Indigo

Context:  

-a British novelist, short story writer, historian and mythographer.  she focuses on books relating to feminism and myths. professor at university of essex.  

-her family settled St. Kitt’s island (sir thomas warner) was her grandfather. She named her Prospero character Kit Everard as in St. Kitts

-her family played a large role in British imperialism and its  almost as if she was trying to atone for family’s wrong doings

-book written in 1992

-tobacco was originally the main crop but then it switched to sugar cane until 2005

-St. Kitt’s 65 square miles

-Indigo’s alternate title is Mapping The Waters because Warner is attempting to map the murky waters of history on imperialism.  

-There are several volcanoes on St. Kitt and the highest volcano is Mount Liamuiga which is what Warner calls the island in Indigo, and also what the natives originally called the island

-First adaptation of the tempest that we’ve read that focuses on the gender roles in The Tempest.  

-St. Kitts is an island in the West Indies; short for St. Christopher Island

-theme of mapping

Intertext:

-unlike shakespeare, Warner references the bible, specifically the story of Cain and also Ishmael.  She references “The Good Book.”  comparing the natives to Cain.

-Kit - Prospero (hes a voyager and a colonizer, he talks about how great he’s going to be for the island and he takes advantage of the native’s knowledge of the island to get what he wants and then forgets about it.  he keeps ariel captive.)

-Caliban - Natives (interested in nature whereas Kit is just interested in monetary gains from the crops)  the tree, ariel/sycorax

-nature is very relevant, the natives are all connected to nature

-Dule is renamed caliban (more references to the canibal/caliban). (“this island is mine”) Kit takes control of him.  Caliban was the leader until Kit takes him and subdues him which reflects the tempest.  as caliban/dule’s punishment they slit the back of his hamstrings so that hes handicapped as he is in the tempest.

-“Indigo” refers to Sycorax’s trade (a churning method of making indigo dye)

-Warner also takes what were mere references in The Tempest to Sycorax and others and makes them fully fledged characters.  

-shape shifting nature of ariel was representative of women having to take on different roles.

ariel in indigo does whatever the settlers need.

-same parallel of how the island originally belonged to the natives

-in letter from King of England to Kit he talks about how the people weren’t christian and therefore didn’t count  “that we are further informed that these said Islands are possesed and inhabited only by the aforementioned savages and heathen people, and are not, nor at the time of the discovery were, in the possession  or under the government of any Christian Prince, state, or potentate.”

-Shakespeare says Sycorax was bent like a hoop “this blue eyed hag”

-ariel is female, also mute.  when she tries to talks to Kit he shoots her down and leave.  in tempest when ariel tries to talk to prospero he also shoots him down.

-there were many allusions along the way to the history of st. kitts island → subtext

Subtext:  

-She took a lot of details directly from history in addition to Shakespeares The Tempest

kalingo genocide took place several years after her setting for Indigo, it is likely that she was referencing this.

-“river of blood” blood of the carobs ran down bloody river

-the genocide did in fact take place in late january which is also the same in Indigo

-most of the history about the kolingo genocide was written by the british.  in indigo, she uses more graphic/realistic terms.  “the massacres was shameful, the losses piteous.  the blood of the wounded trickled from the bank, spilling like one of the showers that freshened the earth each day and flowed downstream towards the sea, which was not so far that its rich scarlet could diffuse before it met the waves.”