Paper , Order, or Assignment Requirements

For your first response paper (750 words), which will be due Tuesday, February 14th, I want you to think about the relationship between Prospero and Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611). Using proper context and textual evidence show how their relationship is an archetype (or a foundational metaphor) of European colonization in the Caribbean. How does their relationship come to symbolize the problem of “kind” between Europeans and native peoples as well as between Europeans and enslaved Africans? What structures of power and powerlessness is the play dramatizing or symbolizing? In order to establish the proper historical context for thinking about this encounter between Prospero and Caliban you will need to draw upon other course documents, such as Columbus, Higman, or even the Brathwaite (or the Stuart Hall) as well as the Leininger to produce an effective argument. Please note that we must always think the historical with the cultural throughout this semester and consider their profound interrelationship.