Discrimination in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest"
...ue for perhaps a small portion of homeless people. Often, highly educated individuals that previously maintained respectable jobs have landed on the street after some trauma in their lives such as a death in the family. Also, nationally, mental illness accounts for twenty to twenty-five percent of the single adult homeless population. And around fifteen percent of homeless individuals left their previous homes due to domestic violence. As you can see, a large percentage of homeless people came into poverty for reasons of misfortune rather than due to their supposed uncivilized qualities. Homeless people are humans as well, and therefore carry the same basic qualities as the rest of the population. For one to say that all homeless people are barbaric and uncivilized is the same as saying all Americans are fat and lazy or all teenagers are rebellious. Although these qualities certainly apply to at least a small portion of the group that is being stereotyped, there is still a large amount of people who are just supposed to have these traits due to their age, nationality, or possessions. Caliban, from William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” takes on a similar role as the outcast in the smaller society of the island upon which this play takes place. In order to see the comparison between Caliban and the homeless people in America, it is easier to consider Caliban as representing a whole community rather than just one person within it. This can be justified by the fact that Caliban is the only native from the island that is portrayed in this play. Just as a few people within the homeless society actually do carry some apparent negative qualities, parts of Caliban can be said to carry similar traits. But this is not to say that all homeless people have these attributes, or that all of Caliban is as barbaric as some may think. Caliban is simply assumed to be a savage of an individual, just as many homeless people are. In America, those in power, the United States government, often think of homeless people as a weak link in society. This is because many of these officials believe that homelessness would not be a problem if those that found themselves without enough money to support themselves worked harder in order to maintain food for themselves and a roof over their heads. Often times people have been known to say that those that are homeless are simply abusing the supposed good nature of America in that they are supported by homeless shelters, and do not even have to work for food. Similarly, Caliban is thought to be misusing Prospero’s good nature, for when Prospero took him in and treated him as a son, Caliban was ungrateful and even attempted to raped Prospero’s daughter. The difference between this situation and that of the homeless people of the United States is that in this play, Caliban is forced into labor as a slave and treated as a barbarian, whereas the homeless people continue to eat and sleep in homeless shelters. The result of homeless people being viewed as this “shadow” is something along the lines of extreme social exclusion. There have been reports of homeless people being treated with great fear and disrespect, and are not even allowed in some public places. All of this is simply because people see these negative qualities in homeless people whether or not they even actually exist. However, the results of the views of homeless people are not nearly as bad as those that other cultures have been put through. Some cultures, such as the Jewish peop...