Reinaldo Arenas, Caliban, and Postcolonial Discourse By Enrique ...

existence of the native as part of a civilized world (Skura 53). Another argument that supports the idea of Shakespeare’s play representing colonialist discourse is the stance toward Caliban and others who were considered more civilized, yet were equally repudiated groups that failed to meet European imperial standards: “It is true that no writer ever treated Native Americans as equals—anymore than he treated Moors, Jews, Catholics, peasants, women, Irishmen, or even Frenchmen as equals” (56).

In Shakespeare’s play, a plethora of adjectives and nouns are used to describe Caliban. He has been categorized as a servant, slave, monster, clod, tortoise, filth, corpse, fish, half-breed (The Tempest). Caliban was also perceived as a fool who could be governed and taken advantage of easily. It was a traditional practice to kidnap a native and turn him into a showcase piece for the viewers in the metropolis; the native became property, an object to be possessed and controlled (Skura 56). This practice fueled the notion that European civilization was superior to any in the New World. Said writes that the

Therefore, this dichotomy mirrors the ideology that explains colonial discourse; the relationship between colonizer and colonized is always in terms of opposites so the colonizer can justify his acts and control over the colonized. This justification imposes