Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
What is resented in Caliban is not really his physical appearance, his bestiality, his ‘evil’ instincts-… but that he should claim to be a person in his own right and from time to time to show that he has a will of his own. In other words, we are perfectly happy if we can project the fantasies of our own unconscious on to the outside world, but if we suddenly find that these creatures are not pure projections but real beings with claims to liberty, we consider it outrageous, however modest their claims. Further, it is not the claims themselves which makes us indignant, but the very desire for freedom.
–O. Mannoni(1950)Although the United States entered the Cuban war against Spain in 1898 with a great burst of pro-Cuban enthusiasm, this friendliness suddenly soured into contempt. A revolution in public opinion during the summer of 1898 abruptly lowered the Cuban heroes to the status of villains in North American eyes, while the Spanish enemy came to be regarded as brave and honorable. A Michigan soldier expressed a characteristic view when he confessed that “while my opinion of the Spanish troops is in the ascendant, that of the Cuban troops is at the other end of the teeter.