Curing Racism: Infecting and Healing a Colonized World
Faculty Sponsor(s)
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner
Location
Ford Hall: Fireside/Lobby
Subject Area
English: Literature
Description
Elizabeth Nunez’s Prospero’s Daughter remakes Shakespeare’s The Tempest to reveal through the natural world how colonial practices affect everyone involved. Nunez uses symbols such as Gardner’s orchids and other representations of nature to inform race politics in Trinidad and the world as a whole. As a white man, Gardner’s drive to regulate the environment around him, from nature to the house he lives in, reflects his desire to control everyone in his life, particularly the native Trinidadian characters such as Carlos, Caliban’s counterpart. In fact, the environment and the indigenous people come together as one and the same, both as an agent to be controlled by Gardner as well as a force to overcome such colonization. Furthermore, Gardner’s fear of disease shows his expectation that nature is in fact deadly, but it is later revealed that Gardner serves as a parasitic character himself, leaching off the knowledge and work of the natives around him just as Prospero takes advantage of Caliban for his labor. This ecocritical reading ties into the psychoanalytical theory of nature vs. nurture, as Gardner attempts to nurture or train certain traits into those around him, particularly Carlos and his daughter, just as he does with his plants. This paper will look at whether nature or nurture wins out and how this psychoanalytical theory plays into race politics as a whole, inevitably revealing that both cultures must come together to create a healthier world.
Recommended Citation
Henley, Kate, "Curing Racism: Infecting and Healing a Colonized World" (2019). Linfield University Student Symposium: A Celebration of Scholarship and Creative Achievement. Event. Submission 81.
https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/symposium/2019/all/81
Curing Racism: Infecting and Healing a Colonized World
Ford Hall: Fireside/Lobby
Elizabeth Nunez’s Prospero’s Daughter remakes Shakespeare’s The Tempest to reveal through the natural world how colonial practices affect everyone involved. Nunez uses symbols such as Gardner’s orchids and other representations of nature to inform race politics in Trinidad and the world as a whole. As a white man, Gardner’s drive to regulate the environment around him, from nature to the house he lives in, reflects his desire to control everyone in his life, particularly the native Trinidadian characters such as Carlos, Caliban’s counterpart. In fact, the environment and the indigenous people come together as one and the same, both as an agent to be controlled by Gardner as well as a force to overcome such colonization. Furthermore, Gardner’s fear of disease shows his expectation that nature is in fact deadly, but it is later revealed that Gardner serves as a parasitic character himself, leaching off the knowledge and work of the natives around him just as Prospero takes advantage of Caliban for his labor. This ecocritical reading ties into the psychoanalytical theory of nature vs. nurture, as Gardner attempts to nurture or train certain traits into those around him, particularly Carlos and his daughter, just as he does with his plants. This paper will look at whether nature or nurture wins out and how this psychoanalytical theory plays into race politics as a whole, inevitably revealing that both cultures must come together to create a healthier world.
