Welcome Readers,
The Tempest is often understood as the postcolonial play because of the kind of issues that it raises and the contemporariness of those issues are relevant to date.
Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' or Daniel Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' are the texts in which the whites (the 'decent' colonizer) are the narrator and these texts obviously hold the superior position as a white narrator. A polish or an English anxiety accounts the experiences in Congo or on the island. These texts are narrating the struggles and hardships of the explorer and an enthusiast- Robinson and Marlow, both are the white man and have struggled to civilize the 'savage' natives- in some ways a 'white man's burden'.
Now the question which arises in our mind is that-
Who asked these white people to civilise the natives?
What makes them think that the natives are savages, barbarians?
Just because their culture is different and does not match the criteria decided by the white people will mean that they are savage?
The critique of both these texts is remarkably presented in 'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe and 'Foe' by John Maxwell Coetzee. Similarly a critique of William Shakespeare's classic play 'The Tempest' has one of such colonizing voices wherein the coloured character is shown completely subjugated to the colonizer- the white-skinned character.
The critique of William Shakespeare's work 'The Tempest' is Aime Cesaire's 'A Tempest'. Cesaire in 'A Tempest' provides our deep inside that how 'The Tempest' can be read and the portrayal of Caliban is significant that basically there is no end to this idea -is that there is an island for which the white controls or the colonizers controls the native, not have progressed in the faster space.
There are two texts- Tempest.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare and A Tempest. Both are very different from each other the Shakespearean Tempest can be classified as not be entering into the minds of the native where the colonizer rule but a very different concern from other places. Shakespeare in his plays makes devastation the kind of instability, not political but mental. Shakespeare seems to avoid the kind of political instability that is functioning which is not accurate in the final place from Caliban's perspective.
The Tempest can be read and seen traditionally as one of those final plays of Shakespeare wherein at the end of the play the way Prospero breaks his magic staff, similarly, Shakespeare announces his retirement with the metaphor of forgiveness and brotherhood which Prospero practice at the end of the play so Shakespeare's play can be read as a play of reconciliation.
A postcolonial reading focus is major on the modes of the methodology of creating authoritarian structural foundations and reclaiming the past appropriating the history. This is the largest and bit of postcolonial theory. From the postcolonial perspective, Cesaire's play 'A Tempest' is a very disturbing play. Readers can able to view the perfect nature of resistance and also brought to light how leadership operates, at the same time how martyrdom happens. Cesaire's play is trying to bring a complete subjugation and control of the land the very idea of postcolonialism which is based on the idea of control of land space and Colony and forcible occupation of natives as well as certain space being dominated by excessive power are highlighted. It contains some aspects of imperialism that how certain policies are made to support the conquest of the land it is all about the attitudes of the natives as well as the superior attitude attitudes of the colonizers. the post-colonial discourse means inquiring the conditions of the control and inquiring the historical veracity.
Knowledge which is used as power is governed in some ways by the use of language, if the natives know the language then they can raise their voice. Insects peers play Prospero was able to colonise or establish his dominance over the natives because he was having a native knowledge of the land Caliban has helped him to gain the knowledge their ways of Living. At the same time, Prospero was able to understand the land better the conditions of Ireland the geography of time the nature of Cops trees plant only because he was having a person providing the information. In Cesaire's play Caliban was not able to resist he was not able to bring forth his armed resistance his voice of protesting Caliban is helpless in Shakespeare's play to his voice in his resistance tries to organise the revolt but he does not succeed because the white magic of Prospero is too powerful for the colonial modernity and the modes of control are very much powerful for the colonies subjects to react where is in a Tempest the land is open to question the land is not completely under the control of colonizer. The post-colonial reading of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' would say Prospero is an absolute Dictator he is a totalitarian man who is running a totalitarian Regime and his idea of bringing reconciliation at the end was done on his terms so Prospero is not a very democratic man is Shakespeare's play. The nature of land and control in Cesaire's play is very very different from the nature of land and control in Shakespeare. Shakespeare has in present Caliban's mother, he is controlling the modes of production in the Play. There is not much space left for Caliban as the original inhabitant of the land and space.
Cesaire is trying to critique the ways and these modes of colonialism by not only rewriting but also retelling the tale with a different and unheard perspective.
Works Cited-
LIANG, Fei. "A Call for Freedom: Aime Cesaire’s A Tempest." Canadian Social Science 3.5 (2010): 118-120.
Nixon, Rob. "The Caribbean and African Appropriations of" The Tempest"." Critical Inquiry 13.3 (1987): 557-578.
Davis, Gregson. Aimé Césaire. Vol. 5. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Arnold, A. James. "Césaire and Shakespeare: Two Tempests." Comparative Literature (1978): 236-248.
thank you.
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