Skakespeare and Colonialiasm

In Acts 2 and 3 of The Tempest, Shakespeare uses the interactions between Prospero and Caliban to represent struggles between colonization and native peoples. Caliban believes the island was his right of inheritance and that Prospero took it from him. He feels he has been extorted by Prospero and his magical powers. The way Caliban views the situation is that he is being forced to work as a slave on an island which he should be ruling. And he hates him for this as can be seen in lines 1-3: "all the infections that the sun pucks up from bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him by inchmeal a disease!" However Prospero sees things differently. In his view,  he brought intelligence to Caliban and the island. By coming to this island and bringing it culture, he has gained the right to its ownership. And by raising Caliban, he feels Caliban should serve him. Because without Prospero's help he would not know how to take care of himself or even speak.

This ties into the "cultural studies" we got in class. Specifically how it describes how there is not always one objective reality, but instead there is many. Many different people can see something different ways. How a situation is interpreted is completely dependent on point of view. "From this point of view, no single or primary objective really exists; instead many realities exist." Each person has their own reality. There are many examples of different cultures being colonized and no doubt in each example the culture being dominated has a different view of what happened than the dominating culture. Such as Native Americans being forced to walk the Trail of Tears or when Britain colonized India. In the packet on culture studies it states how there can be an assertion between "a different perspective, a vantage point not in the dominant culture but one from which to view the world and its peoples: they speak for not one culture, but many; not one cultural perspective, but a host; not one interpretation of life, but many."

I think in The Tempest Shakespeare does not necessarily attempt to condemn nor condone colonization. I think he wants to, in a way, do both. He uses Caliban to represent cultures that have been colonized and uses Prospero to represent cultures that have done colonizing. But i have not seen him take favor to either side, at least not this far in the novel.