The character of Caliban in The Tempest Caliban is the only authentic native of what is often called "Prospero's Isle". However, he is not an indigenous islander, his mother Sycorax was from Argier and his father Setebo appears to be a Patagonian deity. Sycorax was exiled from Argier for witchcraft, just like Prospero himself, and Caliban was born on the island. Caliban's understanding of his position is made eloquently clear when we first meet him: I must eat my dinner. This island is mine, Sycorax's, my mother, which you took from me. When you came first, you caressed me and valued me, you gave me water with berries and taught me how to name the greatest light and how the least, which burns day and night. . And then I loved you, and I showed you all the qualities of the island, the fresh springs, the pools of brackish water, the arid and fertile place. Cursed be I who have done so! All Sycorax's spells: toads, cockroaches, bats affect you! For I am all the subjects you have, who was first my king; and here you lock me in this hard rock, while you keep me away from the rest of the island. (1.2.330-344)We can clearly sense Caliban's resentment at what he sees as a colonial occupation of his island. The story of his education, however, is not so simple. It seems that when Prospero and his little girl arrived on the island twelve years earlier, Caliban was an orphan, his mother having died. This is not entirely clear: in conversation with Ariel (former spirit of Sycorax) Prospero recalls the 'blue-eyed hag', 'The loathsome witch Sycorax, who with age and envy, was turned into a circle' ( 1.2.258-259), but it is not clear whether... at the heart of the article ......pressure on both sides of the issue, leaving much to interpretation. Works cited and consulted: Davidson, Frank. "The Tempest: An Interpretation". Into the Storm: A Casebook. Ed. DJ Palmer. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1968. 225. Kermode, Frank. Introduction. The Tempest. By William Shakespeare. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1958. xlii.Palmer, DJ (ed.) The Tempest - A Selection of Critical Essays London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1977.Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. The bank of the Shakespeare River. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans, et. al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. Solomon, Andrew. "A reading of the storm." In Shakespeare's last works. Ed. Richard C. Tobias and Paul G. Zolbrod. Athens: Ohio UP, 1974. 232.John Wilders Lecture on The Tempest given at Oxford University - Worcester College - 4 August, 1999.