شخصیت Caliban

Caliban is one of the strangest characters in Shakespeare’s work.

His mother was a witch and we can’t even be sure what he looks like. Is he a man or an animal? There are various descriptions of him:

a savage and deformed slave
A freckled whelp, hag-born—not honoured with
A human shape.

We also hear him called a ‘Poor credulous monster’ and a ‘strange fish’. So what does he look like?

We know that when Prospero arrived on the island he used magic to make Caliban his slave.

Prospero taught Caliban to speak - which Caliban says is a good thing because it allows him to curse Prospero:

You taught me language, and my profit on ’t
Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

Yet we also know that Caliban appreciates the natural beauty of the island and makes one of the most beautiful (and most famous) speeches in the play:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.

So we know that Caliban is a complex character. In the next step we’ll hear actor James Garnon talk about the decisions he made when playing the role of Caliban.

If you were directing The Tempest, what would you do? How do you think the role of Caliban should be played?