"To each his character, to each character his mask."
The play opens with a Master of Ceremonies entering the stage and putting on a mask. He then invites the other actors onto the stage to put on their masks and assume their characters, a meta-theatrical introduction to the fiction of the play.
"Alas! There's no one in hell...all the devils are here!"
This line is taken almost directly from Shakespeare's play, where it appears as: "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." In Césaire's play, as in Shakespeare's, Ferdinand says it to bemoan the violent storm that is causing their Neapolitan ship to sink.
"Stuff it! I don't like talking trees. As for your freedom, you'll have it when I'm good and ready. In the meanwhile, see to the ship."
Prospero says this early in the play, to Ariel, who speaks about the island in poetic and spiritual terms. Prospero, a pragmatist and authoritarian leader, makes it known that he does not like this kind of rhetoric.
"Dead or alive, she was my mother, and I won't deny her! Anyhow, you only think she's dead because you think the earth itself is dead...It's so much simpler that way! Dead, you can walk on it, pollute it, you can tread upon it with the steps of a conqueror. I respect the earth, because I know that it is alive, and I know that Sycorax is alive."
Prospero and Caliban, his black slave, discuss Caliban's mother, the tree god, Sycorax. Prospero insists that Sycorax is dead, while Caliban maintains that she is alive, and that Prospero does not understand nature because he only want to conquer and subjugate it to his whims.
"Call me X. That would be best. Like a man without a name. Or, to be more precise, a man whose name has been stolen. You talk about history...well, that's history, and everyone knows it! Every time you summon me it reminds me of a basic fact, the fact that you've stolen everything from me, even my identity! Uhuru!"
Moments later, Caliban tells Prospero to call him X, as a reference to the fact that his identity has been taken from him. He discusses the nature of colonial dominance and the fact that everything that Prospero imagines he has earned, he actually stole.
"What good has your obedience done you, your Uncle Tom patience and your sucking up to him. The man's just getting more demanding and despotic day by day."
When Caliban and Ariel have a scene alone together, Ariel suggests that Caliban would be wise to be more obedient to Prospero and not stir up a struggle. To this, Caliban counters by saying that Ariel's method of being obsequious has gotten him nothing but more work. He makes a case for why his more contentious resistance is a better tactic while in servitude.
"But that's just the point...no one invited me...And that wasn't very nice!"
Eshu, the trickster god who crashes Prospero's assemblage of the Roman gods, says this, resentful that he did not get a proper invitation. His presence reflects the fact that there is a spiritual world that precedes the European colonization of the island, one that has its roots in African traditions. Eshu's presence in the play signals that this play is a postcolonial retelling of Shakespeare's story.
"My son! This marriage! The thrill of it has struck me dumb! The thrill and the joy!"
Alonso, the king of Naples, is overjoyed to hear of his son Ferdinand's engagement to Prospero's daughter, Miranda. This union heals all of the ill will that the two men have shared in the past.
"Of course, at the moment,
You're still stronger than I am.
But I don't give a damn for your power
or for your dogs or your police or your inventions!
And do you know why?
It's because I know I'll get you."
At the end of the play, Caliban says this to Prospero, openly defying him in front of everyone. He suggests that he has the strength of his convictions on his side, and knows that he will get his revenge sooner or later.
"Odd, but for some time now we seem to be overrun with opossums."
The very final moment of the play shows Prospero, still living on the island, but haunted by the trickery of Caliban. Here, he suggests that Caliban has sent a bunch of opossums to harass him on the island. Thus, we see that Prospero gets his revenge after all.
