"What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like; very ancient and fishlike smell . . ."
I love the imagery here. This is Act II Scene II where Trinculo first sees Caliban and he doesn't know if he is human or a fish? This seemed to forshadow to me the character of Caliban. He is obviously unkempt and stinky, but it shows his character too, slimy and untrustworthy. Too bad Trinculo didn't pay attention to that...
This happens a lot in literature, Wuthering Heights for example. You start out by seeing Heathcliff described as a little heathen... and what does he prove himself to be a heathen and a devil like character. Childhood's End, the devil like aliens that look so menacing, but seems so nice in the prove to be menacing. This type of character scripting helps the reader understand the character better and makes it easier to keep a lot of characters under the belt.
Caliban = Canibal? I like it.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate this post and your comment in class. It is easy to skip over the deeper meaning of what a character is being described as in a text like Shakespeare...the mere language causes us hope we get the meaning. But, as you have pointed out, it brings more light to the story if we can glean from the language the descriptions of each character.
ReplyDeleteI wish people's appearances matched their characters in real life! That would make everything so much easier.
ReplyDeleteResponded to your post here! http://zabriskiebri382.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-know-were-past-whole-tempest-thing.html
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