She was deemed unfit for marriage.

“What are you reading?”

“Whatever I can find. Old newspapers, sometimes books I borrow. I read slowly. I haven’t learned well, but I read.”

“Have you ever read Shakespeare?”

His eyes widened. “Yes, miss. There’s an old copy in the library that no one touches. I read it last night, when everyone’s asleep.”

“What plays?”

“Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest.” His voice grew enthusiastic despite himself. “The Tempest is my favorite. Prospero controlling the island with magic. Ariel longing for freedom. Caliban treated like a monster, yet perhaps more human than anyone else.” He stopped abruptly. “Excuse me, miss. I’m talking too much.”

“No,” I said, smiling. I was smiling genuinely for the first time in this strange conversation. “Keep talking. Tell me about Caliban.”

And something extraordinary happened. Josiah, the enormous slave known as the Brute, began discussing Shakespeare with an intelligence that would have impressed university professors.

Caliban is called a monster, but Shakespeare shows us that he was enslaved, his island stolen, his mother’s magic ignored. Prospero calls him a savage, but Prospero has arrived on the island and claimed ownership of everything, including Caliban himself. So who is the real monster?

“Do you consider Caliban a character you can empathize with?”

“I see Caliban as a human being, treated as less than human, but still human.” His voice trailed off. “Like… like slaves.”

“I finished.”

“Yes, miss.”

We talked for two hours about Shakespeare, books, philosophy, and ideas. Josiah was self-taught; his knowledge was fragmentary, but his mind was sharp, his thirst for knowledge evident. And as we talked, my fear melted away.

This man was no brute. He was intelligent, kind, thoughtful, trapped in a body that society viewed and saw only as a monster.

“Josiah,” I said finally, “if we do this, I want you to know something. I don’t think you’re a brute. I don’t think you’re a monster. I think you’re a person stuck in an impossible situation, just like me.”

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Thank you, miss.”