Calban is one of the primary antagonists, the half-human and the half-monster characters in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. The name is an anagram of the Spanish word canibal (Carib people), the source of cannibal in English.

In the mythology, Caliban is the son of the luciferous woman Sycorax by (according to Prospero) a devil. Banished from Algiers, Sycorax was left on the isle, pregnant with Caliban, and died before Prospero's arrival.

In The Tempest, Caliban is described as a repugnant monster slave of Prospero and he is the mirror of Ariel, the other slave. Ariel is quite fetching and has powers used for good. Therefore, her obvious mirror would be her fellow slave, the ugly one. Caliban and Ariel are one in slavery, and thus are like Dorian Gray, the beauty, and his ugly, monsterous portrait..

In the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde describes “The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass”.

A possible interpretation of these sentences is that the 19th century doesn't like realism because it is a reflection on their situation. Yet, they also dislike romanticism because they don't see it when they look in the mirror. So, the 19th century can't handle a true representation of themselves because realism is ugly, just like Dorian Gray couldn't stand his marred portrait. He looks at the portrait and wants it to reflect his beauty, but it doesn't. It isn't a romantic rendering. Thus, Caliban is angry because he doesn't see what he wants to see, just like Dorian Gray does not see in his portrait what he wants to see.