Why Sycorax? – Shift

Allison S Curseen46 Comments

Nalo Hopkinson uses the characters of Caliban, Ariel, and Sycorax from Shakespeare’s The Tempest to portray the central themes of heritage and cultural identity in her short story, Shift. However, while in the original play Caliban is enslaved by Prospero, a man who was exiled to Caliban’s island and forced him into servitude, Hopkinson chooses to make Caliban’s mother, Sycorax, his main tormentor. This change in the original character dynamic reflects a key theme of the short story, as Caliban is no longer fighting against some foreign colonizer, like Prospero, but rather his own heritage, which now appears in the form of his mother.

When Ariel’s dialogue first begins, she starts with “You know who the real tempest is, don’t you? The real storm? Is our mother Sycorax; his and mine”, immediately establishing that Prospero is no longer the source of Ariel and Caliban’s conflict, but rather their mother. While observing his new relationship with a white woman, Ariel recalls how Caliban never believed he was beautiful as a kid and had a “weakness for cream”, claiming that “He fancy himself a prince of Africa, a mannish Cleopatra, bathing in mother’s milk”, alluding to Caliban’s unhappiness with his own darker complexion. Throughout the story, he cautiously avoids water as he believes this will draw him back to Sycorax. Unfortunately, Caliban is ultimately unable to escape both his mother and his sister, and when confronted by Ariel, exclaims “You are our mother’s creature … Look at you, trying so hard to be ‘island’ talking like you just come off the boat”. However, while he argues with Ariel, the narrator notes that “[his] speech slips into the same rhythms as hers”. Caliban is trying desperately to distance himself from his heritage but is unsuccessful, resulting in a constant questioning of his own identity. 

By purposefully manipulating the characters from The Tempest, specifically Sycorax, Hopkinson is better able to portray Caliban’s struggle with his own identity. When he is young, he thinks that he will only be beautiful if he can submerge himself in cream, and therefore mimic the whiteness of his mother. In Caliban’s adult years, this insecurity translates into his relationships with white women, in which he yearns for them to define who he really is, or rather, who they want him to be. His torment at the hands of Sycorax seems to stem from his desire to look like her, and his constant attempts to distance himself from his black heritage.

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