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In A Tempest, Aimé Césaire enables his Caliban to keep the native identity and acquire complete freedom, and also suggests his solution against racial hierarchy; the idea that a racial image is not pre-determined, but set by people. This paper underlines the differences in the construction of the colonial subject in The Tempest of Shakespeare and A Tempest of Césaire with a close look at the relationship between Caliban and Prospero. A Tempest shows the process of the successful resistance of the oppressed and dehumanization of the oppressor. In the resistance, Caliban's most noticeable armor is language, which he manipulates according to the situation. In contrast to the fragile alliance of the whites, the solidarity between Ariel and Caliban further consolidates their power. Caliban achieves freedom by making Prospero stay on the island without any dominant power, not by receiving freedom through the master's abandonment. The changed ending emphasizes the mutual dependence between the two, and reveals the fabrication of racial hierarchy. Also, the opening scene declares that identity is not fixed but framed by people, suggesting Césaire's logic to dismantle the racial hierarchy which has been established by colonialism. The random role distribution of The Master of Ceremonies points out that all the conflict originates from a fabricated view. Every human being is in need of identity and freedom, and should not be defined by others. After all, as the Master of Ceremonies says, "It takes all kinds to make a world."
Keywords: Aimé Césaire, A Tempest, Negritude, Colonialism, Anti-colinial resistance.
Aimé Césaire, a black writer from Martinique in the Caribbean, wrote A Tempest, an adaptation of The Tempest by William Shakespeare in order to criticize colonialism and to stage his formulation of the concept of "Negritude" as a solution to the racial issues caused by colonialism, pursuing the identity of black people and the solidarity among the oppressed to try to overcome the suppression. The "Negritude," claimed by Césaire, is one that acknowledges the encounter between different worlds that has been brought about by colonialism, and that seeks to establish black identity and solidarity on the basis of the post-colonial hybridity of races and cultures. In that regard, Césaire's "Negritude" is distinguished from that of Leopold Senghor, who called for a return...