The Tempest & Postcolonialism

Yes I believe that in act 2 of The Tempest Shakespear does portray a sense of postcolonialism through the character of Caliban. In this section after Stephano finds Caliban and labels him as a "monster" Stephano forces Caliban to drink his wine to calm him down and to stop his trembling. After drinking and feeling the effects of Stephano's wine Caliban instantly wants to worship Stephano and become his slave. He says, "These be fine things, an if they be not sprites. That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him." Here Caliban is saying that because this wine that Stephano has given him is shockingly amazing and like nothing he has ever had before that means Stephano must be an amazing god of some kind that he should worship. In the chapter on cultural studies and postcolonialism it states that "Using its political and economic muscles, Great Britain, the cheif imperialist power of the nineteenth century, dominated her colonies, making them produce and then give up their countries' raw materials in exchange for what material goods the colonized desired or were made to believe they desired by the colonizers." After reading this I realized that in the Tempest Caliban represents the colonized or the countries that were taken over by the colonizers and Stephano represents Great Britain. Caliban thinks that he needs to serve Stephano because Stephano has introduced him to this amazing wine which represents the material goods that he desires just like Great Britain did to the colonized countries in the nineteenth century. Now Stephano has complete control over Caliban all because of the fact that he was the one who introduced Caliban to this amazing material good, the wine. Also, I do believe that Shakespear created an unfair stereotype of "Others" with his characterization of Caliban. Shakespear portrays Caliban as a dirty, almost worthless, and ignorant "monster". This shows that Shakespear believes that the "others" may be like Caliban which is unfair and definately an insult to the "others" talked about in the chapter of cultural studies and post colonialism.