ABSTRACT
Few critics today would attach special significance to Ferdinand’s mildly pious little exclamation. For many, however, Caliban’s outburst is highly significant, and its meaning more or less fixed. They see it as the most important utterance in a play whose dominant discourse seeks to euphemise colonialist oppression, yet fails to suppress contradiction. The protest of reality itself, the curse produces a moment of absolute moral victory for the enslaved native of the island and is so potent in its devastating justness that it casts a shadow over the final scene, determining in effect our overall conception of the play.
