regarding the utopian vision, it does indeed exist in the work but is unrelated to Caliban; as was said before, it is expressed by the harmonious humanist Gonzalo. Shakespeare thus confirms that both ways of considering the American, far from being in opposition, were perfectly reconcilable. As for the concrete man, present him in the guise of an animal, rob him of his land, enslave him so as to live from his toil, and at the right moment exterminate him; this latter, of course, only if there were someone who could be depended on to perform the arduous tasks in his stead. In one revealing passage, Prospero warns his daughter that they could not do without Caliban: “We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,/ Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices/ that profit us”(1.2.311-l3). The utopian vision can and must do without men of flesh and blood. After all, there is no such place.
    There is no doubt at this point that The Tempest alludes to America, that its island is the mythification of one of our islands. Astrana Marin, who mentions the “clearly Indian (American) ambience of the island,” recalls some of the actual voyages along this continent that inspired Shakespeare and even furnished him, with slight variations, with the names of not a few of his characters: Miranda, Fernando, Sebastian, Alonso, Gonzalo, Setebos. 8 More important than this is the knowledge that Caliban is our Carib.
    We are not interested in following all the possible readings that have been made of this notable work since its appearance, 9 and shall merely point out some interpretations. The first of these comes from Ernest Renan, who published his drama Caliban: Suite de "La Tempete” in 1878.'° In this work, Caliban is the incarnation of the people presented in their worst light, except that this time his conspiracy against Prospero is successful and he achieves power—which ineptitude and corruption will surely prevent him from retaining. Prospero lurks in the darkness awaiting his revenge, and Ariel disappears. This reading owes less to Shakespeare than to the Paris Commune, which had taken place only seven years before. Naturally, Renan was among the writers of the French bourgeoisie who savagely took part against the prodigious "assault of heaven. ’ ’ 11 Beginning with this event, his antidemocratic feeling stiffened even further. ‘‘In his Philosophical Dialogues," Lidsky tells us, “he believes that the solution would lie in the creation of an elite of intelligent beings who alone would govern and posses the secrets of science.” 12 Characteristically, Renan’s aristocratic and prefascist elitism and his hatred of the common people of his country are united with an even greater hatred for the inhabitants of the colonies. It is instructive to hear him express himself along these lines.
    We aspire [he says] not only to equality but to domination. The country of a foreign race must again be a country of serfs, of agricultural laborers or industrial workers. It is not a question of eliminating the inequalities among men but of broadening them and making them law.' 3
    And on another occasion:
    The regeneration of the inferior or bastard races by the superior races is within the providential human order. With us, the common man is nearly always a declasse nobleman, his heavy hand is better suited to handling