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emphasizes the conditions under which many Latin American countries exist, focusing his discussions on the differences between the center/periphery dichotomies. Reinaldo Arenas’ writing stems from questions regarding his “postcolonial existence,” which led him to question the place of the homosexual subject within the Cuban center/periphery dichotomy.
Another argument presented by Fernández Retamar focuses on the issues of language, its connection to the colonizers and its impact on the cultures of Latin American nations (5). His debate also corresponds to the demands placed on Cuban artists and writers to promote a revolutionary social consciousness by adopting the language of the Revolution. As Fidel Castro stated, those who supported the Revolution had every right within the system, but those who did not had no rights at all. To understand the struggles that Reinaldo Arenas tried to overcome having rejected the regime’s demands for conformity and living as a homosexual writer, the symbolic representation of Caliban can best discern the writer’s agenda.
In the 1950s Caliban was reappropriated as the symbol for the worldwide processes of decolonization that saw him as the spirit of resistance and rebellion against the tyrannies of colonial empires. Since then he has become a symbol for all postcolonial moments beginning with his appearance in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest in 1611. In the depiction of the New World native, Shakespeare established a first contact protocol that introduced the Old World to the uncivilized existence found beyond its borders. As a result, Caliban’s image has also become synonymous with the quest of the decolonized subjects to reestablish a connection with a past altered by the process of colonization. In this vein, Reinaldo Arenas and Caliban became symbols for those who opposed the idea of a collective social consciousness that meant denying one’s individuality. They did this even at