A Tempest

 

A Tempest by Aime Cesaire is an attempt to confront and rewrite the idea of colonialism as presented in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. He is successful at this attempt by changing the point of view of the story. He made some changes in this play and tells the outcome deal with it. In the way of this play, we are going to discuss about Cultural conflict, discourse in characters and constriction of this play. It is also good to see the relationship between master and slave and how the writer has portrayed. Actually it is also a politic consent structure and hierarchy that Aime Cesaire mentioning by redefining of Shakespeare’s play ’The Tempest’ and here we are also going to discuss about the differences between both the play. To deal with colonialism this play conveys the fact of imperialism.Aime Cesaire  transforms the characters and transposes the scenes to reveal Shakespeare’s Prospero as the exploitative European power and Caliban and Ariel as the exploited natives. Cesaire’s A Tempest is an effective response to Shakespeare’s The Tempest because he interprets it from the perspective of the colonized and raises a conflict with Shakespeare as an icon of the literary canon. Besides that in In The Tempest by William Shakespeare one might argue that colonialism is a reoccurring theme throughout the play because of the slave-master relationship between Ariel and Caliban and Prospero.

Prospero - the rightful duke of Milan, powerful magician, and slave master

Ariel - a "mulatto slave" and fairy

Caliban - son of Sycorax and Black slave

Miranda - Prospero's daughter

Eshu - a Yoruba god

Ferdinand - the son of Alonso and Miranda's love interest

Alonso - the King of Naples

Antonio- the Duke of Naples and Prospero's brother

Gonzalo - Alonso's counselor

Trinculo - the King of Naples' jester

Stephano - the King of Naples' butler

The action in the play closely follows that of Shakespeare's play, though Césaire emphasizes the importance of the people who inhabited the island before the arrival of Prospero and his daughter Miranda: Caliban and Ariel. Both have been enslaved by Prospero, though Caliban was the ruler of the island before Prospero's arrival.

Caliban and Ariel react differently to their situations. Caliban favors revolution over Ariel's non-violence, and rejects his name as the imposition of Prospero's colonizing language, desiring to be called X. He complains stridently about his enslavement and regrets not being powerful enough to challenge the reign of Prospero. Ariel, meanwhile, contents himself with asking Prospero to consider giving him independence.

At the end of the play, Prospero grants Ariel his freedom, but retains control of the island and of Caliban. This is a notable departure from Shakespeare's version, in which Prospero leaves the island with his daughter and the men who were shipwrecked there at the beginning of the play.