The British Empire

• •at its peak (early 20th century), the British Empire was one of the largest empires in global history
• - by Shakespeare's activity, Elizabeth 1 had been endorsing the travels of English explorers who went to Africa and the Americas in search of attractive land and people to work on this land
• many believe that the Tempest was based off of a shipwreck in 1609- when the 'Sea Venture' was caught in a hurricane off the coast of Bermuda whilst carrying supplies to English settlers in Virginia

  - this links the play to some of the first colonial activities leading to the establishment of the British empire
• The events of the play are based on desires and contests for national, economic, and political power
• in Virginia, the English were occupying lands that belonged to the indigenous Americans, and they soon brought groups of Africans to work for them
• With all the treachery and injustice the play associates with imperial power and the creation of an empire:

  • Gonzalo dreams of a "commonwealth" with "no kind of traffic" or no "treason, felony"
• When the Empire started to collapse following the opposition it faced, many anti-colonial creatives used The Tempest in their expressions of resistance:

  • they turned to Caliban as a mouthpiece for their unfair experiences under imperial regimes
  • a play by Aime Cesaire (Une Tempete) presented Prospero as a White Master, Ariel as a Mixed-race Slave, and Caliban as a Black slave
• Shakespeare's Caliban doesn't passively give in to Prospero's colonial- like dominations:

  • "this island's mine... which thou tak'st from me" (1.2)
  • he declares he is his "own King" (1.2)

  Caliban looks for opportunities out of his oppressed condition, and takes the chance if he gets one.