Quote 10
CALIBAN
Beat him enough. After a little time
I'll beat him too. (3.2.92-93)
Caliban, having been shown very little mercy, has no capacity to show mercy to others, and in fact takes delight in others' suffering. Is this a defect of his character, or the result of a vicious circle of mercilessness?
Quote 11
CALIBAN
[aside] These be fine things, an if they be not
sprites. That's a brave god and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him. He crawls out from under the
cloak. (2.2.120-122)
Caliban thinks the liquor divine because it is unknown to him. Is Shakespeare commenting that much of our own sense of what is divine simply springs from what we don't know?
Quote 12
CALIBAN
As I told thee before, I am subject
to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath
cheated me of the island. (3.2.46-48)
Is Caliban wrong? He says what he sees to be reality, and his reality is no less credible than Prospero's, a man who is also a victim of usurpation (each had his land and title taken away).