tempnature Duality Between Nature and Society in...

Duality Between Nature and Society in The Tempest One of the essential themes of The Tempest is the duality between nature and society. This is made evident through the character of Caliban: the disfigured fish-like creature that inhabits the island upon which the play takes place. Caliban lacks civility because he was born on the island deprived of any social or spiritual morality other than nature and instinct. He is literally man untamed. Caliban is not monstrous simply for the sake of being frightening; his ghastly appearance is intended to literally depict the essential differences between civilization and natural instinct. Caliban represents man, instinct, and nature in†¦show more content†¦These are present because life is easier with rules like this. Human beings no longer had to worry about being killed or being looted as much as long as they were within the confines of a civilization. People started to be able to take up specialized professions and be able to count on other people to perform tasks such as carpentry, cooking, etc. Governments were formed to organize the people and efficiently run a civilization. Now the individual was not responsible for every aspect of survival but contributed to the overall survival of a civilization. From this economies were born either through trade or currency. However, the cornerstones of human civilizations (money and power) have lead to a whole new form of evil and brutality that was never present in nature. Its almost of a blind perversion of human nature. Through bettering our situation, we have corrupted ourselves to an extent (greed). C ivilization can produce more savage and evil beings than nature. While Caliban is perceived as being evil and monstrous, he really is not. He just does not know any better. However, Antonio is much more malicious than Caliban because he knows what he has done is evil This goes back to the concept of nature vs. society. Caliban is Shakespeares representation of natural instinct and how it collides with society. Of course Caliban could have simply been a man raised in nature,