Key Quote
“"You taught me language; and my profit on't is, I know how to curse"”
Caliban · Act 1, Scene 2
Focus: “curse”
Caliban turns the coloniser's 'gift' of language into a weapon — the only power available to the dispossessed is the power to articulate anger.
Technique 1 — IRONIC INVERSION / ANTICOLONIAL RHETORIC
Caliban performs an ironic inversion (turning something back on its source) of the colonial narrative: where Prospero frames language-teaching as civilising generosity, Caliban reframes it as the provision of a weapon. The word 'profit' is bitterly commercial — it echoes colonial language of trade and exploitation, suggesting that even resistance must be expressed in the coloniser's economic terms.
The verb 'curse' carries multiple meanings: to swear, to invoke supernatural harm, to express anger. Caliban's curse is all of these — a refusal to use language 'properly' (as Prospero intends) and instead to deploy it subversively (in a way that undermines the intended purpose). Shakespeare dramatises how the oppressed can transform the master's tools into weapons of resistance.
Key Words
RAD — STAGNATE
Caliban stagnates in a bind: he can resist only through the language of his oppressor, meaning his resistance is always already contained within the coloniser's system. He cannot escape language, he cannot return to a pre-colonial state, and he cannot use language without acknowledging Prospero's influence. This is the double bind of the colonised subject — resistance itself confirms the coloniser's power.
Key Words
Technique 2 — SEMICOLON AS STRUCTURAL PIVOT
The semicolon in 'You taught me language; and my profit on't is, I know how to curse' creates a structural pivot: the first clause states the colonial gift; the second inverts it. The semicolon marks the exact moment of transformation — where the coloniser's narrative (education as civilisation) becomes the colonised subject's counter-narrative (education as weaponisation). Shakespeare's punctuation performs the act of resistance.
The sentence structure places 'You' at the beginning and 'curse' at the end — moving from the coloniser's action to the colonised subject's response. This grammatical arc dramatises the journey from passive reception (being taught) to active agency (choosing to curse), charting Caliban's transformation from student to revolutionary.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
COLONIAL EDUCATION
European colonial powers imposed their languages on colonised peoples as a tool of control — forbidding native languages and forcing assimilation. Thomas Macaulay's later 'Minute on Indian Education' (1835) explicitly aimed to create 'a class of interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern.' Caliban's line exposes this 'gift' as a mechanism of domination.
LANGUAGE & POWER
The Elizabethan period saw debates about the standardisation (creating uniform rules) of English — which dialect, which vocabulary, whose language counted as 'proper.' Caliban's cursing represents the refusal to conform to linguistic propriety — using language 'improperly' as a form of resistance.
Key Words
WOW — THE MASTER'S TOOLS (Audre Lorde)
Audre Lorde's declaration that 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house' speaks directly to Caliban's predicament. Can resistance conducted in the coloniser's language truly challenge colonial power, or does it merely confirm the coloniser's cultural dominance? Caliban's curse is both an act of resistance AND proof of assimilation — he fights back, but in English. This paradox (seemingly contradictory truth) is central to postcolonial studies: colonised peoples worldwide have transformed European languages into vehicles for anticolonial expression (Chinua Achebe writing in English, Aimé Césaire in French), demonstrating that Lorde's tools can be repurposed — bent toward liberation even if they were forged for domination.
Key Words