Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
III. Theatre and Drama Studies Conference Living on the Edge: Chaos in Theatre, Film and Performance, Ankara, Türkiye, 5 - 07 Aralık 2025, ss.62, (Özet Bildiri)
This paper explores how Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête (1969) reclaims and reconceptualises
the concept of chaos through the figure of Caliban. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Caliban,
who is compelled to live on the edge, is portrayed as the embodiment of disorder, a savage force
disrupting Prospero’s rational authority and plunging his order into turmoil. Césaire subverts
this colonial trope by transforming Caliban into a revolutionary subject whose resistance
exposes the deeper chaos of imperial domination. Césaire rewrites The Tempest as a decolonial
drama, situating it in the context of Black consciousness and Caribbean anti- imperialism.
Caliban’s rejection of his imposed name in favour of “X” marks a refusal of colonial identity
and an embrace of self-determination. Far from being a figure of incoherence, Caliban becomes
the play’s most articulate critic of colonial rule. His rebellion contrasts with Ariel’s more
conciliatory stance, illuminating internal debates within colonized societies about the paths to
liberation. Through its raw, modern language and Afro-Caribbean cultural references, Une
Tempête reorients the aesthetic and political stakes of Shakespeare’s play. The refusal of closure
in Caliban’s final defiant declaration, “I’ll never yield!”, reframes chaos not as disorder to be
suppressed, but as a generative force of decolonial resistance. This paper aims to demonstrate
how Césaire turns chaos into a space of political possibility, challenging the colonial
imagination and empowering the subaltern to speak and fight.