Caliban Portrayed as a Child in The Tempest Essay example -- Tempest e

Caliban Portrayed as a Child in The Tempest stomach a grown adult develop and act like a baby? Shakespeaers answer would have been yes. This fact is depicted through the character of Caliban. Calibans destination and manners, as well as his thought, all display the very basic reactions and notions of human beings. He is also controlled by a parent figure who comes in the form of Prospero. An analysis of Caliban can hold him up to Piagets Theory of cognitive Development, which focuses on the development of children. Caliban, unquestionably, fits one of Piagets developmental stages. Jean Piaget developed his Theory of Cognitive Senses in 1952. According to Piaget, as children develop, they must make constant mental adaptations to new observations and experiences. Piagets theory was made up of four stages the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete trading operations stage, and the formal operations stage. If children can be defined by these stages, it is impor tant to note that Shakespeares character Caliban can also be defined by Piagets theory because he is presented ultimately as a child. Part of his child-like demeanor stems from the fact that he is comparable to the primitive savage who does not understand the Western European world. Caliban fits directly into Piagets second stage of development, the preoperational stage (Lamming 87). According to Piaget, this describes most two to seven year old humans. Although children in this stage can think, they are mostly limited by what they can actually do. They cannot reason, and they lack the mental abilities necessary for understanding abstract principles or cause and effect. Piaget called these missing abilities operatio... ...s of cognitive development, which suggests that Caliban has the mannerisms, actions, and ideas of a child around six or seven years old. This is important to consider, because Calibans actions have also been compared to the notion of Freuds id he asks like the compulsive, troublemaking child. Hence, the idea of the sympathetic but thwart child is presented in the character of Caliban. Works Cited Griffiths, Trevor R., This islands mine Caliban an Colonialism, Yearbook of English Studies 13(1983), pp. 159-80 Lawrence, Erol. Just plain common-sense The roots of racism, in CCCS, 1982, pp. 47-92. Lamming, Geroge. The Pleasures of Exile. London and New York Allsion and Busby, 1984. Mannoni, O., Prospero and Caliban The Psychology of Colonizaiton, trans. Pamela Powesland (New York, Praeger, 1964).