'Absolute Milan' : two types of colonialism in the tempest

Abstract

It has very frequently been remarked that The Tempest is a text immediately concerned with colonialism. Sophisticated Europeans find themselves deposited on a remote island which, because its actual location is unspecified, can be taken to stand for any or all of the various territories where seventeenth-century imperialism was at work, from Ireland to America with numerous stops in between. Once there, Europeans immediately set to work to subjugate those already inhabiting the island and mercilessly to exploit them, even the virtuous Gonzalo is unable to refrain from responding to the island in thoroughgoing colonial terms, as evinced by the inherent contradictions which fissure his imagined Utopia and reveal that he is unable to think of human relationships within any framework other than a dominance/submission one, as Sebastian and Antonio point out: Gonzalo: I'th' commonwealth l would by contraries Execute all things. For no kind of traffic Would I admit, no name of magistrate. Letters should not be known. Riches, poverty, And use of service, none. Contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none. No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil. No occupation: all men idle, all,And women too, but innocent and pure. No sovereignty (aside to Antonio) Yet he would be king on't. (aside to Sebastian) The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.