The surrogation of Caliban from Shakespeares The Tempest to Césaires A Tempest has always been related to colonialism. In Shakespeares time, Caliban, depicted as half animal, served to represent the Other in an emerging colonial discourse. As opposed to Shakespeares character, Césaires Caliban is blatantly black and racially oppressed. Césaire indicates that A Tempest is an adaptation of Shakespeares The Tempest for black theater. As an adaptation, the play reinterprets the figure of Caliban to express postcolonial attitudes of the time. This thesis addresses the questions of how the figure of Caliban in Shakespeares play fits into the discourse of colonialism and how the figure of the black Caliban in Césaires play reinterprets Caliban in a postcolonial context. To answer the questions, this thesis employs postcolonial theory as advanced by, among others, Aimé Césaire, Leopold Senghor, Frantz Fanon and Homi Bhabha. The discussion indicates that each figuration of Caliban, both on stage and in critical theory, always functions as a surrogate for another reinterpretation of the figure within a given political context. Césaires Caliban, as a refiguring of Shakespeares Caliban, however, also invites another surrogation, one that relates to the later wave of postcolonial theory emphasizing hybridity, which views Caliban as one who blends borders and identities in a hybrid formation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04122004-144735 |
| Date | 13 April 2004 |
| Creators | Sarwoto, Paulus |
| Contributors | Adelaide Russo, Gregory Stone, Leslie A. Wade |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04122004-144735/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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