A Tempest by Aime Cesare - Essay Example

A Tempest Aime Cesaire mixes politics and poetics to produce A Tempest. A Tempest, by Aime Cesaire is not merely a remake of Shakespeare's The Tempest, because Cesaire remakes the play to support a political agenda against imperialism and for negritude. Negritude is an awareness by black people of their distinctive cultural heritage. Cesaire has modeled the characters in A Tempest to be representations of political situations and ideals. The character, Prospero represents imperialism, Ariel can be seen to represent hope that freedom will come through non-violent collaboration with the captor. Caliban represents negritude. Decolonization is at the heart of A Tempest. Caliban struggles for freedom while Ariel collaborates for his freedom. The world of man usually thinks in hierarchical terms. This leads to constant power struggles and revolution when the time is ripe. The black devil-god, Eshu comes along to shake up the hierarchal structure set forth by the colonizer and to promote Caliban's revolution. A Tempest also reflects Cesaire's disillusionment with Communism and his desire for a colonial uprising. Cesaire uses the characters in A Tempest to represent the major ideals dominating the imperial world of the twentieth century. Prospero is the character that represents imperialism. Although Prospero did not voluntarily leave his native country for the purpose of colonizing another land, he fits the criteria of colonizer. Prospero believes that if it were not for him Ariel would still be held captive in a tree and Caliban would be nothing more than a beast. Prospero, the Empire, is: powerful, knowledgeable, strong, and magical. In Act I scene 2 of A Tempest, Ariel expresses regret at the fact that Prospero came and conquered. Ariel wishes that he could have stayed captive in the tree because after all he might have become a real tree in the end. Colonized people surely must have wondered to what heights they would have grown to on their own without the empire crushing down on them. Throughout A Tempest Prospero and Caliban are locked in a constant struggle. Prospero is angry that Caliban will not accept his position of supposed superiority over him. It's obvious that Prospero has knowledge of magic since he captures, the sprite, Ariel, but one has to wonder if ninety percent of the magic Prospero has over Caliban is actually scientific knowledge that Prospero greedily holds on to and uses to keep Caliban in place. Prospero wants Caliban to believe that he has rescued Caliban from savagery. In a fine example of negritude Caliban proclaims who is mother is; where he came from, and the fact that he would be king of the island if it were not for Prospero. In the book titled Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, author Tony Judt quotes Charles De Gaulle as saying, " 'In French Africa [] there can be no true progress unless men are able to benefit from it morally and materially on their native soil, unless they can raise themselves little by little to a level where they can partake in the management of their own affairs' " (283). The most remarkable person that Prospero has conquered is Ariel, because Ariel is hardly a person, Ariel is a sprite. Ariel represents the hope that colonized people felt. The hope that one day their freedom would be granted if they performed loyally to the empire and the hope that one day the empire would see them as their equals. The only way that an empire will let go of its hold over a people is to acknowledge the empire's wrong-doing in the first place. Through Ariel's non-violent struggle he believes that he can actually help Prospero gain a conscious. There is a struggle between Ariel and Prospero throughout the text, but it is much more subtle that Caliban's struggle against Prospero. Ariel and Caliban have an understanding that Prospero is the corrupt one. In Robin Kelley's introduction of A Tempest, Kelley paraphrases Cesaire's literary work titled Discourse on Colonialism, "The instruments of colonial power rely on barbaric, brutal violence and intimidation, and the end result is the degradation of Europe itself" (xi). Ariel's hope for freedom through collaboration with the captor and Caliban's fight for freedom can be seen as two opposing views, but they are views shared by a common brotherhood struggle for freedom. Caliban represents negritude in the fact that he has an understanding of where he came from and who he is despite the image that Prospero has tried to depart on him. Sycorax, Caliban's mother can even be seen as a representation of Africa and Caliban refuses to deny his roots. In Act III scene 5, Caliban tells Prospero: "But now I know you, you old cancer, And I also know myself! And I know that one day my bare fist, just that, will be enough to crush your world! The old world in crumbling down" (62)! Caliban believes that to revolt against his master is the only chance that he has of obtaining freedom. Caliban seems stronger that Ariel in a way because of his defiance toward Prospero, yet in the end it is Ariel who is rewarded with freedom because of his loyal service. In Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century, Mark Mazower writes, "Nationalist historians like to argue that brave resistance fighters threw off the shackles of imperial rule; in practice, warders in Whitehall and Paris usually decided when to close down (or unlock) the prison and retire" (376). Caliban is the revolution that tries to change everything, but in the end gains nothing except for a deeper understanding of the unfairness of the world. At the end of A Tempest Prospero can leave, but he doesn't; he holds on to his power over the island and over Caliban, the way that Europe, in particularly France held on to its colonies. In Act III scene 5 Prospero says, "But I shall stand firm I shall not let my work perish! (Shouting) I shall protect civilization" (65)! In Europe after World War II, many European countries still clung to their colonies, in the belief that they were doing a favor to the colonized people by protecting civilization as Prospero proclaimed to be doing. The world of the twentieth century still held on to old ideas of racial superiority even while fighting a war against Nazi Germany, Americans and Europeans did not grant colored people equal rights or status. In Dark Continent Mazower writes, "Europeans remained largely unmoved by the drama of their own racial problems. So long as colonial subjects were willing to fight on their behalf, they had little incentive to alter the structure of power in a radical fashion" (196). Status and race played a major role in imperialism because all of Europe's conquered lands consisted of dark skinned people from the West Indies to the tip of the African continent to places in the Caribbean. During the time that Cesaire wrote A Tempest the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing in America and in Europe there was a growing amount of talk about human rights. Yet those basic human and individual rights had largely been denied to women of any color and people of dark skin. The sixties brought in an era of revolution. In Dark Continent, Mazower writes, "In 1968 came the explosion: campus sit-ins, riots, strikes and demonstrations rocked Europe, threatening at one point to topple the de Gaulle government; street fighting returned to the streets of Paris, Berlin, and Milan" (318). Caliban's final speech to his captor can be seen as a reflection of how the white race has made the black race to see themselves. Caliban says, "And you lied to me so much, about the world, about myself! And I hate that image and it's false" (62). The more that Caliban struggles against his captor the tighter Prospero holds on to his captive. Throughout the play Caliban demands freedom now. Decolonization remains just out of reach for Caliban though. In an attempt to bring his African roots into the play Cesaire introduces the god, Eshu. Eshu is an African trickster god that causes confusion among people. The lesson being that through confusion order may me obtained. The significance of Eshu is to disrupt the hierarchal pattern set in place by the colonizers and to promote revolution. This is signified by Eshu's song when he states, "Eshu plays a trick on the queen and makes her so upset that she runs naked into the street" (48). Eshu shows up right before Caliban faces off with Prospero. According to an article titled "Tricksters at the Crossroads" found at the internet site: carnaval.com: "Eshu's emphasis on trickery and vengeance made him an ideal orisha [god] for slaves, who imagined him as the saint of revenge against the whites" (Davis, 12). The Europeans never granted African gods equal status as their gods. In A Tempest, Eshu is seen as vulgar and offensive, and yet he has a dual role to provide the comic relief in the play. Eshu is all about the duality of life and the universe in general. He proclaims he's a devil to his enemies and a god to his friends. But in the end aren't gods and devils made of the same substance In Act III scene 3, regarding Caliban's revolution, Prospero tells Ariel: "By his insubordination he's calling into question the whole order of the world (50). Eshu is important in this respect because he is the one who causes confusion and calls into question the order of the world. If Caliban represents negritude and is a colonial subject he probably would have supported guerilla warfare to gain his freedom. Judt writes in Postwar of 1950's Europe, "In The Hague, in London, or in Paris, these same years were much taken up with costly guerilla wars in far-flung and increasing ungovernable colonies" (282). In A Tempest, Caliban uses the characters of Stephano and Trinculo as pawns to help him achieve freedom from Prospero through warfare. This part of the play is especially different from Shakespeare's version in which Caliban is portrayed as being an ignorant savage. Cesaire portrays Caliban as the leader of the revolt who has tricked Stephano into believing that Stephano is the leader of the attack on Prospero. In the twentieth century acquiring colonies and making an empire had diminished with the war. Countries were finding that keeping an empire was costly. The world of capitalization no longer cared how much land a country owned because owning land did not turn a profit and if it did then it was only a few that profited from it. Operating an empire was turning out to be far more costly that profitable. In A Tempest, as a result of loyal service Ariel is granted his freedom and finally allowed to be his own man or sprite. But although Caliban serves his master it is only because of Prospero's intimidation of magic spells, not out of loyalty. When Prospero confronts Caliban in Act V scene 5 regarding Caliban's attempt to overthrow him, Prospero treats Caliban like a child. One of the reasons European countries hung on to their colonies even though they proved to be costly was because imperial countries felt obligated to continue to support their colonies. In Postwar, Judt writes, "Even if European states could manage without their empires, few at the time could conceive of the colonies themselves surviving alone, unsupported by foreign rule" (280). In order to deal with a new post war world different modes of thinking came into being and different forms of government evolved from the old imperial and fascist ways. Communism and socialism came into play in Europe shortly after the war and within a short time frame it gained support from a vast amount of people who were looking for answers to what lay ahead. Communism exalted the working class. In Postwar, Judt writes "Youthful enthusiasm for a Communist future was widespread among middle-class intellectuals" (199). According to Kelley's introduction of A Tempest, Cesaire himself became swept up with the idea that communism was a goal toward the common good. According to pages x and xi of the introduction, Cesaire joined the Communist Party and was successful in his campaign for mayor and upon becoming mayor he changed the status of French colonies to that of departments of France hoping to assimilate the colonized people and give them equal status. But France sent officials to the new "departments" and displaced many of the local black Martinicans. Socialism is another form of government that was closely tied to Communism and in many cases socialists merged with communists. Judt writes, "Even in western Europe some left-leaning members of the French and Italian Socialist Parties were seduced by communist invitations to merge into a single political force" (132). In the beginning Cesaire was probably filled with hope regarding socialism's rhetoric of equality and communism's centralized planning as a way to meet individual needs. According to the introduction of A Tempest Cesaire became disenchanted with the Communist party and he wrote in his letter of resignation from the party, "That people of color need to exercise self-determination, he warned against treating the 'colonial question as a subsidiary part of some more important global matter.' Racism, in other words, cannot be subordinate to the class struggle" (xii). On page xiii Kelley writes that Cesaire "was now convinced that only Third Word revolt could pave the way for a new society." In Cesaire's play A Tempest that revolt came in the form of Caliban and since in the end Caliban still was not free, perhaps Cesaire knew that revolt was not the ultimate answer either. A Tempest serves the purpose of calling into question the exploitation of colonized people. Negritude is promoted by Caliban's assertion of knowing himself and not denying his mother: who is Africa. The colonizer, Prospero sees himself not only as conqueror, but as bringing freedom to Ariel and civilization to Caliban. Prospero sees Caliban as an ungrateful child. A child that would not know what to do if left all by himself on an island. Ariel and Caliban assert the fact that they are brothers in the struggle against Prospero and for their freedom. While Ariel faithfully obeys Prospero; Caliban openly revolts against his master. Cesaire brought Eshu, a black devil-god into the play to bring perspective to the fact that order can come from chaos. The trickster god disrupts the hierarchal structure and brings forth Caliban's revolt. In the introduction to A Tempest, Kelley speaks of the different forms of ideals that Cesaire supported. For a time period Cesaire supported Communism until it seemed as if Communism did not support the race struggle. Cesaire then went on to support revolution as a way that colonized people could achieve their freedom. But since revolt did not bring Caliban's freedom in the end, perhaps it was an admission that Cessaire did not have the answer as to how to free the slave or for that matter the slave owner. Bibliography Cesaire, Aime. A Tempest. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 1985 Davis, Erik. Trickster at the Crossroads: West Africa's God of Messages, Sex and Deceit. Gnosis Magazine. 10 Jan. 2008 . Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. London: Penguin Press, 2005 Mazower, Mark. Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century. New York: Random House, 1998 Shakespeare, William The Tempest. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. New York: Pocket Books, 1961 Read More