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2.3: Hesiod's Prometheus and Shakespeare's Caliban -- Assignment

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    248651
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    Write a 1,000-word essay that responds to the following essay prompt:

     

    Antonio Gramsci first used the term “subaltern” to describe a low-ranking subordinate or historically subordinated person within a class system based on their caste, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Gayatri Spivak later updated the term to include orientalist conceptions of the “Other” as a “subaltern class” positioned in a binary relationship to Western patriarchal, economic, and cultural hegemony. In this respect, the subaltern describes any marginalized people who suffer oppression at the hands of an oppressive government, agency, or power.

     

    How might the figures of Prometheus (in Hesiod’s The Theogony) and Caliban (from Shakespeare’s The Tempest) be compared to the “subaltern”? Use quotes from the above textual excerpts to support your reasons.

     


    2.3: Hesiod's Prometheus and Shakespeare's Caliban -- Assignment is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 1.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.