'Two Neapolitans 'scaped'- Trinculo and Stephano in the Tempest- Norton

Norton

He shows how powerfully their words and actions develop some key themes of the play- colonialism, battles over political power and the exploitation of the weak.

The comedy of misidentification

Act 2 scene 2 stems from misidentification. Caliban thinks that both Neapolitans and Prospero’s spirits come “to torment him” and then that Stephano is a “brave God”, dispensing “celestial liquor”. Trinculo initially takes Caliban for a fish before concluding that he is “but an Islander that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt”. Stephano believes Caliban and Trinculo are a four-legged two-voiced monster hidden beneath the cloak. The misapprehensions here are comic and scatological- they function as a reminder that more serious identifications can have profound consequences. Prospero is only the island because he failed to recognise that Antonio was a “false brother” rather than a true one.

A critique of colonialism

In his monologue, Trinculo immediately senses that Caliban could be exploited financially: “Were I in England (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”. Shakespeare’s audience would have recognised in Trinculo’s get-rich quick scheme the repugnant contemporary practice of displaying for profit Native Americans brought back from expeditions to the new world. Stephano believes that “kept tame”, Caliban could be sold for profit.

Violent acquisition of power

Act 3 scene 2- Caliban speaks in verse, giving his language a powerful urgency: “having first seized his books, or with a log batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, or cut his wezand with thy knife”. The plosive alliteration and strong stresses on the verbs shows Caliban’s desperate intent. Three times in seven lines he insists that Stephano should destroy Prospero’s library.

• Isolated on a remote island and removed from state structures, there is little point, the play seems to suggest, in having power over others; Trinculo seems to half-grasp this when he notes, “there’s but five upon this isle; we are three of them- if th’other two be brained like us, the state totters”.

Stephano legitimating Prospero’s rule

The play shows the extent to which Caliban has internalised his own subordination: the only way he knows how to behave is as someone enslaved. “What a thrice double-ass was I to take this drunkard for a god, and worship this dull fool!”. Stephano’s function here is to legitimate Prospero’s rule/control over Caliban who sees “how fine my master is” and vows “to seek grace”, though terrified that he “shall be pinched to death”. By showing the absurdity of Stephano’s pretensions to rule, the text inscribes a more impressive and sophisticated form of colonial power.