“Stone,” I said slowly enunciating every sound.
“Ss-tone,” he repeated back.
“Yes! That’s it!” I confirmed joyously.
We continued walking through the woods looking at the nature around us.
“Maggo luk abba kap lalablu!” Caliban exclaimed as he jumped up and down excitedly.
I looked to where he was pointing and there, drinking from the stream, stood a young fawn with its mother.
“It’s a deer,” I told him with a smile.
“Dee,” he repeated back to me.
We sat down by the stream and I picked up a stone in one hand and a small twig in the other.
“Stone,” I said handing him the stone.
We practiced naming these items until Caliban could easily recall their names when I pointed to each object. He was doing well with speaking and it was obvious how he preferred our English language to his native tongue. He was constantly requesting my aid to teach him more vocabulary in order to move away from the gibberish he was accustomed to using.
The sun was at the top of the sky now and space under the trees was beginning to get hot. As I stood up to leave, Caliban rushed past me and jumped into the stream. The cool water splashed onto my bare legs. I laughed as I watched Caliban jump in the water, picking smooth stones from the bottom of the river and throwing them into the trees yelling “Stone! Stone! Stone!” I felt accomplished noting Caliban’s confidence with the day’s new terminology.
His excitement in the water was contagious, and I soon waded into the stream too. I loved the feeling of the smooth hard stones lying beneath my feet. Spotting a thin round stone, I scooped it up and proceeded to skip it through the water watching it jump up from underneath. As it hopped by Caliban, he quickly reached out, attempting to catch the flying stone, but instead lost his balance and fell into the water with a loud splash. I laughed as I turned away, hoping to avoid the inevitable—a wave of water drenched my hair and my clothes.
With no further incentive to prevent my clothes from getting soaked, I jumped into the deeper part of the stream and splashed water onto Caliban in retaliation. We laughed gaily as we continued to throw handfuls of clear water at one another.
As the sun began to set, we got out of the water to make our way back to the beach where my father would be making dinner.
“Stone!” Caliban exclaimed he handed me a smooth flat stone.
“Stone,” I said as I skipped it through the stream, watching jump up and down in the water just as we had that entire afternoon.
Analysis
I based my short story on the passage in Act 1 Scene 2 of The Tempest when Caliban, Miranda, and Prospero reminisce about their early interactions and how they worked together to promote mutual happiness. Prospero claims that “I have used thee / In mine own cell till thou didst seek to violate / the honor of my child” (2.1.347-348). Prospero speaks as if Caliban has been treated as a part of their family, taken in as a son. I tried to capture this loving and playful sibling-like relationship between Caliban and Miranda in this story. I also wanted to bring attention to the educational experience Miranda provided to Caliban in terms of language. “I pitied thee, / Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour / One thing or other: when though didst not, savage, / Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like / A thing most brutish” (2.1.353-356). Miranda seems to have been constantly teaching Caliban new words which explains why he could speak so fluently by the time of The Tempest despite the fact that he had been raised in a completely different environment.
Although Caliban openly embraces westernization through language, his primitive nature is highlighted by the manner in which he jumps and splashes in the stream and tries to catch the skipped rock. Miranda demonstrates her more cultivated culture by reserving herself from jumping into the stream in hopes of keeping her clothes clean. However, after noticing Caliban’s enjoyment of the activity, she soon follows and joins him in the water. This story is meant to show how both characters are a product of both western and native cultures. Even though they were born into completely different households, the way they have been raised contributes greatly to their character and as a result, neither of the two can claim to be only “native” or “European” and can identify with both cultures. I think it is really interesting to think about how the three characters got along before Caliban attempted to rape Miranda. In this story, I portray a rather loving relationship, and it is intriguing to consider how dramatically an act of rape could completely mangle the friendly bonds that could have existed among these three characters.