Colonial imagination in The Tempest

Colonial imagination in The Tempest. Shakespeare sets this play in an
imagined locale in the Caribbean, inventing a world of contact between
multiple European travelers and the indigenous inhabitants of the island:
Ariel, Caliban, and numerous spirits. The way the play depicts the original
inhabits of the island challenges our sense of their humanity. Ariel is a
spectacle, an unfleshed and ungendered spirit. Caliban, meanwhile, is cast
as a body firmly rooted in the earth and speaks in language that is barely
sensible, even though we learn how he gained speech in Act 1.
Write an argumentative essay on some aspect of The Tempest’s
presentation of European colonialism. You may choose to focus on a single
figure, or category of figures, or on exchanges between the colonial settlers
and the indigenous inhabitants. Make sure your paper is driven by a strong
claim (or thesis), supported by carefully chosen evidence.

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