"Riel/Caliban"

The painting is a familiar portrait of Louis Riel with the addition of a cartoon 'thought balloon' leading off the canvas. The idea is that a viewer is looking at Riel and thinking 'Caliban'. It is constructed as a projected thought rather than an adopted name. I imagine someone relating to Riel as Prosporo related to Caliban. In fact, like Caliban, Riel's romantic interest in a white woman was rejected by her father. Like Caliban, Riel was 'country born' but raised within the (French Catholic) dominant culture ideology, educational and religious system: "Thou strokedst me and madest much of me...." The Metis, like Caliban, "show'd thee all the qualities o' the [prairies],The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile...." In my fantasy, Prospero and Sycorax are Caliban's parents, making him Metis! There is a familiar inter-racial anxiety in the play. Prospero worries about a connection between Caliban and Miranda. As Caliban articulates it: "O ho, O ho! would't had been done! Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else This isle with Calibans." In this sense, the Metis might be seen as "Calibans" within this literary imaginary. David Garneau

Please see Nicholas Flood Davin's last interview with Louis Riel shortly before Riel was executed.

Link to Nicholas Flood Davin page in the Spotlight.

Link to Shakespeare in Canadian Art