Ngũgĩ reads this “alienation” not only in the colonial history of teaching Shakespeare, butalso understands it through the Bard’s works themselves, namely The Tempest. Though Calibanwas once “his own king” (Shakespeare, The Tempest 1.2.342-4), Prospero unseats him withsweet words and the ‘gift’ of language, a gift which Caliban comes to revile. But, as Ngũgĩdescribes, what is truly sinister about this back-handed gift of the oppressor’s tongue of“Prosperish” is Prospero’s erasure of “Caliban-ban,” Caliban’s mother tongue.As a consequence of this erasure, Caliban must “go perish with Prosperish,” as it forceshim to view himself through Prospero’s eyes (Thiong'o, Decolonizing the American University24:40). He learns to view himself as a monster, thus alienating him from his mother Sycorax andforcing him to regard himself as inferior in regard to Prospero. This relationality resonates withFanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, in which he asserts “not only must the black man be black, hemust be black in relation to the white man” (Fanon 110). Not only must be Caliban be Caliban –– he must be Caliban in relation to Prospero. Through the language of “Prosperish,” Calibanmust internalize himself as monster and servant and Prospero as God and master. In this way, thepolitics of empire become irrevocably tied to the politics of language –– they reinforce eachother.Conscious of these politics, Ngugi wields Shakespeare as a weapon against the veryBritish colonial structures it symbolizes and reaffirms. He accomplishes this by exposing thehypocrisy of District Officer (‘DO’) John Thompson. Thompson imagines himself as the“Prospero of Africa” (Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat 53). Like Prospero, he justifies colonialism asa benevolent enterprise: In educating the Mau Mau in the way of the British, he can uplift and