The Colonial Gale: A Comparative Analysis of Nature Through Colonial and Decolonial Perspectives

Abstract

According to Hannah Ritchie, “over the last ten thousand years a third of the forested land in the world has been lost, with half of this occurring in only the last century” (1). This history of environmental destruction highlights the stakes of human interactions with nature, which is an issue that William Shakespeare explores in his play The Tempest (1610-11). He does this through competing perspectives on ecological control and stewardship. The play contrasts the perspective of Prospero, the main European protagonist, about nature and power with those of the other subordinate characters. This presentation examines how the culmination of these differing perspectives presents a text with a central Eurocentric theme and other differing viewpoints. It then examines how Caribbean author Aime Césaire’s 1969 revision, A Tempest, transforms the tensions in Shakespeare’s play into an explicit critique of colonial and ecological violence. Césaire revises Prospero into a destructive colonizer, while Caliban and Ariel are recast as advocates of environmental and decolonial resistance. Through these revisions, Césaire illustrates the play’s decolonial politics and emphasizes the interconnectedness of ecological consciousness and anticolonial resistance.