Analysis of Aime Cesaire's 'A Tempest'

 

Hello friends,

The process of writing in literature has been going on for years.  It is constantly changing. Reading is just as important as the process of writing.  Humans are constantly changing. The idea keeps moving forward from time to time. That is why the reading perspective is constantly changing. This changing perspective on reading represents time.

Some works live forever.  No matter how much we critique, new opinions are constantly coming out of it.

What does it mean to re-write literary works?

A writer is a person who uses written words in different styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Skilled writers, who are able to use language to express ideas well, often contribute significantly to the cultural content of a society.

Aime Cesaire is one of the post-colonial writers who rebelled by re-writing of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ in a new form ‘A Tempest’.

Cesaire’s aim behind 'A Tempest'

Using Shakespeare’s 'The Tempest' as a vehicle, Cesaire sets his play in the Caribbean where his native lands is in is. The whole plot and structure are more or less the  same as that of The Tempest, buesaire makes his voice of anti-colonization heard through his version of Caliban(a black slave), Ariel(a mulatto slave) and Prospero in the central paradign of colonized relation.

According to Cesaire,

'It is not only to struggle for a political emancipation but also to ‘decolonize’ the blacks’ mind and inner life assimilated by western civilization, which Europeans take us superior by despising Africa as the barbican world.'

African Aime Cesaire’s play ‘A Tempest’ explores the relationship between Prospero the colonizer and his colonial subjects Caliban and Ariel from the perspective of the colonized. Comparing the characterization and colonized relationship in the two play is blog illustrates Aime Cesaire’s ‘A Tempest’ is a delivery of his idea of Negritude, a call for freedom and reflection of the ways to gain the freedom.

Cesaire adapts Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ in order to debate colonial politics, introducing the figure of Eshu, and  making Prospero’s oppression more obviously racial. A Tempest is Cesaire’s call for freedom and his ponderings on feasible ways laying ahead, which are interwoven in Caliban and Ariel’s struggle for freedom.

It is the word “FREEDOM” that Cesaire wants everyone, the colonized and the colonizer alike, to hear. It is a cry for freedom or decolonization all over the world.

Land is crucial.

Food and language are not politicized idea. How different is human flash?

Major theme of the play

The major change in the plot, that Prospero regards it as his duty to remain behind on the island, suggests that, however, futile his gesture, whites and black will have to develop some form of mutually supportive relationship rather than remain antagonists.

Evaluation of changes in ‘A Tempest’ and ‘The Tempest’

‘This adaption for a black theater follows the main lines of Shakespeare’s plot, but there are significant changes.’

Compare and contrast the character sketch of Ariel in ‘A Tempest’ and ‘The Tempest’

Ariel is a resentful mulatto.

Compare and contrast character sketch of caliban in Shakespeare and Cesaire’s plays

Caliban is rebellious black slave, who has begun taught Prospero’s language only so that he can understand his orders and who asks to be called X, since Prospero has stolen his identity.

The Tempest		A Tempest
The Tempest mirrors the rationale of colonization unconsciously.	1.	Overtly voices his politic views
Prospero is a virtuous mage with uplifting characteristics that endows him the power to control nature.	2.	Prospero presents above all as exploitative usurper of the island all as exploit
Caliban, an offspring of a witch and an incubus and thus hardly a human being, Is called ‘savage’, ‘slave’	3.	Cesaire’s Prospero givesto Caliban are more insulting: ‘ugly ape’, ‘a dumb animal, a beast’, ‘villain’ and ‘nothing but an animal’.
Prospero enslaves Caliban and Ariel but appears as their benefactor…   ‘What Would you be without me? ‘Ten times, a hundred times, I’ve tried to save you, above all from yourself’. ‘I give you a compliment and you don’t seem pleased? “Ingrate! And who freed you from Sycorax, may I ask>	4.	Cesaire makes this voice heard most clearly through Caliban’s final long speech as an eloquent accusation against colonization:   Prospero..yo’re an old hand at deception.. You ended up by imposing on me an image of myself: Underdeveloped…under competent that’s how you made me myself! And I hate this image…and it’s false.
Shakespeare’s Caliban is the ground of the play.	8	Cesaire’s Caliban accumulates most of the limelight because of his conscious reactions to being conquered and enslaved
Ariel represents the intellectual – ---“It’s always like that with you intellectuals!”.   Compared with Caliban, his understanding of freedom is at a high level  (“I’m not fighting just for my freedom, for our freedom, but for Prospero too.”) but he is somewhat accommodating and idealistic, looking to awaking Prospero’s conscience but lack in strength. His sense of Negritude is in his    “inspiring, uplifting dream” of a "wonderful world" in which everyone can live like brothers and everyone is significant in his own way. This is very similar to Cesaire’s dream world where nobody, regardless of his race, should be alienated from his human rights.	9	This is very similar to Cesaire’s dream world where nobody, regardless of his race, should be alienated from his human rights.
e Shakespeare’s Ariel who is obedient to Prospero and seems to care nothing but his own freedom,	10	Ariel in A Tempest is less willingly in carrying out Prospero’s missions and he also makes this known to Prospero   He shows sympathy for the victims of Prospero’s tempest. He even reproaches Prospero for his “despotism” in manipulating the group of hungry courtiers   But Ariel never turns too bitter toward Prospero, hoping Caliban and he could force him “to acknowledge his won injustice and put an end to it’.   He sees there is a need for Caliban and him to join up and fight for their freedom, but in some non-violent way since “Prospero is invincible.”  But Caliban refuses.
Caliban is also more courageous. The “conspiracy” of Shakespeare’s Caliban to kill Prospero almost ends before starting, and Caliban’s ends his role in the play by calling himself a fool to take a drunkard for a god.	9	On the contrary, in A Tempest, having given up Trinculo and Stephano, Caliban is determined to launch the battle alone against Prospero.
	10	“…I know that one day / my bare fist, just that, / will be enough to crush your world!”. And it is a great challenge to Prospero,  “I hate you…! For it is you who have made me doubt myself for the first time.”.   It is Caliban’s last speech that changes Prospero’s mind to leave to carry on his paradox responsibility for “protecting civilization” “with violence.”
	11	To some extent Caliban defeats Prospero by running away, declaring his newly found freedom ---- a consciousness in self-determination.
Whereas Shakespeare makes his Caliban disappear almost silently and gives the whole stage to Prospero,	12	A Tempest, Cesaire gives the privilege to Caliban. He is no longer traceless even he does not appear on stage. His voice is heard.

Conclusion

Neither of them ends up doing violence. Cesaire’s serious meditation on the path ahead may be conceived in the ending of the play. It presents no knock-down victory for both sides, the colonizer and the native,

And freedom is hardly possible without the colonizer’s consciousness neither. Without giving clear solutions, Cesaire may indicate there are no easy and simple ways and the way to freedom is still long ahead.

References

Frutkin, S. Aime Cesaire: Black between Worlds. Centre for Advanced International Studies. U. of Miami, 1973.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. McDougal Littell, 2002.

Young, Robert. Post-Colonialism: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2003.