A

Historical study

Of

Caliban

As

Missing Link

Faisal Rahman 1412027055

Topic : The influence of the Theory of evolution in creating the character Caliban in Shakespeare’s Tempest.

Abstract :

In this paper I am going to show that William Shakespeare studied Greek and Hindu

philosophy and influenced by the idea of Evolution that exists in those philosophy(that man ultimately come from fish) . Caliban of Tempest was created from his idea of Evolution .

Caliban is a hypothetical missing link between the man and the fish.

Introduction

Tempest the last play written by Shakespeare is generally considered as a comedy, has magic

and dream reality in it. It is also fantastic, where divine powers make fool of earthly mortals.

But close observation may reveal that the text of tempest and all it’ s supernatural has some

root in science.

Mainly the theory of Evolution. We shall see that the idea of missing link is found in Tempest ( and

somewhat in A midsummer Night’s dream.)

Caliban is a character with metaphysical significance , he is not only a primitive man but also an

amphibian man.

Tempest Summary

The Tempest opens in the midst of a storm, as a ship containing the king of Naples and his party

struggles to stay afloat. On land, Prospero and his daughter, Miranda, watch the storm envelop the ship. Prospero has created the storm with magic, and he explains that his enemies are on

board the ship.

The story Prospero relates is that he is the rightful Duke of Milan and that his younger brother, Antonio, betrayed him, seizing his title and property. Twelve years earlier, Prospero and Miranda were put out to sea in little more than a raft. Miraculously, they both survived and arrived safely

on this island, where Prospero learned to control the magic that he now uses to manipulate everyone on the island. Upon his arrival, Prospero rescued a sprite, Ariel, who had been

imprisoned by the witch Sycorax. Ariel wishes to be free and his freedom has been promised within two days. The last inhabitant of the island is the child of Sycorax and the devil: Caliban,

whom Prospero has enslaved. Caliban is a natural man, uncivilized and wishing only to have his island returned to him to that he can live alone in peace.

Soon the royal party from the ship is cast ashore and separated into three groups. The king's son, Ferdinand, is brought to Prospero, where he sees Miranda, and the two fall instantly in love. Meanwhile, Alonso, the king of Naples, and the rest of his party have come ashore on another

part of the island. Alonso fears that Ferdinand is dead and grieves for the loss of his son. Antonio, Prospero's younger brother, has also been washed ashore with the king's younger

brother, Sebastian. Antonio easily convinces Sebastian that Sebastian should murder his brother and seize the throne for himself. This plot to murder Alonso is similar to Antonio's plot against his own brother, Prospero, 12 years earlier.

Another part of the royal party — the court jester and the butler — has also come ashore.

Trinculo and Stefano each stumble upon Caliban, and each immediately sees a way to make money by exhibiting Caliban as a monster recovered from this uninhabited island. Stefano has

come ashore in a wine cask, and soon Caliban, Trinculo, and Stefano are drunk. While drinking, Caliban hatches a plot to murder Prospero and enrolls his two new acquaintances as accomplices. Ariel is listening, however, and reports the plot to Prospero.

Meanwhile, Prospero has kept Ferdinand busy and has forbidden Miranda to speak to him, but

the two still find time to meet and declare their love, which is actually what Prospero has planned. Next, Prospero stages a masque to celebrate the young couple's betrothal, with

goddesses and nymphs entertaining the couple with singing and dancing.

While Ferdinand and Miranda have been celebrating their love, Alonso and the rest of the royal party have been searching for the king's son. Exhausted from the search and with the king despairing of ever seeing his son alive, Prospero has ghosts and an imaginary banquet brought

before the king's party. A god-like voice accuses Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian of their sins, and the banquet vanishes. The men are all frightened, and Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian run

away.

Prospero punishes Caliban, Trinculo, and Stefano with a run through a briar patch and swim in a scummy pond. Having accomplished what he set out to do, Prospero has the king's party brought

in. Prospero is clothed as the rightful Duke of Milan, and when the spell has been removed, Alonso rejects all claims to Prospero's dukedom and apologizes for his mistakes. Within

moments, Prospero reunites the king with his son, Ferdinand. Alonso is especially pleased to learn of Miranda's existence and that Ferdinand will marry her.

Prospero then turns to his brother, Antonio, who offers no regrets or apology for his perfidy. Nevertheless, Prospero promises not to punish Antonio as a traitor. When Caliban is brought in,

Caliban tells Prospero that he has learned his lesson. His two co-conspirators, Trinculo and Stefano, will be punished by the king. Soon, the entire party retires to Prospero's cell to celebrate

and await their departure home. Only Prospero is left on stage.

In a final speech, Prospero tells the audience that only with their applause will he be able to leave the island with the rest of the party. Prospero leaves the stage to the audience's applause.

(The Tempest : Play Summary – Cliffs Notes) (1)

The Missing Link in Tempest

Physical appearance of Caliban:

we can find physical appearance from the description of Trinculo :

What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-

like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor- John. A strange fish! Were I in England now,

as once I was, and had but this fish painted,

not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a

man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame

beggar, they will lazy out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man and his fins like arms!

So Trinculo says Caliban is half fish and half man. And from the description of proper we find:

But, as 'tis, We cannot miss him: he does make our fire, Fetch in our wood and serves in offices

That profit us. What, ho! slave! Caliban! Thou earth, thou! speak.

Come forth, I say! there's other business for thee:

Come, thou tortoise! when?

So Prospero says he is a tortoise .To understand the meaning of this physical properties we look at other literature and science.

Caliban as Amphibian:

The Amphibian man by Alexander Belyaev :

Argentinean doctor Salvator, a scientist and a maverick surgeon, gives his son, Ichthyander (Russian: Ихтиандр, Ichtiandr) (Greek etymology: "Fish"+ "Man") a life-saving transplant - a

set of shark gills. (Wikipedia) (2)

Did Shakespeare thought something like the Ichthyander ? Half fish & half man.

“ Legged like man and finned like fish “ - Shakespeare means Caliban is an amphibian.

Hindu mythology:

In Hinduism, Kurma, the tortoise Avatar (Sanskrit; Kūrma) was the second Avatar of Vishnu, succeeding Matsya (Fish)and preceding Varaha( boar). Like the Fish avatar this incarnation also

occurred in Satya Yuga .(Wikipedia) (3)

Prospero calls Caliban a tortoise , Why ? tortoise is an amphibian creature. Does he means Caliban is an Amphibian ? may be Prospero means Caliban can lve both in water and land.

In Hindu mythology the Tortoise Avatar (amphibian) is intermediate between the Fish Avatar

(aquatic) and the Boar Avatar (Terrestrial).

Is Caliban intermediate between the aquatic creatures and terrestrial creatures like tortoise avatar ? Shakespeare’s description categorizes Caliban as an Amphibian , half way between fish and man.

Theory of Evolution

Fish evolved into amphibians ,amphibians evolved into reptiles , reptiles evolved into mammals, primate like mammals evolved into man.(Wikipedia) (4)

Figure 1 fish & early amphibian, note the similarity.

The early amphibians were like partly fish and partly animal as like Caliban is half man and half fish.

Caliban is amphibian. Caliban is metaphorically the early amphibian!

Did it appear to Shakespeare that the man ultimately come from fish ? May be , so he thought there

could be a species which is intermediate between the man and the fish; namely the missing link.

Greek philosophy

Anaximander ( 610- 546 bc.) speculated about the beginnings and origin of animal life.

Taking into account the existence of fossils, he claimed that animals sprang out of the

sea long ago.

. Anaximander put forward the idea that humans had to spend part of this transition

inside the mouths of big fish to protect themselves from the Earth's climate until they

could come out in open air and lose their scales. He thought that, considering humans' extended infancy, we could not have survived in the primeval world in the same manner we do presently. (Wikipedia) (5)

Caliban can easily be thought as hypothetical proto man that born from the mouth of

Anaximander’s primitive fish.

Remark

Hindu avatars evolved from aquatic to amphibian to terrestrial , it is quite parallel to evolution

of life. Shakespeare possibly read Greek philosophy and Hindu philosophy and got influenced by

it. Caliban in Tempest reflects this insight of his. He had notion of Evolution four centuries

before Lamarck & Darwin.

Caliban as a proto man :

Caliban , was so primitive that he didn’t know how to tell the sun from the moon.

and teach me how

To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night:

He didn’t have language.

You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language!

So what we have here ? Caliban is biologically intermediate between man and fish and he is

culturally intermediate between man and brute.

Figure 2 erectus Homo

Scientifically we know that Homo erectus (6) was intermediate between the ape and the man.

They didn’t have language ,so they were also culturally intermediate between man and animal.

So is not Cliban like Homo erectus ?

Caliban is symbolically the missing link. W. Shakespeare had some knowledge about the Evolution. He thought there should be an intermediate creature between the man and the animal,

that is what reflected in the drawing of Caliban character.

The Origin of Caliban:

Where does Caliban come from? We learn from Prospero:

Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth! Caliban was born from union of a demon and Sycorax. We know that Caliban is half man and

half fish. And if we think his mother was a human ( because she comes from Algiers.)

O, was she so? I must

Once in a month recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forget’st. This damned witch Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know’st, was banished. For one thing she did

They would not take her life. Is not this true?

Then his father must be a Aquatic man .

In ancient folklores there are stories of human who lives under the water like fish.

In Arabian nights we find such creatures;

“The One Thousand and One Nights collection includes several tales featuring "sea people",

such as "Djullanar the Sea-girl".Unlike depictions of mermaids in other mythologies, these

are anatomically identical to land-bound humans, differing only in their ability to breathe and

live underwater. They can (and do) interbreed with land humans, and the children of such

unions have the ability to live underwater. In the tale "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah

the Merman", the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater

and discovers an underwater society that is portrayed as an inverted reflection of society on

land. The underwater society follows a form of primitive communism where concepts like

money and clothing do not exist. In "The Adventures of Bulukiya", the protagonist Bulukiya's

quest for the herb of immortality leads him to explore the seas, where he encounters

societies of mermaids “ (Wikipedia) (7)

Also in Greek mythology there are stories of Aquatic man.

The first known mermaid stories appeared in Assyria c. 1000 BC. The goddess Atargatis,

mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, loved a mortal (a shepherd) and unintentionally killed

him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake and took the form of a fish, but the waters would not

conceal her divine beauty. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid — human above the

waist, fish below — although the earliest representations of Atargatis showed her as a fish

with a human head and arm, similar to the Babylonian god Ea..(Wikipedia) (7).

Shakespeare must have studied The Arabian Nights and the Greek mythologies and concluded

that there are Aquatic people who can interbreed with humans which gave him the idea of

Caliban

Aquatic man (demon) + Sycorax = Caliban (fish +man)

Comparison with A midsummer night’s dream:

In Midsummer night’s dream we find Bottom the ass. Bottom is a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream who provides comic relief throughout the play. He is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of a donkey by the elusive Puck.

Compare this character with Minotaur (8) in Greek Mythology.

Did Shakespeare had some influence from Greek mythology? Minotaur is half man and half beast , so it is also like Homo erectus.

Shakespeare had some notion of the Missing Link so he always thought of a creature

which is half man and half beast, Bottom the ass ,in Midsummer night’s dream is created from this type of thought. . Tempest his last play whence he had deeper insight

about the Evolution of life , man ultimately comes from fish , Caliban is created from this type of thought.

Conclusion :

Shakespeare read Hindu mythology and Greek philosophy and probably Arabian nights.

He got the idea of evolution from the Hindu and the Greek philosophy and also was

convinced about the existence of Aquatic man who can cross breed with humans . He created Caliban who is half fish and half man, the missing amphibian ancestor of man.

Shakespeare out smarted Darwin in the idea of missing link and Belyaev in the idea of amphibian man in four hundred years.

Primary source:

Shakespeare. W; Tempest , Retrieved from The Tempest - Folger Digital Texts www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/html/Tmp.html (retrieved on 8 august 15)

Secondary source

Auberlen, Eckhard (1991). "The Tempest and the Concerns of the Restoration Court: A Study of The

Enchanted Island and the Operatic Tempest". Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660–

1700 . Coursen, Herbert (2000). The Tempest: A Guide to the Play. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Dawson, Anthony (2002). "International Shakespeare". In Wells, Stanley; Stanton, Sarah. The

Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 174–

93 Forsyth, Neil (2000). "Shakespeare the Illusionist: Filming the Supernatural". In Jackson, Russell. The

Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 274–94.

Malone, Edmond (1808). An Account of the Incidents, from which the Title and Part of the Story of

Shakespeare's Tempest were derived, and its true date ascertained. London: C. and R. Baldwin, New

Bridge-Street.

References:

1. The Tempest: Play Summary - CliffsNotes

www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/the-tempest/play-summary (retrieved on 6 august 15)

2. Amphibian Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibian_Man

3. Kurma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurma

4 .Timeline of human evolution - Wikipedia, the free ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution

5. Anaximander - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximande

6. Homo erectus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus

7. Mermaid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaid

8. Minotaur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotau