The concept of monstrosity, at an explicit level of representation, followed an established pattern in literature, but it was politically deployed and modified differently in different contexts. Etymologically, the word “monster” is derived from the Latin monstrum, meaning “that which reveals” – a warning or omen. It is often used to refer to distorted or deformed creatures. In Elizabethan England, with the various voyages, discoveries and travelogues of the time - such as The Wonders of the Orient, the Liber Monstrorum or the Travels of Sir John Mandeville - the connotations of the term extended to other races . . In fact, representing another culture as monstrous often served to justify its displacement or even extermination. The work of William Shakespeare boasts of richly conceived characters such as Iago (from Othello), Macbeth and Edmund (from King Lear), who are often considered monstrous due to their moral degeneracy and malignancy. Nicholas Royle states: "Shakespeare is constantly concerned with inventing monsters, with what is 'unacceptable', 'intolerable' and 'incomprehensible' in the characters", often associating ontological differences (e.g., dark skin in the case of Aaron, the Moorish [of Titus Andronicus]) or deformity (the hunchbacked Richard III) with moral depravity. However, it is not until The Tempest (1611) that Shakespeare literally creates a monster in Caliban. Although he dwells on the idea of ​​human bestiality in A Midsummer Night's Dream when the character of Nick Bottom transforms into a being with the head of a donkey, this monstrosity is treated in a comic mode, and during Bottom's transformation to his normal state. , the very idea is relegated to the status of a dream, thus denigrating its subversive potential. Only in The Tempest is there a thorough investigation of the concept of monstrosity in human nature, particularly – but not exclusively – in the figure of Caliban. In fact, the play is remarkably open to complex, even contradictory, interpretations of the nature of monstrosity, which can be explored in depth on the basis of the text. This article focuses primarily on Caliban, but one attempt is to connect the depiction of this character to the broader question of what constitutes the notion of monstrosity itself, as well as its changing connotations in the context of the evolution of Anglo-American attitudes. and finally locate the subversive possibility of the interchangeability of human and monster by exposing the fragile boundaries that separate them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The implied threat of the monster's body arises from its amorphous nature and propensity for change. By its fluid nature, the monster's body presents a disturbing hybridity, which defies the classificatory system of meaning. The monster thus becomes an ideal deconstructive symbol, overturning “totalizing conceptions of nature and destroying taxonomic logics, defining and at the same time calling into question the limits of the natural” (Milburn). Derrida writes: "A monster is always alive... Monsters are living beings... A monster is a species for which we do not yet have a name... this frightens precisely because no anticipation had prepared to identify this figure. .” Throughout the text of The Tempest, the precise nature of Caliban's monstrosity is nebulous. In the 1623 folio, Caliban is described in the cast of characters as a “savage and deformed slave”; since then he has been variously identified as a drunken beast, an evil form of the noble savage ofMontaigne, a Darwinian “missing link,” a “fish man,” and an “ape man,” among others. It most closely resembles what David Williams' taxonomic characterization considers "Monstrous Nature": distorted figures of nature that are products of combined human and animal components, or combinations of animal parts of different species. . Conversely, the vague but persistent references to his deformity make it difficult to oust him from the category of what Williams calls the "monstrous body", which includes the deformation of the body in terms of size, head, unusual build or in form terms. the use of various parts of the body. The “freckled dragonet,” for example, is the product of the illicit mixture between the Algerian witch Sycorax and the Devil himself; its ruling deity is Setebos, worshiped by the natives of Patagonia. It is called "earth", "witch seed", "fish", "monster", "thing of darkness", "puppy face", "turtle", "deformed" and "moon calf". on different occasions in the text. However, none of these terms gives a clear idea of ​​either his exact deformity or the precise nature of his monstrosity. Furthermore, although he considers Caliban to belong to a "vile race", Miranda recognizes that, even with his grotesque features, his form is essentially human; his reference to Ferdinand as "the third man I ever saw" inevitably excludes the possibility that the first two were anyone other than Prospero and Caliban. This classification is reaffirmed in Prospero's implicit comparison between Ferdinand, the handsome young prince ("a divine thing"), and Caliban when he states: "to most men he is a Caliban." Jeffrey J. Cohen suggests that “the monster means something other than itself; it is always a displacement, it always inhabits the gap between the time of upheaval which created it and the moment when it is received, to be reborn. The monster functions as another dialectic created to maintain difference in the world of its creators. In fact, it is always a construction, a projection of the fears and anxieties which demonize the subject in the first place. The criterion itself is arbitrary. Any sort of disparity – whether racial, cultural, sexual or political – can be projected onto the monstrous body. Besides his physical monstrosity, Caliban is also the racial other of Prospero and Miranda. Even in 20th-century depictions of The Tempest, Caliban's grotesque physical features were often toned down, but in most cases he was still a black actor (or adorned in black paint) chosen to play the role of the monster. The exaggeration, even distortion of the racial other as a monstrous aberration is a trope found as far back as the classical period. In this context, Prospero's fear for his daughter's honor can be interpreted as a fear of contamination of the purity of the race as well as a fear of miscegenation. It is Caliban's attempt to violate Miranda's honor that earns him Prospero's wrath and for which he is punished. This anxiety is not uncommon, however; in a patriarchal social formation, feminine and cultural others are relegated to the margins anyway. Their mixture therefore not only constitutes a challenge to the homosocial order of patriarchy: the “unnatural” alliance can also lead to a loss of identity. Caliban himself is the product of such a union between the witch Sycorax and the Devil himself. On the other hand, Caliban's response to the rape accusation associates him with a distinct order of existence; as a being who exists in a state of nature, the desire for a sexual union without cultural ties is not unnatural, and racial difference does not prefigureas an obstacle to this desire. Cohen states that monsters can only claim an independent identity after being assembled as such through a process of fragmentation and reconfiguration. However, since the difference itself is arbitrary, the monster challenges the system itself, that is, the world of its creators who created the difference in the first place. Observed in this light, Caliban's attempt to procreate with Miranda – to populate the “island of Calibans” – is not just a manifestation of his raw sexuality, nature taking precedence over nurture. Rather, it also aims to make the difference that has been arbitrarily inscribed on one's body disappear. Furthermore, Caliban's plan to murder Prospero can be seen as a continuation of this project, since the latter is the cultural apparatus that produced meaning in the first place and consequently marginalized it. It is Prospero who brings the cultural norms of his Milanese society to the “uninhabited” island and imposes them. His adherence to these sociocultural norms is also evident later in the Ferdinand-Miranda scenes; he is constantly on guard despite his own plans to unite the two. In fact, Prospero's paternalism leaves no room for the exercise of any form of action, whether in the case of Caliban or Miranda. Caliban is Prospero's slave monster. However, this is not because of the superiority of the latter or the inferiority inherent in the “vile races”. Rather, it is by magic that Prospero keeps Caliban confined in his rock and makes him carry out all his menial tasks. Caliban himself is well aware of this. He knows that it is necessary to separate Prospero from his books of witchcraft for his plan to kill Prospero to succeed: “remember / first to possess his books; for without them he is but a fool like me, nor has he one mind to command - they all hate him as deeply as I do” (Tempest). Although Caliban does not know of Ariel's specific presence, his observation is not false. Prospero might have freed Ariel from the split pine where Sycorax had imprisoned him, but he himself is no different. Hearing Ariel's plea for freedom, Prospero calls him a "malicious thing" and threatens him: "I will tear apart an oak / and sting you in its gnarled bowels until you scream twelve winters" (Tempest). Furthermore, from the list of Ariel's activities performed for Prospero, it becomes clear that the latter used Ariel to satisfy his whims and fancies on numerous occasions. From this point of view, there is not much difference between Antonio, who usurped Prospero's kingdom, and Prospero himself. Furthermore, by endowing Prospero with supernatural powers and not Caliban, despite his unnatural origins, Shakespeare reverses the hierarchical power relationship between man and monster. As a result of this inversion, not only is Caliban placed in a position of subjugation, but he is also not feared by anyone despite his horrible appearance; on the other hand, the human Prospero is feared by everyone. Prospero's attempts to civilize Caliban can be seen as metaphorically destroying the racial and cultural other – destroying the monster by bringing him under his own influence. His inability to do so leads him on the one hand to recognize his own failure: “this thing of darkness, I recognize it as mine” (Tempest); but on the other hand, this leads him to vilify the unsynthesizable: “a devil, a born devil, on whom nature/nurture cannot stick; on whom my labors, /humanly taken, are all, all lost, completely lost; / and as his body becomes uglier with age... I will torment them all” (Tempest). The teaching of the language to Caliban by the father and thegirl takes on a new meaning in this cultural context. Language becomes an essential tool for establishing power over an environment and its inhabitants – what Stephen Greenblat calls “linguistic colonialism”. They take it for granted that they have introduced language to someone who "would like to chatter like a most stupid thing"; that Caliban might already have his own language is not even considered a possibility by the former, an oversight that Caliban points out: “you taught me the language...I know how to swear. The Red Plague got rid of you / for teaching me your language (emphasis mine)” (Tempest). Contemporary linguistic theories also prove that the first language is acquired unconsciously; it is only a second language that must be learned consciously. Additionally, there is a disparity between how others perceive Caliban and what his own thoughts and actions reveal. He is shown to have emotions -- in fact, he is almost poetically sensitive in nature -- and while gullible, he is intelligent enough to have learned another language, and then to use that language for resistance rather than violence. servitude. He is also acutely aware of being used and then displaced, at least in the feudal sense, by Prospero, who is for him a usurper: "the mine of the island by Sycorax my mother, / that you take from me". In fact, Caliban's plan with Trinculo and Stephano to murder Prospero, as horrible as it was, is the product of natural grievances. On the other hand, Antonio and Sebastian's plan to kill the latter's brother (Alonso, the king of Naples) is the consequence of a thirst for power. Unlike Caliban, they are neither displaced nor have legitimate grievances; They're not even drunk. By drawing a parallel between the two scenes, Shakespeare demands a deeper investigation into the very nature of monstrosity while questioning the values ​​and benefits of Jacobean civilization. The physically deformed creature may be mentally depraved, but the well-formed and well-placed characters have similarly tiny consciousnesses. For example, Antonio states: “yes, sir [Sebastian], where is this [consciousness]? ...I do not feel this divinity in my bosom” (Tempest). As Jan Kott argues, in the Shakespearean world there is "no notable difference between good kings and tyrants or kings and clowns." ... Terror and the struggle for power are not a privilege of princes, it is a law of the world.” The influence of the French thinker Michel de Montaigne is palpable in Shakespeare. In his essay "Of Cannibals", he compares the brutality and fanaticism of Christians against each other in the French civil wars to cannibalism: "I think that there is more barbarity in eating men alive than in to feed them dead, to mutilate by torture and torment a body full of lively senses. Montaigne also says that cannibals can be called barbarians “in relation to the rules of reason, but not in relation to ourselves, who surpasses them in all kinds of barbarism”. Thus, the relative extent of “barbarism” is not simply associated with a particular culture or point of view, but also with degrees. Shakespeare accomplishes a similar task by emphasizing the relative nature of barbarism, even monstrosity. The speech of the honest old councilor Gonzalo is almost a paraphrase of Montaigne: "If I were to say that I have seen such islanders / ... although they are monstrous in form, note however that / their manners are more gentle, more kind than those of / our humans. generation that you will find” (Tempest). This relativism is also found in Prospero's comments about Ferdinand when he reproaches Miranda for her attraction to the former: "for/2870303.