A Tempest

In his adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the playwright Aimé Césaire addresses the complex dynamics that exist between individuals of different races within the context of colonialism. Prospero, as a white colonizer, represents all European colonizers who invade other countries and exploit their people and resources. Ariel and Caliban, Prospero’s slaves, are mulatto and black, respectively, and they represent the complicated experience of the individuals whose lands have been seized by Europeans.

As a Martinican and a co-founder of the Négritude movement, Césaire has an anti-colonialist stance that is as steadfast as his belief in the need for people of African descent to cultivate pride in their black identity. In Africa, only two countries were able to resist European colonization, Ethiopia and Liberia; in the Caribbean, all islands came under French, Spanish, Dutch, or British rule. France colonized Césaire’s own Martinique in the 17th century, so European exploitation was well-established by the time Césaire and his fellow intellectuals developed Négritude in the 1930s.

Throughout the play, Ariel and Caliban pressure Prospero to release them from slavery. Ariel’s pleas for freedom are strategic: He acknowledges Prospero’s power and appeals to Prospero’s conscience.