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Colonisation and ownership in The Tempest — theme analysis

The Tempest · William Shakespeare · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702), Paper 1 Section A — not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. Who does the island belong to? Caliban's claim is stated in the first act and never answered.

This study ends with William Shakespeare. Build your reading of colonisation and ownership in The Tempest, teach it, then defend it against William Shakespeare.

How colonisation and ownership works in The Tempest

Caliban says the island was his by his mother and was taken from him; Prospero responds with an accusation, not a counter-claim. Gonzalo imagines the society he would found if he had 'plantation of this isle' — the contemporary word for settlement. Stephano, a drunk butler, plans to be king of it within an hour of landing.

“This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother” — Caliban, Act 1, Scene 2

The claim the play never settles.

Methods: legal register

Context that changes the reading. The play is usually dated to about 1610–11, when accounts were circulating of a ship of English settlers bound for Virginia wrecked on Bermuda in 1609 and of the colonists surviving there. Gonzalo's ideal commonwealth draws on Montaigne's essay on the peoples of the New World, available in English in John Florio's translation of 1603. Knowing this explains why the island's ownership is framed as an inheritance and a dispossession.

Another reading. Readings that stress colonisation account for most of Caliban's lines; they must also account for his attempted assault on Miranda and his eager kneeling to Stephano.

The characters who carry colonisation and ownership

An essay on colonisation and ownership is built from the characters. Each line below is from that character's own study — follow it for the full analysis.

More colonisation and ownership quotations, from the The Tempest quote bank

Each is analysed in full — speaker, scene, techniques, structure, context and essay use — on the The Tempest key quotes page; the line here is what the words are doing.

“A devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick”

Prospero · Act 4, Scene 1

His verdict that Caliban cannot be educated. Full analysis →

“this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine”

Prospero · Act 5, Scene 1

He claims Caliban as his own. Full analysis →

“Which thou tak'st from me”

Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2

He accuses Prospero of taking it. Full analysis →

“And then I loved thee”

Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2

He once loved Prospero and showed him the island. Full analysis →

“You taught me language, and my profit on't / Is I know how to curse”

Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2

Education has given him only the power to curse. Full analysis →

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises”

Caliban · Act 3, Scene 2

He comforts the drunks about the island's music. Full analysis →

“The red plague rid you / For learning me your language!”

Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2

He curses Prospero for teaching him. Full analysis →

“Abhorred slave”

Miranda · Act 1, Scene 2

She condemns Caliban as a slave beyond goodness. Full analysis →

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of colonisation and ownership in The Tempest to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  2. Defend it — Hold your reading of colonisation and ownership in The Tempest against William Shakespeare in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
  3. Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.

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