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Textual Conversations HAGSEED /THE TEMPEST

NOTES COMPILED BY :
MR I MCALPIN BA GRAD DIP ED
CONTENTS

1/ TEMPEST SYNOPSIS

2/ TEMPEST OUTLINE

3/ SCENE BY SCENE ANALYSIS

4/ TEMPEST CHARACTERS

5/ TEMPEST THEMES AND TECHNIQUES

6/ TEMPEST QUESTIONS

7/ HAGSEED

8 HAGSEED/TEMPEST

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1/ TEMPEST SYNOPSIS

The main thread of the plot of the drama seems to have been some folk-tale of a
magician and his daughter, which, in the precise form in which Shakespeare knew it,
has not been recovered. The storm and the island were, it is believed, suggested by
the wreck on the Bermudas in 1609 of one of the English expeditions to Virginia.
Supernatural elements are introduced with great freedom, and the dramatist s interest
was clearly not in the reproduction of lifelike events. The presentation of character
and the attractive picturing of the beauty of magnanimity and forgiveness are the
things which make the charm of this play. It is not to be wondered at that readers
have frequently been led to find in the figure of the great magician, laying aside his
robes and wonder-working rod in a spirit of love and peace toward all men, a symbol
of the dramatist himself at the close of his great career; and it is surely legitimate to
play with this idea without assuming that Shakespeare consciously embodied it. One
can hardly conceive a more fitting epilogue to the volume which is the crown of the
world s dramatic literature than the romance of “The Tempest.”

2/ TEMPEST OUTLINE
Act I.
A huge storm batters a ship carrying Alonso, (the King of Naples),
Sebastian, (Alonso's brother), Ferdinand (Alonso's son), Antonio, Gonzalo
and others. They are likely to die by shipwreck...
On the island near the storm, Prospero and his daughter Miranda are
introduced. We learn that Prospero has created the storm battling Alonso
and company's ship. Miranda asks Prospero to stop the storm. We also
learn that Prospero was once the Duke of Milan but was banished to this
island with Miranda by Antonio, his brother who took over Prospero's
dukedom of Milan.
We are introduced to Ariel, Prospero's magic fairy who tells us that the
men onboard the ship have all made it ashore unharmed as planned.
Caliban, a misformed beast is also introduced. Ariel leads Ferdinand to
Miranda and the two immediately fall in love. Prospero decides to be rude
to Ferdinand, fearful of too rapid a courtship.
Act II.
The rest of the shipwreck survivors wake up on the island. They are
surprised that their clothes smell and feel as fresh as if they had just been
bought at a market...
Ariel's song puts them all to sleep again except for Sebastian and Antonio.
Antonio who replaced his brother Prospero as Duke of Milan manipulates
Sebastian, King Alonso's brother into doing the same thing by replacing
King Alonso. The two are about to kill Alonso in his sleep but Ariel
awakens everyone and the two men quickly make an excuse for drawing
their swords out.
Trinculo, a jester on the ship, discovers Caliban and quickly realizes that
such a beast would earn a fortune for him as a novelty in England.
Stephano, Trinculo's friend eventually finds Trinculo under Caliban's huge
frame. Stephano gives Caliban alcohol, causing Caliban to think Stephano
is more powerful than Prospero whom Caliban hates. The three men set off
together later deciding to kill Prospero...
Act III.
Prospero who is now invisible to Ferdinand and Miranda, witnesses
Ferdinand and Miranda expressing their deep love for one another in
words that rival Romeo and Juliet in their tenderness. Ferdinand, realizing
he is witnessing a truly rare meeting of hearts, approves of Ferdinand for
his daughter. The scene ends with Ferdinand taking Miranda for his wife.
Prospero is pleased but must now leave to attend to matters before
supper...
Bottle in hand, Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban continue on their merry
way together. Stephano starts getting delusions of grandeur, which Caliban
blindly follows. Trinculo thinks Caliban is being foolish to follow
Stephano so blindly. Caliban succeeds in convincing Stephano into killing
Prospero and taking over the island and suggests several gruesome ways of
killing Prospero. Ariel lures the group away with his entrancing sounds...
Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian and Francisco and others
witness a banquet on the island but it is an illusion. Ariel returns and
verbally punishes Alonso (King of Naples), Antonio and Sebastian for
their roles in exiling Prospero, Ariel's master...
Act IV.
Prospero tells Ferdinand that he no longer will punish him, but instead will
freely give his daughter's hand in marriage to him. Prospero conjures up a
beautiful, mythical, illusory party to celebrate, complete with goddesses
and nymphs.
Prospero instructs Ariel to lead the shipwrecked men on the island before
him. Remembering Stephano, Caliban and Trinculo, Prospero has Ariel
distract them with clothes, Caliban failing to keep his friends focused on
killing Prospero. Prospero promises Ariel that he will soon be free...
Act V.
Prospero brings everyone except Stephano, Caliban and Trinculo before
him in a circle. Spellbound, he verbally reprimands several of the men who
exiled him. Prospero tells Ariel that he will soon be free and that he will
miss him. Prospero also intends to destroy his ability to use magic.
Making his presence known, Prospero forgives King Alonso, and tells
Sebastian and Antonio he will keep secret their plan to kill Alonso,
forgiving both.
The famously sweet scene of Ferdinand playing chess with Miranda
occurs. King Alonso is overjoyed to see his son Ferdinand and soon learns
of Ferdinand's imminent marriage to Miranda.
Prospero forgives Stephano and Trinculo. Caliban is embarrassed that he
followed a fool (Trinculo). Caliban is given his freedom. Prospero
announces that in the morning they will all set sail for Naples. Ariel is at
last set free.
Epilogue:
Prospero asks the audience to free him to travel back to Naples reclaiming
his life as Duke of Milan.

3. SCENE BY SCENE ANALYSIS

Act I Scene i
o A violent storm rages around a small ship at sea.
o On the boat are many important people such as
- Alonso (King of Naples)
- Sebastian (Alonso’s brother)
- Prince Ferdinand (Alonso’s son)
- Antonio (the fake Duke of Milan)
- Gonzalo (a loyal servant to the apparently “dead” Prospero,
who now works for Antonio)
- Trinculo (a loud and drunken jester)
- Stephano (a loud and drunken butler)
o They fear for their lives as the tempest gets worse.
o They hear a strange noise – perhaps thunder, splitting wood or
roaring water – and the cry of the men on onboard.
o They prepare to die.

Act I Scene ii
o Prospero and Miranda stand on the shore of an island, watching the
shipwreck.
o It turns out that Prospero, a magician, caused the tempest.
o He wanted revenge on his brother, Antonio, for attempting to kill
him.
o Prospero starts to tell his 14 year old daughter about why he
caused it.
o Prospero was the Duke of Milan. He was bored of ruling Milan, so
started doing magic as well. His brother, Antonio (who is caught in
the tempest) was jealous of Prospero’s power in Milan. So Antonio
set Prospero and 2 year old Miranda adrift into the sea on a small
boat, hoping they would get lost and die at sea, so that he could be
Duke of Milan.
o Luckily, Gonzalo (a loyal servant to Prospero when he was Duke of
Milan) filled the boat with food and water, which helped them live.
o They ended up on the island they live on now.
o Living on the island were Ariel and Caliban.
o Ariel is a sprite – a fairy-like creature. He was a trapped inside a
tree by the evil witch who used to live on the island. Prospero
released Ariel using his powers in exchange for a year off from
being a servant. Prospero tells Ariel that if he complains, he will
imprison him for 12 years (the same amount of time that Prospero
and Miranda have been stuck on the island).
o Caliban is a beast – an ugly creature. Before Prospero and Miranda
arrived at the island, he was the ruler of the island, even though
there was no one there.
o Caliban was uneducated, and didn’t know how to communicate with
people properly. He could also be violent. Prospero said he would
educate Caliban in return for Caliban being his servant. Caliban was
very unhappy about this.
o As Prospero had used his magical powers to create the tempest, it
also turns out that Ariel helped him, and acted as the wind, thunder
and lightning.
o All of the people who were on the ship in the tempest arrived safely
at the island, but not all in one group.
 o Prospero and Caliban have an argument about who rules the island.
Caliban obeys Prospero and backs down, doing exactly what he is
told.
o Ariel arrives with Prince Ferdinand, who was caught up in the
tempest and arrived alone onto the island.
o Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love, but Prospero days it is too quick,
so he imprisons Ferdinand after putting him under a spell that
makes him do as he is told.

Act II Scene i
o Whilst this is going on, the other men from the shipwreck are
searching for Ferdinand.
o Alonso is concerned for his son.
o Gonzalo encourages the men who have been washed up on to the
shore, and says they are lucky to be alive. The men don’t listen.
o They talk about what they would do if they were Duke of this
island, then all of them apart from Sebastian and Antonio.
o Antonio tried to persuade Sebastian to kill his brother.
o Sebastian is convinced, so they draw their swords.
o However, Sebastian has second thoughts and hesitates.
o As he does, Ariel appears and sings into Gonzalo’s ear that he must
wake up.
o Gonzalo shouts, and everyone wakes up.
o Sebastian and Antonio make up a story, but Gonzalo is suspicious.

Act II Scene ii
o Caliban has been doing jobs for Prospero. He hates Prospero for
forcing him into being a slave.
o Prospero has set a curse upon Caliban that means whenever Caliban
complains about being Prospero’s slave, he has feelings of pinching
all over his body.
o Caliban complains, feels the pinching and lies down on the ground,
and covers himself with a cloak because another storm is beginning.
o Trinculo (the jester) also hears the thunder and looks for some
cover from the storm.
o He sees Caliban on the ground covered in his cloak and is curious
about him.
 o He thinks he can make friends with Caliban, so that he can put him
in the circus when he returns home to Naples.
o He joins Caliban underneath the cloak to shelter from the rain.
o Stephano arrives, singing and drinking.
o Because he is drunk, he thinks the four legs underneath the cloak is
a four-legged monster.
o He drinks some more.
o Caliban is scared of Trinculo – he thinks he is a spirit of Prospero’s
trying to torment him.
o They are revealed from underneath the cloak, and get drunk
together.

Act III Scene i

o Ferdinand takes over from the jobs that Caliban was doing for
Prospero.
o Miranda enters, closely followed by Prospero, who sneaks in but is
not seen.
o Ferdinand flatters and chats up Miranda.
o Ferdinand proposes marriage to Miranda.
o Prospero shows himself, and seems quite happy.

Act III Scene ii

o Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano wander about the island, getting
more and more drunk.
o The men begin to jokingly argue about who the Lord of the Island
should be (who should be in charge).
o Ariel arrives, invisible, and overhears Caliban telling Trinculo and
Stephano that he hates Prospero, and that Prospero is a horrible
man.
o Ariel starts to cause trouble, shouting that Caliban is a liar.
o Caliban thinks Trinculo said this, because Ariel is invisible.
o Drunkenly, Caliban tells the men how he wants revenge on Prospero.
o Ariel continues to stir trouble, pretending that Trinculo is insulting
Caliban and Stephano.
o Stephano punches Trinculo in the face.
o Drunkenly, Caliban begins to plot his revenge against Prospero.
o They plan to take his magic books, then kill him.
 o After that, they will take Miranda and make her Queen of the
island, with Stephano as the King.
o Ariel plays a tune on his flute, and the men follow it, stumbling
along, and decide to kill Prospero after they have found the noise.
o Ariel tells Prospero that the men are planning to kill him.

Act III Scene iii

o Antonio, Alonso, Sebastian and Gonzalo have given up hope of
finding Prince Ferdinand, as they have been looking for him all day.
o Antonio still wants Alonso dead, and tells Sebastian that Alonso’s
exhaustion will make him sleep better, so that they can kill him.
o A group of strange spirits appear with a banquet of food.
o Prospero also enters, but is invisible to everyone.
o Just as they are about to eat, thunder strikes and the food
vanishes.
o The men are spooked.
o Alonso believes the spirits are trying to tell him that his son,
Ferdinand, is dead.
o Alonso tried to drown himself.

Act IV Scene i
o Prospero tells Ferdinand it is ok for him to marry Miranda. The only
rule is is that they are not allowed to have sex until they are
married. Ferdinand promises.
o Prospero and Ariel then create three spirits to wish them a happy
engagement.
o The spirits put Ferdinand under a spell which makes him say he
wants to live on the island forever, with Prospero as his father and
Miranda as his wife.
o Prospero suddenly realises that Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano have
planned to kill him and haven’t done it yet – and that they must be
arriving soon.
o He gets angry and sends the spirits away.
o Ferdinand and Miranda are shocked at his anger and try to leave
him alone.
o Prospero calls Ariel to find out where the men are and what their
plan is.
 o Ariel tells him how he led them to through pointy bushes into a
disgusting pond.
o They set a trap for Caliban, Trinculo and Stpehano – they leave
clothes on a washing line for the men to steal after they have been
in the pond.
o Prospero and Ariel then make themselves invisible so they can
watch what happens.
o Stephano and Trinculo steal the clothes – even though Caliban tells
them not to because they still need to kill Prospero.
o Prospero sets a pack of dogs onto the three men, and the dogs
chase them away.

Act V Scene i
o Ariel tells Prospero that Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano are going
mad with fear.
o Ariel has also managed to capture Sebastian, Antonio, Alonso and
Gonzalo.
o Prospero wants these men released.
o Ariel goes to release them.
o Prospero, now alone, says he is going to give up magic and drown his
magic book.
o He also says he is going to release Caliban and Ariel from their
servant duties.
o Ariel arrives with Sebastian, Alonso and Antonio.
o Prospero charms them and praises Gonzalo for his loyalty.
o He tells off the other men for plotting to kill one another, including
himself.
o He asks Ariel to find the clothes he used to wear when he was the
Duke of Milan twelve years ago.
o Ariel goes to fetch them and helps him put them on.
o Prospero releases Alonso, Sebastian, Gonzalo and Antonio from
their spell and speaks to them – he forgives Antonio, but demands
that he is made Duke of Milan again.
o Alonso tells Prospero that Ferdinand is missing and feared to be
dead.
o Prospero lies to Alonso and tells him that Miranda was killed in the
tempest too.
 o Alonso cries and wails for Ferdinand.
o Prospero then draws aside a curtain, revealing Ferdinand and
Miranda behind it, who are playing a game of chess.
o Alonso is so happy to have Ferdinand back, and Miranda is joyful to
see more humans on the island.
o Alonso hugs Miranda and Ferdinand.
o They are now all friends.
o Prospero then asks Ariel to collect Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban,
who are still drunk.
o Prospero organises a party for that evening for everyone.
o They plan to go to Naples the next day so that Ferdinand and
Miranda can be married.
o Prospero will then return to Milan to think about the remaining
years of his life as Duke.
o Prospero releases Caliban and Ariel from being servants.
o All of the characters leave, apart from Prospero.
o He says he no longer wants his magical powers, and that he feels
bad for making Caliban and Ariel his servants.
o He says that he is now imprisoned in his life, and that only the
audience who are watching the play can release him from his
“prison” that are his magical powers.
o The audience clap and release him from his powers.

4/ CHARACTERS

LIST OF CHARACTERS - CAST

Major Characters

Prospero
The protagonist of the play and the rightful Duke of Milan. He is a benevolent
magician and a wise and loving man. He acquires power on the enchanted island,
which enables him to get back his dukedom at the end of the play.

Miranda

Prospero's daughter who is kind and good. She has lived on the enchanted island
since she was three and remembers no other place. She and her father are the only
human inhabitants on the islan

Ferdinand

Son of the King of Naples who falls in love with Miranda. A heroic character, he is
brave, honest, and dutiful. He is unaware of the wicked deeds that have brought him
to the island.

Gonzalo

A "good old lord" of Milan. He is counselor to King Alonso. He was very helpful to
Prospero at the time of his exile, saving his and young Miranda's lives by filling their
boat with provisions.

Alonso

King of Naples who is weak-willed. He is guilty of having helped the men who
overthrew Prospero twelve years prior to the onset of the action, but is brought to true
repentance.

Sebastian

Alonso's traitorous brother. He is a villain who, in the course of the play, plots to
destroy Alonso and take over his kingdom.

Antonio

Prospero's brother and chief antagonist. He is a wicked man who usurped Prospero's
dukedom twelve years prior to the start of the play. He persuades Sebastian to act
against Alonso as he has acted toward Prospero. At the end of the play, he is the only
unrepentant schemer.

Ariel
A delicate bird-like spirit. He is invisible to all except Prospero, his master. He used
to be a slave of the witch, Sycorax.

Caliban

A misshapen monster. He is the son of the wicked witch Sycorax. He is Prospero's

slave and is dramatically ugly in contrast to the delicate Ariel.

Minor Characters

Claribel

Ferdinand's sister who has been politically married to the King of Tunis.

Stephano

Alonso's drunken butler who drags himself through the enchanted island with a bottle
of liquor.

Trinculo

Alonso's dull jester.

Adrian and Francisco

Lords attending Alonso.

Iris, Ceres, Juno

Nymphs and reapers in the Masque within the play. These roles are assumed by
island spirits in Prospero's pageant, acting as figures in mythology.

Master of ship

The ship's captain during the shipwreck.

Boatswain

One who works under the master of the ship, directing the mechanical operation of
the boat.

Mariners

Those who assist the master of the ship and the boatswain in operating the ship.
 5/ TEMPEST THEMES AND TECHNIQUES
Fernando uses the expression "O, you Wonder" (line 425) and the
word is repeated twice more, which also plays on the meaning of
Miranda's name, which means "wonder". The pun used on
Miranda’s name, using the word "wonder" has connotations of
imaginative qualities, and thus, opens room to discover a world
of possibilities, based on the realities.

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

TEMPEST
The tempest(storm) that opens the play is full of symbolic meaning.
When Prospero uses magic to whip up a storm that shipwrecks the King of Naples on
the island, the tempest seems like a very physical manifestation of Prospero's anger
and his suffering.
Although the tempest (like Prospero's anger) is definitely powerful enough to cause a
shipwreck, no real harm is actually done. Prospero wants to teach Alonso and
Antonio a lesson, but the fact is that he doesn't kill anybody or cause permanent
damage to the ship or its inhabitants. Prospero forgives the men who once betrayed
him.
The Tempest is associated with social upheaval. As the crew and passengers are
being tossed around on deck, panic sets in and Duke Antonio tries barking orders at
the crew. The Boatswain basically tells the Duke of Milan to keep his mouth shut and
get out of the way: "Hence! What cares these roarers / for the name of King? To
cabin! Silence; trouble us not" (1.1.5). Oh, snap! The social and political hierarchy
begins to break down here as the Boatswain points out that royal titles are
meaningless in a life and death situation at sea.
CHESS
By the middle of Act 5, Scene 1, Prospero has worked his magic to win back his
dukedom and he has also orchestrated the marriage of Miranda and Prince Ferdinand,
who everyone thinks is dead . In the middle of the scene, Prospero gathers everyone
around and dramatically draws back a curtain to reveal his virginal daughter and
Ferdinand...playing a game of chess.
It looks like Ferdinand has made good on his promise to keep his hands to himself
until his wedding night. As it turns out, the conversation going on between Miranda
and Ferdinand is as G-rated as the action. Miranda bats her eyelashes and says
something cute ("Sweet lord, you play me false") and Ferdinand promises that he'd
never do such a thing (5.1.1). So, it seems like chess is being used here as a metaphor
for romantic pursuits or, the kinds of teasing little "games" played by people who are
in love.

The goal of a chess game is to capture your opponent's king by strategically placing
him in a position from which he can't move. This is exactly what's been going on
between Prospero and Alonso ever since the King of Naples allowed Antonio to steal
Prospero's dukedom. In the end, Prospero has ultimately won this little game by
backing Alonso into a corner from which the king cannot move..

Prospero's books are a pretty big deal in this play. They're the source of Prospero's
magic, which is why Caliban says Prospero is completely vulnerable without them:
Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him,
I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him,
Having first seized his books, or with a log
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember
First to possess his books; for without them
He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not
One spirit to command: they all do hate him
As rootedly as I. Burn but his books. (3.2.11)
In other words, without the contents of his treasured library, Prospero's a "sot" (a
stupid fool) and as powerless as Caliban. When Prospero says he's going to retire
from the magic business, he promises "I'll drown my book" (5.1.5).
GONZALO'S BIG UTOPIAN SPEECH
Ever the optimist, Gonzalo's response to being stranded is to make a big speech about
how things would be if he ruled the isle:
I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty;--

To feed my innocent people. (2.1.23)

Miranda’s Virginity
Most of the characters in it are so obsessed with Miranda's virginity. Prospero is
always talking about it (and guarding it from the likes of Caliban) and, when
Ferdinand sees Miranda for the first time, he says he hopes she's unmarried and still
carrying her V-card (1.2.3). What the heck is going on here? We've done some
investigating (read: close analysis of the text) and we've come up with some ideas.
First of all, it was really, really, really important for unmarried women to be chaste in
Shakespeare's day. If they had sex before marriage, they were considered damaged
goods who couldn't be depended on to produce legitimate offspring.
Miranda's virginity is a thing that's treated like a "treasure" to be guarded, mostly by
her dad, who prevents Caliban from raping her and populating the "isle with
Calibans" (1.2.3). Prospero not only prevents his daughter from being assaulted, he
also puts a stop to the potential threat that the island could be taken over by the
offspring of his slave. Prospero would much rather give his daughter over to Prince
Ferdinand (although he gives his son-in-law a huge lecture about keeping his hands to
himself until after the wedding) because 1) Miranda loves the guy and 2) Miranda
and Ferdinand will have legitimate babies that will one day rule Naples.
At times, it also seems like Miranda's virginity is symbolic of her purity, innocence,
and goodness. ( It also seems like Miranda's status as a virgin helps to somehow
redeem the island's naturalness. Remember that the last woman on the island was
Sycorax. If the island is to be a place of redemption for all the characters in the play,
Miranda's virginity is symbolic of the promise of a new and pure beginning.

Water Water Water Everywhere

Water is central to this play, and, particularly, the act of being immersed in water –
namely, drowning. Of course, the first scene when the ship splits is a pretty good time
to worry about drowning, but the imagery goes beyond that to represent loss and
recovery.
When first exiled with Miranda, Prospero suggests that he could have drowned the
sea with his own tears when he cried over his lost dukedom and his past: "When I
have deck'd the sea with drops full salt" (1.2.18).
The new inhabitants of the isle are obsessed with water too. Ferdinand, upon hearing
Ariel's song, knows it refers to his father's certain drowning:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange (1.2.20)
Ariel's song leads Ferdinand to believe that his father has drowned and is lost to him
forever.Later, when Alonso gives up hope that Ferdinand could have survived the
shipwreck he says, "he is drown'd / Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks /
Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go" (3.1.1) and Antonio notes the King has
"given up hope" (3.1.1).
The idea here is that when someone is lost to the sea, there probably isn't even going
to even be a body that can be recovered. Drowning demands that the dead must be let
go, without the closure of a burial ceremony. So what we're talking about here is the
seeming finality of drowning. Usually, once a thing is given to the ocean, it can never
be taken back, which is why Rose drops the diamond necklace into the ocean in
everyone's favorite tacky love story (yes, Titanic).
The Tempest is about the recovery of what seems to have been lost forever. Ferdinand
and his father don't actually drown and when they discover each other at the play's
end. New beginnings are possible.
Same goes for Prospero, who once thought Milan would never be restored to him but
lives to see the day his daughter is married to Prince Ferdinand and will live as a
royal in Italy. While Miranda and Prospero will never get back the twelve years they
lost on the island, the play suggests that, despite their suffering, they will gain
something even greater.
CLASPING OF HANDS
Hands stuff pops up all over the place in this play. Prospero takes Miranda's hand
before he tells her of their true identity, and our first introduction to the Prince and
King has them below deck, praying, with their hands clasped. Ariel invites Ferdinand
to take hands (presumably Miranda's) as he leads him away from crying over his
father's death. Miranda is offered Ferdinand's hand as a symbol of his faith to her and
of their marriage. Prospero gives Miranda's hand in marriage to Ferdinand when he
agrees to their union, and Alonso clasps all their hands together and raises them to the
heavens when asking God's blessing on the new union. Finally, when Prospero gives
his epilogue speech to the audience, he asks that they bring their hands together,
supposedly in prayer forgiving him his failures, but really in applause to tell him that
he's totally awesome.
So, hands mean prayer, truth, love, and applause.
As Shakespeare’s plays were written to be acted, applause (the act of the audience's
hands) was the playwright's only assurance that he hadn't sucked. This is especially
significant if we think of The Tempest as Shakespeare's last play.

SELF DISCOVERY
The notion of self-discovery highlighted in “The Tempest” is manifested through the
transformation of Prospero as he learns how to forgive. Prospero’s journey to self-
discovery is reinforced by a sense of contrite release, as he learns to express remorse
towards his past actions and perceives himself as responsible for his own demise. The
symbolism of the storm “The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous, winds,/ And
‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault/ Set roaring war- to th’ dread rattling
thunder” expresses Prospero’s emotional turmoil which is heightened by the ferocity
of the tempest, as it represents the accumulation of rage Prospero has directed
towards his brother, Alonso. The sound and lighting effects surround the stage
building in intensity as Act 1. Scene 1. progresses further highlighting Prospero’s
deep, merciless rage. This extreme level of indignation consumes Prospero causing
him to contradict himself with the unfair treatment of his servant Ariel who he
continues to enslave longer than originally agreed in order to serve his own purposes.
Once Prospero is able to let go of the rage he holds, the responder witnesses a
noteworthy change in his characterisation. Prospero reconsiders what his magic has
achieved and promises to relinquish his powers and thus the metaphorical tempest
inside of himself. Shakespeare has used visual imagery to convey the metaphor of the
tempest as it subsides thus portraying the release of Prospero’s rage as he discovers
he is able to forgive and move on. When Prospero throws his magic into the ocean it
symbolises the release of his power as he realises that he does not need it, which
represents the key part of his transformation.
The corruption of indigenous cultures at the hands of a ‘civilised’ world in the name
of colonisation can be a negative outcome of exploration. The negative effects of
physical discovery, highlighted by colonisation, are manifested in the
characterisation of Caliban. Stephano and Trinculo manipulate Caliban to adopt
modern hierarchical concepts with the intention of making Stephano king of the
island. As Caliban discovers the civilised world he begins to lose his spiritual
connection to the land and his culture. Although Caliban believes Stephano and
Trinculo to be worthy of kings, he is not aware that they are both drunks with no
regard for their civilised society who only perceive Caliban as a financial investment.
They believe people will pay money to “see an indian” this use or irony demonstrates
the manipulation and corruption of indigenous people around the world, conveying
loss of culture by the hands of the ‘civilised world’. Caliban does eventually realise
his mistakes, and much like Prospero, has his own transformation in which he repents
his actions. Which includes plotting to kill Prospero. Caliban begs Prospero for
forgiveness “And seek for grace. What a thrice- double ass/ Was I, to take this
drunkard for a god/ And worship this dull fool!” which is bestowed upon him.
Through the manipulation of Caliban the audience discovers the true nature of
colonisation, and the effects it has on indigenous cultures. The discovery of new
worlds can lead to negative impact upon that particular world, as Shakespeare
symbolises through the characterisation of Caliban.
6/ TEMPEST QUESTIONS
1. Why is The Tempest considered a romantic comedy? Fully explain your
answer.
2. Examine the devices by which Shakespeare has achieved unity of
construction in The Tempest?
3. Since Prospero is the protagonist and central figure of The Tempest,
trace the influence exercised by him on the other characters and on the
action of the play.
4. Miranda is referred to during the place as an almost perfect being.
Explain why.
5. Contrast Caliban to Ariel and then to Stephano.

6. Explain how the forgiveness / reconciliation theme is developed in The

Tempest.
7. Explain how magic and music are repeatedly used in the plot, giving
specific examples.
8. In The Tempest there are comic elements, serious elements, and
supernatural elements. Explain how each of them is used, giving specific
examples.
9. Compare and contrast the character of Ferdinand and Antonio.
10. Explain Gonzalo's role in the play.
11. Why is the marriage between Miranda and Ferdinand considered to be
a perfect match? Why is their marriage vitally important to the play?
12. Who are "the three men of sin" in The Tempest? What are the dramatic
roles assigned to them? Compare and contrast them to the three comic
characters of Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban.
13. Explain the enchanted nature of the island.
14. What features of the Masque and Antimasque do you find in The
Tempest.
15. Explain the Epilogue and its dramatic significance
16. Explain the great significance of the opening scene in The Tempest.
What would be lost if it were omitted?
17. Discuss power struggles and authority in the play.
18. Prospero's lengthy exposition in the second scene of the play has been
criticized as a crude technique for giving necessary information to the
audience. Can you suggest any means of defending its effectiveness?

HAGSEED

WHAT THE TITLE MEANS

PROSPERO ACT 1 SCENE 2

Hag-seed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel. And be quick, thou 'rt best,
To answer other business. Shrug’st thou, malice?
If thou neglect’st or dost unwillingly
What I command, I’ll rack thee with old cramps,
375
Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

DEFINITION

hagseed
Noun
(plural hagseeds)
• The offspring of a hag.
Hag definition
hag 1 (hăg) n. 1. Offensive An old woman considered to be ugly or
frightening. 2. a. A witch; a sorceress.

Hag-Seed
Any act of artistic performance shares a close affinity with magic.
Stephen King has made this connection in numerous essays,
forewords, and introductions to his own work, and in his recent
memoir, Bruce Springsteen refers to the connection forged between
the musicians onstage and the audiences at their marathon
concerts as a “magic trick.” William Shakespeare literalizes the
connection between art and magic in his towering final play by
making the main character an actual sorcerer, capable of conjuring
storms and consorting with spirits. In the concluding scene of The
Tempest, Prospero rejects his “rough magic,” vowing to bury his
broken staff and drown his book of spells; it is nevertheless clear on
which side of the equation his creator falls (and leaves open the
question of whether this is Shakespeare himself, at the end of his
career, speaking through his character).
The Tempest has been analysed in dozens of ways: as the
culmination of Shakespeare’s techniques and concerns; an
examination of humankind’s alternating reliance on and conflict with
the natural world; and, perhaps most interestingly, an early
comment on colonialism and empire. It is also a play about the
practice of making and performing plays – a metafictional
commentary on the hold that stories have on their audience and, by
implication, their creator.
It is not difficult to see what draws Margaret Atwood to the text.
Over the course of her own long and storied career – in books such
as Lady Oracle, Cat’s Eye, and The Blind Assassin – Atwood has
similarly interrogated the nature of artistic creation and its effects.
But she blows the doors off this investigation in her latest novel, a
modern reworking of The Tempest that is part of the Hogarth
Shakespeare series honouring the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s
death.
In Atwood’s modern retelling, Prospero becomes Felix Phillips, the
erstwhile artistic director of the local Makeshiweg Theatre Festival.
Felix has been forced out of his role by Tony Price, “that devious,
twisted bastard,” who engineers a putsch in conjunction with an
unctuous government minister named Sal O’Nally. After a dozen
years have elapsed, Felix, who has taken a job as the director of a
theatre program for medium-security inmates at Fletcher
Correctional Institute, sees a chance for revenge by mounting a
production of The Tempest inside the prison and inviting Tony and
Sal, now both ensconced in the federal cabinet, to experience some
“rough magic” of his own.
The parallels with Shakespeare’s text are readily apparent. Felix’s
exile lasts for 12 years, the same amount of time Prospero spends
on the island before stirring up the storm that brings his tormentors
to his shores. Felix’s daughter, Miranda, died from meningitis at
three years of age, the same age as Prospero’s daughter when the
two were exiled. The dead daughter’s spirit, with whom Felix
converses, is a refraction of Ariel in the original play. Tony and Sal
are stand-ins for Shakespeare’s usurpers, Antonio and Alonso, and
Lonnie Gordon, the kindly board chair at Makeshiweg, is a version
of Gonzalo. Ferdinand becomes Freddie, Sal’s son; the young man
is paired up with actress Anne-Marie, who has agreed to play
Miranda because none of the macho male prisoners will take on the
role of a woman. There is even a repeat of the chess game
between the two nascent lovers.
This is all handled with verve and élan, and it is clear that Atwood is
having great fun with her story and characters. Maybe a bit too
much fun. The author has always had a tendency to overplay
certain jokes and conceits (see, e.g., Tony’s backward speech in
The Robber Bride), and Hag-Seed is no exception: Felix allows his
charges to swear using only profanity that is contained in
Shakespeare’s original play. After a while, the prisoners referring to
each other as “whoreson” and “red plague” wears out its jocular
welcome. (The novel’s title is a reference to Prospero’s insulting
name for the monster Caliban.)
Atwood’s conception of The Tempest as “an early multi-media
musical” is intriguing, as is the notion that were Shakespeare alive
today, he would be enamoured with the latest in special-effects
technology. But the way this plays out in the novel beggars
credulity: whereas an audience member is perfectly able to
suspend disbelief regarding Prospero’s magic, Atwood’s bedrock of
naturalism vis à vis her setting and situation renders Felix’s
revenge, when it occurs, frankly absurd, even in the context of a
medium-security prison facility with forward-thinking staff and a
philosophy of restorative justice.
Though maybe this is also part of the point. Much of Shakespeare –
in The Tempest and throughout the rest of the canon – is fanciful on
its face; the Bard’s longevity derives, at least in part, from his
entertainment value, which frequently involves otherworldly beings,
coincidence, and anti-realism. An updated rendition can perhaps be
forgiven for indulging in a bit of goofy tomfoolery.
Less so, however, the sections in which Atwood has the prisoners
provide their suppositions as to what befalls the play’s characters
after the end of the text. This reads as baldly discursive and
anticlimactic, even in modern garb. Shakespeare closes The
Tempest by breaking the fourth wall and having Prospero address
his audience directly. Atwood’s attempt at something similarly
metafictional is less apt to draw the desired applause.The Tempest
into a perfect storm

SYLLABUS

Students will be guided through the

requirements of the English Advanced
Syllabus and Prescriptions, as well as
forming an understanding of context,
form, narrative and connections.
Through analysis and discussion of The Tempest, participants explore
its hybrid form; the multiple narrative threads; the contradictory and
ambiguous key characters; Prospero and Caliban; and the ambiguous
significance of Caliban as dark monster (‘hag-seed’), oppressed subject
and poetic voice.
Following exploration of Hag-Seed as a reimagining of The
Tempest,discuss and consider the title; the revisionary parallels
between Tony and Prospero (including the daughter motif); Anne-Marie
and gender issues; the prisoners and class identity; the substitution of
the prison and the prisoners and their performance of The Tempest for
Shakespeare’s island.
By engaging in the comparative study of the texts, students will explore
the essential grandeur of Shakespeare’s play as a culmination of his
career: the range of his poetry; his ambivalence about human error and
the magnificence of the world; the identity and status of the
clown/villains and Caliban. By drawing on comparisons, students will
understand the significance of Hag-Seed through its double nature as a
contemporary novel and metatextual literary game; Prospero and mental
illness; the English class and prison systems; gender stereotypes and
revisions; Atwood’s prisoners compared to Shakespeare’s Stephano,
Trinculo, and Caliban.
Outcomes
By the end students should be able to:
analyse and discuss the relations between The Tempest and Hag-
Seed in relation to context, narrative, structure, themes, literary
style, key words and motifs
analyse and discuss The Tempest as a culmination of
Shakespeare’s art and interests: in particular, as a hybrid text
(poetic drama, romance, revenge tragicomedy, fairyland masque);
the twin significance of Prospero as magician master and Caliban
as monster slave; romance and revenge; Miranda and Ariel; the
emphasis on human error and reconciliation
analyse and discuss Hag-Seed as a contemporary novel and a
metatextual literary game about The Tempest including the
significance of the title; Felix, Prospero and revenge; the Miranda
variations; the substitution of the prison for the island; variations on
gender stereotypes including sex and romance; the contemporary
English class system and class identity; the conflation of the prison
and performance that contributes to a theatrical novel
analyse and discuss the relations between The Tempest and Hag-
Seed to explore how The Tempest illuminates Hag-Seed and how
Hag-Seed raises questions about The Tempest.

Content
Critical study of The Tempest in relation to context, style and
meaning in order to explore its hybrid form; the themes about
human error and the magnificence of the world and art; princes
 and the people; romance, sex and gender in the period; Prospero
and Caliban – with emphasis on the double nature of Caliban as
dark monster and speaker for the beauty of the magical island.
An overview and analysis of Hag-Seed in relation to context, style
and meaning in order to explore its hybrid form as contemporary
novel and metatextual literary game about The Tempest. The
focus includes the identity of Felix and parallels to Prospero; the
title and its significance; Atwood’s account of the prison, the
prisoners and the variations on Caliban; Miranda and the feminist
variations with Anne-Marie; male gender stereotypes; the
performance of The Tempest and the prisoners' variations on
Shakespeare that contribute to a theatrical novel.
Extended analysis and discussion that focuses relations between
the two texts including discussion of the medium of the novel and
the theatre and style, characters and themes. The comparison will
focus the variations on Prospero, Miranda, Ariel and Caliban, with
emphasis on the prisoners, their performance and Shakespeare’s
Caliban and his significance in relation to the variations on Caliban
linked to Atwood’s title.

HAGSEED OVERVIEW

HAG-SEED
Some years ago, the publishing company Hogarth
announced a fascinating initiative: a series of novels
based on Shakespeare’s most famous works. To date,
eight novelists have signed on to reinterpret eight plays.
In “Hag-Seed,” the fourth in the series, Margaret Atwood
has taken on “The Tempest.” The setting is present-day
Canada, and her Prospero is Felix, artistic director of an
Ontario theatre festival.
In the original play, Prospero was deposed as duke of
Milan by his conniving brother, Antonio. In Atwood’s
version, the Antonio character is Tony, Felix’s festival
partner, who handles operational matters while Felix
immerses himself in staging ever-wilder productions of
the kind that typically make small-town boards of
directors a little nervous. His “Pericles” involves
extraterrestrials. He stages “Macbeth” with chain saws.
Felix, like Prospero, is a widowed father. But in “Hag-
Seed,” the child too is lost, when Felix’s daughter,
Miranda, dies suddenly at the age of 3. Immediately
following the funeral, Felix plunges himself into a new
production of “The Tempest.” It will be his edgiest and
most ambitious production yet, and he himself will play
Prospero. He’ll resurrect his lost Miranda on the stage.
But before the play opens, Tony strikes. With the
approval of his handpicked board of directors and his
friend Sal in the Ministry of Canadian Heritage — a
branch of the Canadian government that, among other
things, finances theater festivals — Tony takes over as
artistic director and has Felix escorted out by security.
Given Sal’s position, it goes without saying that Felix
won’t be able to start his own festival somewhere else.
He rents a run-down cottage outside of town and settles
into brooding exile.
In the fourth act of “The Tempest,” Prospero summons a
crowd of spirits to entertain his daughter and her fiancé.
Nymphs and goddesses assemble, but the revelry’s
hardly begun when Prospero’s mood changes abruptly.
He dismisses the spirits in an eerie bit of stage direction
— “to a strange, hollow and confused noise, they heavily
vanish” — and explains to his puzzled soon-to-be son-
inlaw
that “these our actors . . . were all spirits, and are
melted into air, into thin air.”
In Atwood’s unsettling reinterpretation, Miranda is a spirit
too, melting in and out of thin air in her father’s cottage.
While the lost kingdom in “Hag-Seed” might seem
comparatively trivial, a theatre festival versus the city of
Milan, the festival was all Felix had, and the lost daughter
lends a layer of anguish absent from the play. As years
pass in solitude and Felix lives off his savings and
retirement package, obsessed with revenge, he likes to
imagine he’s not alone. When he realises he can actually
hear his daughter’s voice, he decides he’s taken solitude
too far and finds employment teaching literacy at the
local prison. In the class, which quickly becomes wildly
popular, the inmates study and perform Shakespeare.
Felix finds pleasure in engaging with the outside world
again, although it doesn’t make Miranda any less real.
He’s drawn to Estelle, the professor who supervises the
program, but doesn’t act on his attraction because “he
has a dependent child, and those duties come first.” His
relationship with reality is uncertain. When he’s not
caring for his ghostly daughter, he obsessively tracks his
enemies across the ocean of the internet. Tony joins Sal
in the political realm and is appointed to the federal
cabinet.
Twelve years after Miranda’s death and Felix’s dismissal
from the festival, Estelle — the personification of the
“auspicious star” that delivers Prospero’s enemies to the
island — asks him to lunch to deliver some news: The
literacy program is on the fiscal chopping block, but she’s
pulled some strings and arranged for two cabinet
ministers to visit and watch a performance, mostly for the
photo op. The ministers are Sal and Tony. Felix’s
enemies will be delivered to him in the penitentiary.
Is this all a little too convenient? Of course it is, but in
fairness, there’s an inevitable problem of translation
inherent to the entireHogarth Shakespeare project: How
to create a credible contemporary novel from a work
written four centuries ago for the stage? It’s perhaps
more straightforward in the case of the tragedies — there
have been various novelistic interpretations of “King
Lear” over the years — but how to handle Shakespeare’s
more fantastical offerings, the plays with stage directions
like Enter certain Nymphs (from “The Tempest”) or Enter
Time, the chorus (from “The Winter’s Tale”)?
In “The Gap of Time,” her Hogarth reinterpretation of
“The Winter’s Tale,” Jeanette Winterson opted to
address
the work’s wilder elements by means of a video game,
wherein time becomes a player. In “Hag-Seed,” Atwood
opts for, well, the play itself. When he learns that his
enemies will be delivered into his hands, Felix decides to
stage an unusually interactive performance of “The
Tempest” in the prison.
In some ways, staging the play at the prison is an
elegant choice: Prospero’s island is both prison and
theatre, and the play-within-a-play was of course a
favourite device of Shakespeare’s, while the novelwithin-
a-novel has in the past been used by Atwood to
spectacular effect. But for the same reasons, the
decision to stage “The Tempest” within “Hag-Seed” can
be read as something of a failure of imagination on
Atwood’s part. It also marks an unfortunate transition.
The novel to this point is a marvel of gorgeous yet
economical prose, in the service of a story that’s utterly
heartbreaking yet pierced by humor, with a plot that
retains considerable subtlety even as the original’s back
story falls neatly into place. But the prison production of
“The Tempest” leads to some of the book’s clunkiest
elements. At least some of the prisoners are in on Felix’s
plot. But to break the enchantment for a moment: These
are inmates in a medium-security prison, who are being
asked to menace two federal ministers. They’ve been
told the literacy program is in peril, but this alone can’t
explain why they’d risk longer sentences, deferred parole
or transfer to maximum security for such a harebrained
scheme. Estelle’s implied knowledge of the plot — “Think
of me as lubricant. . . . I’ll make things run smoothly,
guaranteed” — is no more plausible, however deeply she
cares about prison literacy.
There is an odd sense at times that everyone but the
reader is under the wizard’s spell. This may be the point
— after all, the characters of “The Tempest” are under
Prospero’s spell; the audience is not — but it does seem
like a missed opportunity. Does Estelle’s status as the
auspicious star mean she has to be so thinly drawn as a
character, her motivations and actions so inscrutable?
In fact, the only truly developed character in “Hag-Seed”
is Felix. Why, he wonders at one point, did he ever think
himself capable of playing Prospero? “So many
contradictions to Prospero! Entitled aristocrat, modest
hermit? Wise old mage, revengeful old poop? Irritable
and unreasonable, kindly and caring? Sadistic,
forgiving?”
Felix, too, is all of these things, and it’s in the instability
and complexity of his character that the book takes its
darkest, most interesting turns. Felix both believes and
doesn’t believe that he lives with his ghostly daughter.
Sometimes he’s sincere, but sometimes he’s clearly
acting, particularly when he’s with Estelle. When he
activates his plot and traps his enemies in a psychedelic
hell of an interactive theatre experience, he believes his
revenge is justified. But in at least one aspect, convincing
an adversary his son has died, the viciousness is
magnified exponentially by the fact that Felix knows what
it’s like to lose a child.
“Hag-Seed” is at its eerie, enchanting best when Atwood
dwells on Felix’s relationship with his lost daughter. Is
Miranda really there in the cottage, or not? What does it
mean to be real, to be there, in the context of a play
populated by spirits? He looks forward to seeing her in
the evenings, when he returns to his cottage after
rehearsals: “At first he thinks she isn’t there, and his
heart plummets. Then he detects her: She’s over by their
table, in the gathering shadows. She’s waiting by the
chess set, ready to resume their lesson.” In “The
Tempest,” Miranda is trapped as surely as Ariel and
Caliban. By the end of “Hag-Seed,” it’s begun to dawn on
Felix that if Ariel longs to be released to the elements,
perhaps the lost girl in his cottage longs for the same.

CHARACTERS IN HAGSEED

Felix Phillips
An aging Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre
Festival and sometimes actor. He marries his wife Nadia
when he is middled-aged. Their daughter Miranda is born a
year later and Nadia dies of complications after the birth.
Three years later his young daughter dies suddenly from an
illness, which plunges him into a depression that he tries to
distract himself from with a new staging of The Tempest.
He is fired by the Board during the planning stages of The
Tempest because they think he is mentally unstable and the
direction he is taking the play in is too outlandish and will
draw intense criticism. His position is taken by his former
protegee, Tony and he feels immense anger and betrayal
over this. He leaves the town of Makeshewig and lives in a
small, remote cabin under the alias of Mr. Duke.
He can be somewhat manipulative, knowing when and how
to stroke a person’s ego in order to get them to do his
bidding. He is filled with thoughts of revenge against Tony
and the people he feels betrayed him. His deceased
daughter Miranda is also always in the back of his mind and
maintains a huge presence in his life for years after her
death. His character mirrors that of Prospero in The
Tempest and he casts himself in this role in his prison
production.
Anthony "Tony" Price
Felix’s rival at the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival and main
antagonist of the story. He usurps Felix’s position as Artistic
Director and plays a role in his termination at the Festival,
which is the only thing Felix still has in his life after the
deaths of his wife and daughter. Tony goes on to win
accolades and is eventually elected as a Member of
Provincial Parliament and later the Heritage Minister at the
federal level. He is a serious social climber and has no
problem treading on others in order to get ahead.
When he believes that he and Sebert are speaking privately
amidst the prison coup, he proposes that they kill both Sal
and Lonnie and make it appear as if the prisoners did it.
This would clear the way for Sebert to win leadership of his
political party. He seems to make these suggestions of
murder lightly, without any remorse, all for the sake of
moving himself up in the world, showing that his scheming
has no limits. His character is mirrored with that of the
antagonist Antonio in The Tempest.
Sal O'Nally
An Ontarian politician. At the beginning of the novel he is
the Heritage Minister before going on to become the Justice
Minister at the federal level. He works closely with the
Festival Board and Tony. Felix feels betrayed by him when
he loses his position at the Festival, knowing that Sal is
partly to blame.
Later in the story, Sal is in the running to become the federal
party leader, although he’s made many enemies with a
reputation for using people and then discarding them. He
quickly becomes extremely distraught once the prison coup
gets under way and believes they’ve killed his son, similar to
Alonso’s dejection in The Tempest when he believes his son
Ferdinand has drowned. His son Freddie is very dear to
him, although he tries to control Freddie. His character is
mirrored with that of Alonso in The Tempest.

Sebert Stanley
Minister of Veteran Affairs and one of the three politicians
that make a visit to the Fletcher prison for Felix’s play. He is
running against Sal for the position of federal party leader
and is described as being a “weak-spined yes-man” with
ancestors who were also politicians. His character is
mirrored with that of Sebastian in The Tempest.
Frederick “Freddie” O’Nally
Sal’s adult son and aspiring actor and director. Sal loves
him but doesn’t agree with his choice to become an
actor/director and plans on forcing him to go to law school.
Freddie quickly falls in love with Anne-Marie upon meeting
her and eventually is hired as Assistant Director at the
Makeshiweg Festival. His character is mirrored with that of
Ferdinand in The Tempest.
Anne-Marie Greenland
An actress, dancer, and former gymnast who is cast in the
role of Miranda in The Tempest as a teenager before the
production gets cancelled and Felix is fired. She is hired by
Felix twelve years later to play the same role in his Fletcher
Correctional Players production of The Tempest at the jail.
Similar to their roles of Miranda and Prospero, Anne-Marie
and Felix share a close, father-daughter bond, despite not
actually being related. She falls in love with Freddie by the
end of the story, similar to Miranda and Ferdinand in The
Tempest.
Lonnie Gordon
Chair of the Makeshiweg Festival Board. He is described as
a “decent man but a paralyzing bore”. He is sentimental and
tries to save Felix’s job but is outvoted by the rest of the
Board. During the prison coup, he tries to calm Sal by
pointing out their pleasant surroundings, similar to Gonzalo
in The Tempest trying to cheer Alonso by praising the island
they’re stuck on. He’s shown to have a positive outlook and
represents the kindly councillor Gonzalo in The Tempest.
Estelle
A professor with government connections who runs the
Literacy Through Literature program at Fletcher County
Correctional Institute and hires Felix for the teaching job
there. She enjoys a friendly relationship with Felix and is
passionate about the prison program. She does numerous
favors for Felix in order to keep the program thriving.
8Handz
An inmate at Fletcher Correctional who is described as
being of East Indian descent, bright, knowledgeable with
tech, and approximately twenty-three years old. He sees
himself as a Robin Hood character, stealing from the rich,
and is convicted of hacking and forgery. He is cast by Felix
in the role of Ariel in the prison production of The Tempest
and eventually gets early parole for helping Felix. This is
similar to the character of Ariel being set free after helping
Prospero. He previously played the role of Rivers in Felix’s
Fletcher production of Richard III.

Leggs
An inmate at Fletcher, convicted of breaking-and-entering
and assault. He previously spent time at an addiction
treatment centre before that program was cancelled. He is
described as being around 30 years old with red hair,
freckles and a heavy build. He has a mixed background of
Irish and black. He is a war veteran who served in
Afghanistan and suffered from PTSD. Was in several of
Felix’s other productions before being cast as Caliban in
The Tempest.
WonderBoy
An inmate at Fletcher and student in Felix’s prison class, he
is described as being around 25, clean-cut, handsome and
seemingly sincere. He is convicted of fraud, having sold
fake life insurance to seniors. He formerly played MacDuff
and Hastings in Felix’s production of Richard III before being
cast as Ferdinand in The Tempest.
Krampus
An inmate at Fletcher, he is approximately 45 with a
Mennonite background and a “long horse-face”. He was a
member of a Mennonite drug ring and suffers from
depression. A student in the prison literacy program, he
previously played the role of Banquo in Felix’s production of
Macbeth before being cast as Alonso in The Tempest.
Phil the Pill
An inmate and student in Felix’s prison class, Phil is of
Vietnamese descent, around 40, and a former medical
doctor charged with the deaths of 3 college students from
overdosing on prescription drugs he had prescribed them.
He is easily manipulated and feels wrongly accused, saying
that the students had begged him to help them. Formerly
played the role of Buckingham in Richard III before being
cast as Sebastian in The Tempest.
Bent Pencil
A former accountant convicted of embezzlement, he is an
inmate and student in Felix’s prison class. He is smart and
respected by his fellow inmates who feel that he can help
them. Formerly acted in Felix’s productions of Macbeth and
Julius Caesar before being cast as Gonzalo in The
Tempest.
SnakeEye
An inmate and student in Felix’s prison class, described as
being slim, Italian background, and around 35 years old with
a sense of entitlement. He held a forged law degree and
was convicted of real-estate scams and a ponzi scheme.
Formerly played the title characters of Macbeth and Richard
III in Felix’s previous productions and is cast as Antonio in
The Tempest. He is noted as playing the roles of villains
well.
Red Coyote
An inmate and student in Felix’s prison class, he is in his
20s with an Indigenous background and convicted of
bootlegging. Acted in Felix’s previous Fletcher productions
before being cast as Stephano in The Tempest.
TimEEz
An inmate and student in Felix’s prison class, convicted of
running a shoplifting ring. He is of half-Chinese descent with
a round, pale face and pretends to be less intelligent than
he actually is. He fools around a lot and is described as a
“natural clown”. Previously acted in Felix’s other Fletcher
productions before being cast as Trinculo in The Tempest.
Shiv
An inmate and student in Felix’s prison class and convicted
of assault and gang connections. He has a Mexican
background and previously played Lord Grey in Felix’s
Richard III.
PPod
An inmate and student in Felix’s prison class, convicted of
gang-related assault and extortion. He is African Canadian
and a dancer and is cast in the role of Boatswain in The
Tempest.
Miranda
The daughter of Felix. She dies at age three from meningitis
and maintains a ghostly presence in Felix’s life for the next
12 years. She represents the character of Ariel in The
Tempest and is similarly let go by Felix once he feels
vindicated at the end.
Nadia
Felix’s wife of one year. She dies shortly after the birth of
their daughter Miranda from a staph infection.
Maude and Bert
Landlords to Felix, they rent the small cabin to him for 12
years. They disappear as soon as his production of The
Tempest is finished and he leaves the cabin behind.
HAGSEED /TEMPEST

Of all Shakespeare’s plays, The Tempest , is perhaps the most

intriguing. It was placed first in the Folio which collected his works
posthumously, and may well be his only work that showed
“originality” – it does not rework an older story and invents its own
mythology. To reimagine the most reimagined work of
Shakespeare takes some bravado; and if anyone were to
accomplish it, it would be Margaret Atwood. Hag-Seed is an
absolute triumph. In contrast to some of the other titles in this
series Atwood’s is such a success because it is not only a new
vision of The Tempest, but an astute and complex reading of
“Caliban Upon Setebos” itself. In Atwood’s adaptation, our
Prospero is Felix, a theatre director who has been ousted from
his position as artistic director of a festival by his ambitious
underling Tony. Felix goes into hiding in a backwoods shack,
and becomes the co-ordinator of a “Literacy Through
Literature” programme in the local prison, going under the
pseudonym of Mr Duke. After some successes with
Shakespeare, he decides to stage The Tempest with the
prisoners, and uses the production as a way to lure his foes
into an elaborate trap: just as Hamlet uses the play-within-the-
play The Mousetrap to reveal the guilt of his usurper uncle,
Felix will use the felons’ Tempest to tempt out the real villains.
The prisoners have to rewrite The Tempest into their own demotic
raps, and have to think about the characters’ motivations and the
overall meaning of the play. Ingeniously, Atwood focuses on it being
a play about imprisonment – Ariel in the knotted pine, Caliban styed
in a hard rock, Prospero abandoned on the island, Ferdinand put to
hauling logs – indeed, she finds nine different versions of prisons in
the play. But Felix is a prisoner as well. He is bound not just by his
ceaseless resentment at Tony and his cronies, but by grief: he is a
widower, whose only child – named Miranda, of course – died in
infancy. Out in the sticks he sees or hallucinates his daughter as a
spirit who helps him; so she is also a version of Ariel. Once one
adds into all of this Disney princesses as the masque, Godzilla
costumes for Caliban and Prospero’s cloak made from plush toys
and glitter, the effect is ravishing. There is a huge momentum in the
coming-together of Felix’s revenge, but what is even more
impressive is the aftermath. The narrative climax comes four-fifths
of the way through, and then Felix asks his cast to imagine the
afterlives of the characters in The Tempest. It means that the play’s
polyvalency – its capacity to elicit multiple interpretations – is put
centre stage. These are among the most intelligent and inspiring
readings of The Tempest I have read, and best of all, they
contradict each other. “The thing about Shakespeare,” as the novel
puts it, “is that there’s never just one answer.” Splendidly put and
completely true. Lovers of Shakespeare will find plenty of “Easter
Eggs” in Atwood’s prose. This again is foregrounded in story. For
example, Felix has a rule that the prisoners can swear, but they can
only use curse-words taken from the play they are studying. So they
can say red plague, freckled whelp, wide-chapp’d rascal, earth,
tortoise, pied ninny and moon-calf but none of the usual profanities.
This is similar to what Anthony Burgess did in Nothing Like The
Sun, a novel which only uses words found in Shakespeare (bar
one, but no spoilers). It puts Shakespeare’s language close to the
heart of the novel. But not at its heart. The core of it is Atwood’s
perceptive recognition that The Tempest is a play about the
possibility of forgiveness, about the necessity of letting go
(“but this rough magic / I here abjure” as it has it). She rises to
the challenge of writing about this with the humanity one finds
in Shakespeare himself. Writing about goodness is very
difficult indeed, Atwood demonstrates how goodness and
righteousness, empathy and integrity, kindness and caring
might be very different things indeed.
"No man is an island, entire of itself," John Donne famously
reassured us in 1623, the same year Shakespeare's The Tempest
was published in the First Folio. But "isolate" and "island" come
from the same Latin root, and the truth is that we make our own
islands where we daily maroon ourselves.
Take Felix Phillips, protagonist of Margaret Atwood's
Hag-Seed. Ousted from his long-held job at a
prominent Canadian theater festival by the
machinations of his trusted right-hand man Tony,
Felix hits the road, drives for days and stops randomly
at an abandoned shack in the midst of farmland, where
he will spend the next 12 years.
Hag-Seed, fourth in the Hogarth Shakespeare series of
novels reworking the Bard's plays, is Margaret
Atwood's take on The Tempest.

Tiring of his isolation, Felix takes a job in a prison teaching

Shakespeare to the inmates. Soon he's directing them in scratch
productions of the plays, rediscovering his own skill as he goes.
The cast of convicts themselves are remarkably well-
behaved; certainly tamer than Shakespeare's
monstrous Caliban, whom they all want to play. "We
get him," they say. "Everyone kicks him around but he
don't let it break him." On the other hand, none of
them are willing to play Ariel— until Felix talks them
round to seeing the sprite as a cool alien, a non-human
being with superpowers, the unseen hand controlling
the special effects. At which point everyone wants to be
Ariel.
In Shakespeare, Caliban and Ariel are both Prospero's captives,
but in the end only Ariel is freed. Caliban's fate remains
ambiguous: Is he still Prospero's property, loaded onto the ship
to be displayed in Milan for pieces of silver? Or is he left on the
island, King of an empty stage? In Hag-Seed, the prisoners
convene after the show for a final discussion on the lives of their
characters after the action, drawing their own conclusions about
what happens on a ship in mid-ocean carrying a king, a duke,
two lovers and two murderers.

Strangely for an adaptation of The Tempest, the Canadian

weather remains calm throughout, with the occasional dusting
of snow. Atwood's storms, like her islands, are of human origin:
the controlled chaos of the climactic performance, the
psychological tumult inside Felix's skull. And in a novel, it's
possible to get right inside the protagonist's head; in the theater,
we can only know a character as far as they are willing to show
and tell us. Atwood's Felix is amiable where Shakespeare's
Prospero is forbidding — with Prospero, there's a real suspense
over what form his revenge will take and how much pain he's
willing to inflict. With Felix, we know that no matter how angry
he gets, he'll recoil from any spilling of non-stage blood.
Shakespeare's Prospero is a prisoner too at the last:
His staff broken and his book drowned, he's at the
audience's mercy, pleading "Release me from my
bands/ With the help of your good hands." Felix has no
such concern. He can walk out of the prison as he
pleases, leaving his players inside, securing early
parole for only one. The reader, meanwhile, is still a
prisoner inside Felix's head as long as the pages turn,
viewing the story through his clouded lens until the
author's indulgence sets us free. But it's a gentle
captivity; Hag-Seed is both a retelling of Shakespeare
and a book about Shakespeare, and it functions
surprisingly well as both.
Just about a year ago, Hogarth Shakespeare launched an ambitious new
project, commissioning acclaimed contemporary novelists to write prose
retellings of Shakespeare’s plays. Beginning with Jeanette Winterson,
Howard Jacobson and Anne Tyler, the series now continues with
Margaret Atwood, who offers her contemporary take on “The Tempest”
with HAG-SEED.
Atwood opens her novel at a prestigious Canadian Shakespeare festival,
similar, one imagines, to the real-life Stratford Festival. In recent years,
the artistic director, Felix, has thrown himself entirely into his art, hoping
to submerge his grief over the sudden deaths of his beloved wife and
young daughter, Miranda. But his dedication to his art may be at his own
peril. While he turned his attention away from administrative matters,
the festival’s executive director has been plotting how to get rid of Felix,
claiming that he has been losing his edge. He’s summarily fired, just as
he was beginning rehearsals for a new, cutting-edge production of “The
Tempest.”
"Atwood closes her novel much as Shakespeare concludes his
play, and although the volume ends with a traditional synopsis
of 'The Tempest,' readers will likely find they don’t even need
to read it. Thanks to Atwood, they’ll already understand.”

Adrift and alone (except for Miranda’s spirit, which accompanies and at
times prompts him), Felix finds himself as a tenant in a remote cabin,
eventually taking a part-time position teaching literacy through
Shakespeare at the nearby correctional facility. He operates under an
assumed name (“Mr. Duke”) so that he won’t be recognized. But when it
turns out that two federal government officials responsible for renewing
the program’s funding will be coming to see the inmates’ new production
of “The Tempest,” and that those officials are the self-same gentlemen
responsible for Felix’s fall from grace, he begins to plot his revenge.
Like “The Tempest” itself, Atwood’s creative retelling begins in a moment
of chaos --- a prison riot --- but then steps back to explain the events
leading up to that moment, so that when we revisit that scene a couple
hundred pages later, we more or less understand what’s going on, even
if some of the characters’ motivations --- not to mention Felix’s sanity --
- remain ambiguous. At first, it can be difficult to discern exactly how
Atwood is repurposing Shakespeare’s original play, beyond the obvious
“play within a play” aspect of the plot. She even appears at points to
play with readers’ expectations about the retelling: “For a time, Felix
tried to amuse himself by casting [his new neighbors] in his own
personal ‘Tempest’--- his ‘Tempest’ of the headspace --- but that didn’t
last long. None of it fitted: Bert the husband wasn’t the devil, and young
Crystal, a podgy, stubby child, could not be imagined as the sylph-like
Miranda.” When readers at last realize the form Atwood’s retelling is
taking, it is both surprising and satisfying, a moment when they say not
only “aha” but also “of course.”
Themes of imprisonment and freedom run throughout HAG-SEED, as
they do more or less literally in Shakespeare’s play. There are also
themes of forgiveness and redemption, of the hollowness of revenge and
the healing power of artistic creation, whether through music, dance or
theater. Atwood closes her novel much as Shakespeare concludes his
play, and although the volume ends with a traditional synopsis of “The
Tempest,” readers will likely find they don’t even need to read it. Thanks
to Atwood, they’ll already understand.

William Shakespeare's The Tempest retold as Hag-Seed Felix is at the top

of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His
productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest-like
no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional
wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery,
Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his
beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge. After twelve
years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theater course at a nearby
prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare
the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his
enemies fall? Margaret Atwood’s novel takes on Shakespeare’s play of
enchantment, retribution, and second chances lead us on an interactive,
illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own. Hag-
Seed
by Margaret Atwood

Atwood chooses a setup which could have been

cheesy and turns it into something extraordinary
Set all that aside, though, as this is written with such gusto and
mischief that it feels so much like something Atwood would
have written anyway. The joy and hilarity of it just sing off the
page. It’s a magical eulogy to Shakespeare, leading the reader
through a fantasticalreworking of the original but infusing it with
ironic nods to contemporary culture, thrilling to anyone who
knows The Tempest intimately, but equally compelling to
anyone not overly familiar with the work.
Ad
Atwood chooses a setup that could have been cheesy and
turns it into something extraordinary: Felix is the wronged
artistic director of a Canadian theatre festival. He has been cast
aside thanks to the interventions of a Machiavellian rival just at
the moment when he was about to unleash his greatest
creation upon the world – an ambitious production of The
Tempest. It was to have been a play that would lay to rest all
the failures of his life and career. It was also an act of grieving
to mark the death of his daughter Miranda. (See where this is
going? I don’t think you even have to know The Tempest.) And
so we have a play within a play within a novel.
Felix, evidently the Prospero of the piece, has to wait 12 years
to get his revenge by creating a storm of his own. But when it
comes it’s inventive and delightful. He gets a job as an acting
tutor in a correctional facility. He persuades his students that
they want to stage “his” Tempest, even reincorporating the
actress he originally intended as Miranda. And he invites some
high-ups in the government to see the progress he’s making
with the inmates – and get extra financial support for the
programme. It just so happens that one of these officials is his
nemesis, Tony, who has gone on to greater things as the
minister of heritage, having used the coveted artistic director
role as a stepping stone. And, boy, is Tony about to find out
what retribution means.
Felix is a fabulous character. Although he’s utterly idiotic and
sometimes despicable, Atwood somehow has us in love with
him and rooting for him all the way. He’s a superb caricature of
these elitist liberals so reviled in some quarters at the moment.
Felix on his original Tempest: “His Ariel, he’d decided, would be
played by a transvestite on stilts who’d transform into a giant
firefly at significant moments. His Caliban would be a scabby
street person – black or maybe Native – and a paraplegic as
well, pushing himself around the stage on an oversized
skateboard.”
Twelve years living a shack in the wilderness make him more
bearable, but only just. He goes shopping for costumes for the
inmates’ Tempest, as he needs to buy a bathing cap: “‘For your
wife?’ says the woman, smiling. ‘Going on a cruise?’ Felix is
tempted to tell her it’s for a convicted criminal inside a prison
who’s playing the part of a magic flying blue alien, but he thinks
better of it.”
The title comes from a list of “curse words” from The Tempest
that Felix asks his students to compile: “Toads, beetles, bats
light on you. Filth as thou art. Abhorr’ed slave. The red plague
rid you. Hag-seed. All the infections that the sun sucks up...” All
regular swearing is banned during rehearsals. They may only
use the curse words Shakespeare has used in that play.
The novel builds to a fantastic climax of dark calamity, with a
wonderful footnote that sees the prisoner-actors analyse what
they would want to happen next in The Tempest. There is so
much exuberance and heart and wonder in this novelHag-Seed
Summary
Hag-Seed tells the story of Felix, a theatre director ousted from his job
at a Canadian theatre festival, who begins teaching Shakespeare at a
prison and plots his revenge against the men who betrayed him while
staging a production of The Tempest.
Part I – “Dark Backward” – explains Felix’s backstory. His wife Nadia died
in childbirth and his daughter Miranda died of complications from
meningitis when she was three years old. After these events, Felix
became obsessed with staging an outlandish production of The Tempest
in which he would play the protagonist Prospero, who also has a
daughter named Miranda. Unbeknownst to Felix, his assistant Tony was
plotting to take over his job by slowly taking on more of the
administrative and financial aspects of the role, as Felix became more
and more preoccupied with The Tempest.
One day Tony informed Felix that the board had decided to replace Felix
with Tony as artistic director and that they would be cancelling his
production of The Tempest. Felix moved to an isolated rural house and
began to plot his revenge. He imagined that his daughter Miranda was
still alive and had conversations with her when he was alone. Fearing he
was becoming too isolated, Felix took a job teaching Shakespeare in a
prison.
In Part II – “A Brave Kingdom” – Felix has successfully staged three
plays with the Fletcher Correctional Players in the prison. His boss
informs him that some politicians, including Tony, will be viewing this
year’s production in order to decide whether the program should
continue. Felix announces he intends to stage The Tempest for this year’s
production. Felix hires an actress named Anne-Marie to play the part of
Miranda and assigns the rest of the characters to the students in the
prison. Felix will play Prospero.
In Part III – “These Our Actors” – the cast rehearse the play and Felix
comes up with a plan to get his revenge against Tony when he attends
the performance. In Part IV – “Rough Magic” – Felix and the cast prepare
for the production. The politicians, including Tony, arrive at the prison.
Instead of a screening of a pre-recorded performance of The Tempest
they are subjected to an immersive theatrical experience in which the
cast (under Felix’s direction) stage a phony prison riot, making the men
fear for their lives, while they also continue to perform extracts from The
Tempest. Felix catches Tony on camera suggesting that he and another
man should murder one of the other politicians and blame it on the
prison riot. Felix uses this as leverage to blackmail Tony, get his job back
as Artistic Director of the theatre festival, and secure future funding for
the Fletcher Correctional Players.
In Part V - “This Thing of Darkness” – the cast celebrate their success at
saving the program and give their final reports about The Tempest. In
the Epilogue, Felix has his job back at the theatre festival and is making
plans to go on a cruise where he will give lectures about the Fletcher
Correctional Players. Felix finally lets go of the ghost of his daughter
Miranda.

Atwood’s Recreation of Shakespeare’s

Miranda in The Tempest
Abstract
In The Tempest, Shakespeare portrays Miranda as a character which follows the path
designed for her by Prospero, her father. Margret Atwood, through
appropriating and intertextualizing Shakespeare’s The Tempest, reconstructs Miranda
to be a motivator of action rather than a receiver of a patriarchal power. It is through
recreating Shakespeare’s Miranda, Atwood gives her more spaces of critical analysis
rather than being critically confined to the frame of femininity. This paper argues
that Atwood’s Hag-Seed, by means of intertextuality and appropriation, recreates a
new Miranda who is almost ignored by critical studies that focus mainly on reading
The Tempest from post-colonial perspectives. As a feminist, though she claims not to
be, Atwood consciously employs Shakespeare’s conceptual and thematic concerns
like a play within a play, revenge, usurpation, and the father-daughter relationship.
These concerns, which are mainly tackled in The Tempest, are employed by Atwood
for the sake of creating a new Miranda who would determine and motivate the whole
action of Hag-Seed.
Atwood’s appropriation, this paper argues, is a feminist revision of a canonical text
that limits woman’s role, and presents her either with the quality of passive
innocence, or with that one of the devilish witch.
Appropriation and intertextuality in Hag-Seed are mediums that achieve the
dynamic interplay between Atwood’s text on the one hand, and its roots founded
in Shakespeare’s The Tempest on the other hand. Atwood, according to what
Graham Allen explains in his Intertextuality, does not only “select words
from language system, [she] select[s] [from Shakespeare’s The Tempest] plots,
generic features, aspects of characters, images, ways of narrating, even phrases and
sentences…”
One can never ignore the fact that earlier literary works are not the only sources from
which writers borrow certain fictional or literary aspects. The social texts which
are weaved from real experiences provide many writers with matrix of tales, types of
characters, themes, and so forth.
Hag-Seed tells the story of Felix, an artistic director of a Canadian Shakespearean
festival. When he is deposed by his deceptive assistance and his long enemy
Tony, Felix’s production of The Tempest is cancelled. He is possessed by the idea
of reproducing this play as he believes that he would resurrect his three years
dead
daughter Miranda on the stage. When it is cancelled he is psychologically
damaged, especially when he previously decides on playing the role of Prospero,
Miranda’s father in the original version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
He exiles himself in an isolated cottage in rural southern Ontario where he is
accompanied only by the ghost of Miranda. Reduced to the life of exile, Felix
does not give up and he determines to take revenge. After twelve years,
his determination is enhanced when he takes the job of teaching a theatre course at a
nearby prison. The prisoners of the Fletcher Correctional Institution, through the
use of digital effects, help Felix to put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who
destroyed him. Felix’s enemies find themselves taking part in an interactive and
illusionridden version of The Tempest that will change their lives forever. The novel
ends with the achievement of Felix’s revenge and h]is enemies had suffered,
which had been a pleasure…
Specifically, Felix has his old job back: Artistic Director of
the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. He can stage his long-lost Tempest of twelve
years ago, if that is his pleasure… Strangely enough, he no longer wants to. The
Fletcher Correctional Players version is his real Tempest. (Atwood, 2016, pp.287-
288)
According to the basics of intertextuality and appropriation, Atwood draws
heavily on The Tempest. Starting with the title of the novel, “Hag-Seed” is the
title by which Prospero calls Caliban, the savage slave. In Atwood’s novel “Hag-
Seed” represents the darker side of man which is fleshed out by different
characters: the prisoners in the Fletcher Correctional Institution, Felix’s
enemies who usurp his position, and Felix himself who is enslaved by his
vengeful emotions and anger. Structurally,the two texts are divided into five
parts. While The
Tempest is divided into five acts, Hag-Seed is divided into five chapters.
Thematically, the two texts share the main key themes which are usurpation,
exclusion, revenge, and the mixture of life with dreamlike elements.
On the level of characterization, many characters in Hag-Seed are modelled after the
characters of The Tempest. As a case in point, Felix is modeled after Prospero.
The
two share certain points of similarities and parallelism: the two are widowed fathers
the two have magical and artistic potentials, and the two are usurped, one of his
kingdom and the other of his position as a director of Shakespearian theatrical
festival. Moreover, both of Prospero and Felix can be approached in conjunction with
Shakespeare himself. This is indirectly alluded to by Atwood when she borrows
from The Tempest the following line: “Our revelth now have ended. Theeth our
actorth….” After achieving his goal, Prospero is prepared to give up both his
magic and his island: “And thence retire me to my Milan, where/every third
thought shall be my grave.” (Act V) Felix’s achieved goal, likewise, puts an end to
his struggle and “his life has had this one good result” (p.289) Shakespeare, likewise,
had retired to Stratford-upon-Avon. His role as resident playwright within the King’s
Men had been assumed by John Fletcher, with whom Shakespeare collaborated
before his death in 1616. Accordingly, there are some clear symbolic parallels
between Shakespeare, Prospero, and Felix when they are analyzed according to this
context. Other additional characters are modelled after The Tempest’s
character. Antonio in the original play becomes Tony (Felix’s festival partner),
Ferdinand becomes Freddie, and Alonso, King of Naples becomes Sal, minister
of justice. Interestingly enough, the concept of a play within a play is clearly
recognized in the two texts. The storm “tempest” in Shakespeare’s play is not a
real storm as it is achieved through the magical power of Prospero: “If by your
art, my dearest father, you have/ Put the wild waters in this roar,” (1.2. 2)
Accordingly, the storm can be considered a play produced by Prospero within
the original play of Shakespeare.

Margaret Atwood explains:

“The island is many things…the island is a theatre. Prospero is a director. He’s
putting on a play, within which there’s another play. If his magic holds and his
play is successful, he’ll get his heart’s desire.” (p.118) In Hag-Seed, the illusionary
tempest, produced out of digital effects, is Felix’s play within the original play acted
by the prisoners.
There is an interrelated relationship between Margret Atwood’s literary works and
the theory of feminism. In Atwood’s contribution to Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Atwood deconstructs an oppressed version of Miranda for the sake of constructing a
new one that would play a crucial role in shaping her father’s life, and stimulating his
enthusiastic desire to reproduce The Tempest that would bring her back to life.
Shakespeare’s Miranda, on the other hand, “is deprived of any possibility of human
freedom, growth or thought…[she is ] forced into unwitting collusion with
domination by appearing to be a beneficiary.” (Leininger, 1998, pp.211-214)
Miranda’s
inferiority is enhanced in act I when Prospero calls her “my foot.” Not to express her
displeasure over such abusive language confirms her acceptance of it. H. R. Coursen
believes that Miranda totally agrees on the fact that she is “the foot in a family
organization of which Prospero is the head.” (Coursen, 2000, p.88) To deviate from
the Shakespearian version of Miranda, Atwood weaves a plot that depends
mainly upon the character of Miranda. Without Miranda in Hag-Seed, Felix will
never have the desire to reproduce The Tempest and he will never have the
strong determination to revenge against those who lead to the cancellation of its
reproduction:
First, he needed to get his Tempest back. He has to stage it, somehow, somewhere.
His reasons were beyond theatrical; they had nothing to do with his reputation, his
career—none of that. Quite simply, his Miranda must be released from her glass
coffin; she must be given a life…. Second, he wanted revenge.

He longed for it. He daydreamed about it. Tony and Sal must
suffer. His present woeful situation was their doing, or a lot of it
was. (p.41)
In comparing this with The Tempest, one can easily construct the plot without the
character of Miranda. The plot can be reconstructed on the assumption that
Prospero is exiled alone without Miranda and through his magical power he causes
the shipwreck that will bring his enemies to his island where he can revenge upon
them. Ferdinand’s love story with Miranda can be replaced by another story in a
sense that he can be enslaved by Prospero who would never free him unless he gets
all his usurped rights. According to this context Miranda’s relationship with Prospero
will be of minor importance in comparison with that one of Felix and
Miranda in Hag-Seed. Miranda, according to Felix, “was what had kept him
from sinking down into chaos,” (p.15) after the death of his wife Nadia. Felix dreamt
of the moment when Miranda would grow up so “they would travel together,
he would show her the world, he could teach her so many things. But then, at the age
of three…”
Miranda passed away. Her death is Felix’s real tempest that turns his life upside
and down. Her death is “like an enormous black cloud boiling up over the
horizon. No: It was like a blizzard. No: It was like nothing he could put
into language.” (p.15) Felix’s dilemma is how to evade the fact of Miranda’s death
or at the very least how to enclose it. His direct solution is to transform Miranda’s
death into a rebirth and to reincarnate her on the stage. He consequently plunges
himself into The Tempest through which “Miranda would become the daughter who
had not been lost; who’d been a protecting cherub, cheering her exiled father…”
Unlike Miranda in The Tempest, Miranda in Hag-Seed is an aiding force in a
sense that she helps her father to overcome the intensity of his sorrow and “after
all, still alive” (p.37). Whenever Felix feels that he starts to slip
down into the darkness of his sorrow and loneliness, he
looks at Miranda’s photo which he keeps near to him.
He enjoys the idea that Miranda is still alive and for this
reason he has to cook for her, read for her, and share times
with her:
He returns to his habit of checking out kid’s books from the Wilmot library, only now
he reads them out aloud in the evenings. Partly he enjoyed it—his voice was still as
good as it has ever been, it kept him in practice—but partly he
was indulging his self-created illusion. Was there a small girl
listening to him? No not really. But it was soothing to think that
there was. (p.45)
Atwood reshapes Miranda within the frame of the
surrogate mother who would watch her child and care for
his food:

They began having their meals together, which was a good thing
otherwise he might sometimes have forgotten about meals. She
scolded him gently when he didn’t eat enough. Finish what’s on
your plate; she would say to him…when he was sick she tiptoed
around him, anxious…. (pp.46-47)

Accordingly, unlike Prospero who expects obedience from Miranda according to the
patriarchal structure, Felix and Miranda shares a symbiotic relationship which is
mainly based upon love.
Like a real being with real blood and real flesh, Miranda grows up in front of
Felix’s eyes and like a devoted father, he teaches her many skills. Playing chess
is one of these skills which he teaches her to play at the age eight. Miranda is a
“quick learner” and she usually wins at the end of every game she plays with her
father.
Atwood creates four female characters in Hag-Seed: Miranda, Anne-Marie, Estelle,
and the old lady from whom Felix rents his excluded cottage. Each of these female
characters have a certain role to play in the novel and each is provided with
physical description when she in presented to the reader for the first time. This
physical description gives each character more depth—a matter that is in contrast
with
what Shakespeare did in The Tempest. Sycorax is the absent female character in
Shakespeare’s text. The only physical description that the reader is provided with
concerning this character is “This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child.” .
Sycorax’s absence gives Prospero the opportunity to construct her fully into a
symbol of the evil woman, the opposite of himself.
Atwood, on the other hand, gives each female character a lengthy description. As a
case in point, Estelle is described as “forty”, with “gray-blond hair, the shining
earrings; the carful nails, a fashionable silver.” (p.49) Interestingly enough, Estelle is
a well-educated woman.
She is “a professor at Guelph University and supervised the Fletcher course from a
distance. She also sat on various advisory committees, for the government. [and her]
grandfather was a Senator…” Unlike Shakespeare’s version of
Miranda, Anne has a strong, independent, and determined personality. When the
jailer offers her his help whenever she needs, Anne answers him that she can take
care of herself. When she meets the prisoners with whom she will act her role in the
play, she does not try to attract them by her physical appearance:

She’s dressed conservatively, white shirt, black cardigan, black

pants. Her hair is up in a prim honey-colored bun, in each of her
ears there’s only a single earring. She smiled non-committally
in the direction of the rear wall…her spine is straight, her head
balanced on the top end of it…. (p.151)

When Wonder Boy, a prisoner who acts the role of Ferdinand, is passionately
attracted to Anne- Marie, Felix tries to take the role of the protective father. As an
attempt to straighten things out, Felix tells her that he will talk to him. Yet, Anne-
Marie responds that Felix is not her real dad and she can fix things by herself.
Anne Marie expresses her capability of protecting herself sexually and emotionally—
an ability which Miranda of The Tempest completely lacks. For the sake
of writing back to the silenced voice of Shakespeare’s Miranda, Atwood creates the
character of Anne-Marie.
Miranda’s voice is completely unheard when Prospero warns Ferdinand that he
would condemn them if he breaks her virginity:

If thou dost break her virgin-knot before

All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minister’d,
No sweet aspiration shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed,
Miranda’s silenced voice in the conversation between
two male voices that represent patriarchy confirms her
position as the subaltern who cannot speak.

Miranda of Hag-Seed is a ghost—a matter that brings her closely to Ariel, the
air spirit, in The Tempest. This is supported by the fact that the two are visible
only to Felix/Prospero. More than being invisible, Miranda and Ariel are
brought together under the key word freedom, which is at the core of the-issues
raised by The Tempest. Freedom is the very breath of life to Ariel, the spirit
of the air. He is grateful to Prospero for having freed him from his torment in the
cloven pine-tree where the wicked witch Sycorax had confined him. He pines
for eternal liberty and keeps on reminding Prospero of his promise. When all of
Ariel’s laboUrs are done to the entire satisfaction of his lord and master Prospero, he
attains his freedom. Atwood, like Prospero, frees her Miranda from the limits
Shakespeare imprisoned her in.
Due to the fact that Shakespeare confines Miranda’s role in the play, there is little to
say about her. She is presented with celestial kind of innocence; however, it is a
negative innocence rather than a positive one as it does not give Miranda the depth
she needs as a character. Her innocence makes her a white sheet on which nothing is
written. Atwood frees Miranda from the Shakespearian confinement when she gives
her more space to be interpreted as an aid, as a surrogate mother, and as an
independent woman: “To the element be free,…. And, finally she is.” (p.292)
To conclude, Atwood consciously appropriates Shakespeare’s The Tempest to give
Miranda the chance to come back so as to have more important to speak out her
feelings and to justify her actions. Atwood does not defend Miranda directly;
instead she rewrites her story in which she is presented as an aid, a surrogate
mother, and an independent woman. By doing so, Atwood gives the reader the
chance to reconsider the values that lie behind; she makes the reader wonder
what would happen if the real story had been written like that.

Of all Shakespeare’s plays, The Tempest is perhaps the most

intriguing. It was placed first in the Folio which collected his works
posthumously, and may well be his only work that showed
“originality” – it does not rework an older story and invents its own
mythology. Perhaps that is why it is the work which has been
reinterpreted most frequently. William Davenant (who claimed to be
Shakespeare’s illegitimate son) and John Dryden started this in
1667 with The Enchanted Isle, and it goes on through Robert
Browning’s 1864 “Caliban Upon Setebos” and WH Auden’s 1944
The Sea And The Mirror, to works like Fred Wilcox’s Forbidden
Planet of 1956 and Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books in 1991.
To reimagine the most reimagined work of Shakespeare takes
some bravado; and if anyone were to accomplish it, it would be
Margaret Atwood. Hag-Seed is an absolute triumph. In contrast to
some of the other titles in this series, such as Jeanette Winterson’s
take on The Winter’s Tale, The Gap In Time or Howard Jacobson’s
Shylock Is My Name, his version of The Merchant Of Venice,
Atwood’s is such a success because it is not only a new vision of
The Tempest, but an astute and complex reading of “Caliban Upon
Setebos” itself. In Atwood’s adaptation, our Prospero is Felix, a
theatre director who has been ousted from his position as artistic
director of a festival by his ambitious underling Tony. Felix goes into
hiding in a backwoods shack, and becomes the co-ordinator of a
“Literacy Through Literature” programme in the local prison, going
under the pseudonym of Mr Duke. After some successes with
Shakespeare, he decides to stage The Tempest with the prisoners,
and uses the production as a way to lure his foes into an elaborate
trap: just as Hamlet uses the play-within-the-play The Mousetrap to
reveal the guilt of his usurper uncle, Felix will use the felons’
Tempest to tempt out the real villains. The prisoners have to rewrite
The Tempest into their own demotic raps, and have to think about
the characters’ motivations and the overall meaning of the play.
Ingeniously, Atwood focuses on it being a play about imprisonment
– Ariel in the knotted pine, Caliban styed in a hard rock, Prospero
abandoned on the island, Ferdinand put to hauling logs – indeed,
she finds nine different versions of prisons in the play. But Felix is a
prisoner as well. He is bound not just by his ceaseless resentment
at Tony and his cronies, but by grief: he is a widower, whose only
child – named Miranda, of course – died in infancy. Out in the sticks
he sees or hallucinates his daughter as a spirit who helps him; so
she is also a version of Ariel. Once one adds into all of this Disney
princesses as the masque, Godzilla costumes for Caliban and
Prospero’s cloak made from plush toys and glitter, the effect is
ravishing. There is a huge momentum in the coming-together of
Felix’s revenge, but what is even more impressive is the aftermath.
The narrative climax comes four-fifths of the way through, and then
Felix asks his cast to imagine the afterlives of the characters in The
Tempest. It means that the play’s polyvalency – its capacity to elicit
multiple interpretations – is put centre stage. These are among the
most intelligent and inspiring readings of The Tempest I have read,
and best of all, they contradict each other. “The thing about
Shakespeare,” as the novel puts it, “is that there’s never just one
answer.” Splendidly put and completely true. Lovers of
Shakespeare will find plenty of “Easter Eggs” in Atwood’s prose.
This again is foregrounded in story. For example, Felix has a rule
that the prisoners can swear, but they can only use curse-words
taken from the play they are studying. So they can say red plague,
freckled whelp, wide-chapp’d rascal, earth, tortoise, pied ninny and
moon-calf but none of the usual profanities. This is similar to what
Anthony Burgess did in Nothing Like The Sun, a novel which only
uses words found in Shakespeare (bar one, but no spoilers). It puts
Shakespeare’s language close to the heart of the novel. But not at
its heart. The core of it is Atwood’s perceptive recognition that The
Tempest is a play about the possibility of forgiveness, about the
necessity of letting go (“but this rough magic / I here abjure” as it
has it). She rises to the challenge of writing about this with the
humanity one finds in Shakespeare himself. Writing about
goodness is very difficult indeed, and somehow Atwood’s recent
career has seemed to specialise in this: even the transgenic pigs in
the Oryx And Crake trilogy were eventually redeemed. Instead of
being mimsically nice, Atwood demonstrates how goodness and
righteousness, empathy and integrity, kindness and caring might be
very different things indeed.

"No man is an island, entire of itself," John Donne famously

reassured us in 1623, the same year Shakespeare's The Tempest
was published in the First Folio. But "isolate" and "island" come
from the same Latin root, and the truth is that we make our own
islands where we daily maroon ourselves.
Take Felix Phillips, protagonist of Margaret Atwood's Hag-
Seed. Ousted from his long-held job at a prominent Canadian
theater festival by the machinations of his trusted right-hand
man Tony, Felix hits the road, drives for days and stops
randomly at an abandoned shack in the midst of farmland,
where he will spend the next 12 years.
Hag-Seed, fourth in the Hogarth Shakespeare series of novels
reworking the Bard's plays, is Margaret Atwood's take on The
Tempest. But you don't need to be a Shakespeare geek like me
to enjoy Hag-Seed; it's a good story, and will introduce you to
the play gently, with Felix himself as your guide. (For now, if
you'd like to refresh your Tempest knowledge, the plot is here.)
Tiring of his isolation, Felix takes a job in a prison teaching
Shakespeare to the inmates. Soon he's directing them in scratch
productions of the plays, rediscovering his own skill as he goes.
Of course, right on cue, Felix's old nemesis Tony turns up with
his political patrons for a photo opportunity; what better way to
exact revenge than with a production of The Tempest?
The cast of convicts themselves are remarkably well-behaved;
certainly tamer than Shakespeare's monstrous Caliban, whom
they all want to play. "We get him," they say. "Everyone kicks
him around but he don't let it break him." On the other hand,
none of them are willing to play Ariel— until Felix talks them
round to seeing the sprite as a cool alien, a non-human being
with superpowers, the unseen hand controlling the special
effects. At which point everyone wants to be Ariel.
In Shakespeare, Caliban and Ariel are both Prospero's captives,
but in the end only Ariel is freed. Caliban's fate remains
ambiguous: Is he still Prospero's property, loaded onto the ship
to be displayed in Milan for pieces of silver? Or is he left on the
island, King of an empty stage? In Hag-Seed, the prisoners
convene after the show for a final discussion on the lives of their
characters after the action, drawing their own conclusions about
what happens on a ship in mid-ocean carrying a king, a duke,
two lovers and two murderers.

A few of the cast also compose extended rap numbers exploring

their characters. These are, unfortunately, the weakest part of
the book. Don't get me wrong: There absolutely is a link
between what Shakespeare was doing in the 1600s and what
Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj are doing now. But though
Atwood is an excellent Prospero, she's no Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Her rhymes read like something a cloistered English academic
might imagine rap to be.

Strangely for an adaptation of The Tempest, the Canadian

weather remains calm throughout, with the occasional dusting
of snow. Atwood's storms, like her islands, are of human origin:
the controlled chaos of the climactic performance, the
psychological tumult inside Felix's skull. And in a novel, it's
possible to get right inside the protagonist's head; in the theater,
we can only know a character as far as they are willing to show
and tell us. Atwood's Felix is amiable where Shakespeare's
Prospero is forbidding — with Prospero, there's a real suspense
over what form his revenge will take and how much pain he's
willing to inflict. With Felix, we know that no matter how angry
he gets, he'll recoil from any spilling of non-stage blood.
Shakespeare's Prospero is a prisoner too at the last: His staff
broken and his book drowned, he's at the audience's mercy,
pleading "Release me from my bands/ With the help of your
good hands." Felix has no such concern. He can walk out of the
prison as he pleases, leaving his players inside, securing early
parole for only one. The reader, meanwhile, is still a prisoner
inside Felix's head as long as the pages turn, viewing the story
through his clouded lens until the author's indulgence sets us
free. But it's a gentle captivity; Hag-Seed is both a retelling of
Shakespeare and a book about Shakespeare, and it functions
surprisingly well as both.

Just about a year ago, Hogarth Shakespeare launched an ambitious new

project, commissioning acclaimed contemporary novelists to write prose
retellings of Shakespeare’s plays. Beginning with Jeanette Winterson,
Howard Jacobson and Anne Tyler, the series now continues with
Margaret Atwood, who offers her contemporary take on “The Tempest”
with HAG-SEED.
Atwood opens her novel at a prestigious Canadian Shakespeare festival,
similar, one imagines, to the real-life Stratford Festival. In recent years,
the artistic director, Felix, has thrown himself entirely into his art, hoping
to submerge his grief over the sudden deaths of his beloved wife and
young daughter, Miranda. But his dedication to his art may be at his own
peril. While he turned his attention away from administrative matters,
the festival’s executive director has been plotting how to get rid of Felix,
claiming that he has been losing his edge. He’s summarily fired, just as
he was beginning rehearsals for a new, cutting-edge production of “The
Tempest.”
"Atwood closes her novel much as Shakespeare concludes his
play, and although the volume ends with a traditional synopsis
of 'The Tempest,' readers will likely find they don’t even need
to read it. Thanks to Atwood, they’ll already understand."
Adrift and alone (except for Miranda’s spirit, which accompanies and at
times prompts him), Felix finds himself as a tenant in a remote cabin,
eventually taking a part-time position teaching literacy through
Shakespeare at the nearby correctional facility. He operates under an
assumed name (“Mr. Duke”) so that he won’t be recognized. But when it
turns out that two federal government officials responsible for renewing
the program’s funding will be coming to see the inmates’ new production
of “The Tempest,” and that those officials are the self-same gentlemen
responsible for Felix’s fall from grace, he begins to plot his revenge.
Like “The Tempest” itself, Atwood’s creative retelling begins in a moment
of chaos --- a prison riot --- but then steps back to explain the events
leading up to that moment, so that when we revisit that scene a couple
hundred pages later, we more or less understand what’s going on, even
if some of the characters’ motivations --- not to mention Felix’s sanity --
- remain ambiguous. At first, it can be difficult to discern exactly how
Atwood is repurposing Shakespeare’s original play, beyond the obvious
“play within a play” aspect of the plot. She even appears at points to
play with readers’ expectations about the retelling: “For a time, Felix
tried to amuse himself by casting [his new neighbors] in his own
personal ‘Tempest’--- his ‘Tempest’ of the headspace --- but that didn’t
last long. None of it fitted: Bert the husband wasn’t the devil, and young
Crystal, a podgy, stubby child, could not be imagined as the sylph-like
Miranda.” When readers at last realize the form Atwood’s retelling is
taking, it is both surprising and satisfying, a moment when they say not
only “aha” but also “of course.”
Themes of imprisonment and freedom run throughout HAG-SEED, as
they do more or less literally in Shakespeare’s play. There are also
themes of forgiveness and redemption, of the hollowness of revenge and
the healing power of artistic creation, whether through music, dance or
theater. Atwood closes her novel much as Shakespeare concludes his
play, and although the volume ends with a traditional synopsis of “The
Tempest,” readers will likely find they don’t even need to read it. Thanks
to Atwood, they’ll already understand.

William Shakespeare's The Tempest retold as Hag-Seed Felix is at the top

of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His
productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest-like
no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional
wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery,
Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his
beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge. After twelve
years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theater course at a nearby
prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare
the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his
enemies fall? Margaret Atwood’s novel takes on Shakespeare’s play of
enchantment, retribution, and second chances lead us on an interactive,
illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.

1. In the original Tempest, Prospero was a magician, and a stage impresario of

sorts: he "directs" a storm to strand his rivals on the island. He also stages artifice
by arranging a play within a play and manipulating Ferdinand to fall in love with
Miranda. In Atwood's version, how does Felix parallel the "role" of Prospero?
How is he, as an impresario, similar to Prospero? How does he differ?

2. What is the root cause of Felix's almost maniacal revenge?

3. How do Felix and his inmate-actors work together to shap the play and further
Felix's plot? Talk about the way in which the director and cast make use of the
scant resources offered by the prison.

4. Critics have long referred to The Tempest as "self-referential," that within the play
Shakespeare sometimes winks at the audience. He revels in the power of the
playwright and actors to create a false reality that reflects and enlarges the true
reality of his audience. In what way is Hag-Seed self-referential?

5. What do you think of the ending? Some find it a little too neat and others
over-the-top. What do you think?

READER Q&A
ASK THE GOODREADS COMMUNITY A QUESTION ABOUT HAG-SEED
M 100x100

Ask anything about the book

ANSWERED QUESTIONS (9)
Do you need to read the previous books before reading this?
3 Likes · Like 2 Years Ago See All 6 Answers

Val The novel tells you enough about the play to explain the context, as Gloria
says. There is also a synopsis of the play at the end of the book, so you…more
flag
Is there any significance to the name Makeshiweg? I know it's supposed to stand in
for Milan in the play, but it is such a singular title!
8 Likes · Like 2 Years Ago Add Your Answer

Sarah Thompson The word means "fox" in a Canadian indigenous language. This
is a great interview with Margaret Atwood on CBC where she mentions what it
means. …more
flag
Is the expression hagg seed in the Shakespeare Tempest? And if so, what does it
refer to?
1 Like · Like One Year Ago Add Your Answer

Ryan Yes, Act I, Scene II. Hag-seed is used by Prospero. It literally means progeny
of a witch--which Caliban is. It is said in an insulting, belittling…more
flag
What does Hag - Seed mean for the title of this book?
Like 2 Years Ago See All 3 Answers

Shelly Dennison It's a reference to Caliban - offspring of the witch Sycorax.

flag
Does anyone have any ideas on the name of this novel? Would love to unpack the
meaning behind 'Hag-Seed' and why the title was chosen?
Like One Year Ago Add Your Answer

Jaime Hag-seed is a pejorative directed at Caliban in the original play. It refers to

the fact that he was born of a witch (hag). The implication that he is…more
flag
Load 4 more questions
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS (1)
It's a wonderful The Tempest redux. No need to read anything, but you might want
to re-read The Tempest after you read this one. no questions?

OPINIONS

Adapting Shakespeare into present-day language is always

an odd gambit: All you’re left with, really, is the plot, and
who reads Shakespeare for the plot? Most of us read his
work specifically for the language, for the lyricism and range
that had his contemporaries calling him "honey-tongued
Shakespeare."
Still, there must be some pleasure in Shakespearean
adaptations, or we wouldn’t keep coming back to them —
and we do keep coming back to them. For proof, look to the
Hogarth Shakespeare series, which enlists an assortment of
literary luminaries to adapt and retell various
Shakespearean plays as contemporary novels. It’s set to
conclude in 2021 with a take on Hamlet by Gone Girl author
Gillian Flynn.

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The Hogarth Shakespeare series’ most recent offing is Hag-
Seed, a retelling of The Tempest by Margaret Atwood.
Reading it, I began to get a handle on the appeal of
Shakespeare adaptations. Part of it is an intellectual game,
the satisfaction of recognizing a familiar figure in an
unfamiliar context: Oh, Estelle is always twinkling because
she’s playing the role of the auspicious star from the
shipwreck.
The other part is that a really good adaptation, like
Atwood’s, can do the same thing as a really good and
inventive staging of a play: It can tease out nuances and
resonances from its source material, so that you begin to
see the original work in an entirely new light.
Atwood reads The Tempest as a play about prisons, and
viewed through that lens, all sorts of new resonances
emerge.
That’s not to say that Hag-Seed is perfect. Most troublingly,
its title suggests that it’s all about Caliban, but the novel fails
to live up to that promise in any compelling way. Still,
Atwood’s thoughtfulness and playfulness keep Hag-Seed
from ever getting boring.

SUMMARY
Hag-Seed sees a production of The
Tempest going up at a prison
Atwood helpfully includes a summary of The Tempest at the
end of Hag-Seed, if you’ve forgotten your high school
English class. Briefly: Prospero is the duke of Milan, but
instead of ruling he spends all his time studying magic, so
his brother Antonio usurps him, sending Prospero and his
daughter Miranda to a magical island. There, Prospero
enslaves the spirit Ariel and the monster Caliban and forces
them to do his bidding.
When a shipwreck strands Antonio and assorted other
characters on Prospero’s island, Prospero uses his magic
and his servants to create a magical play for the visitors,
one that punishes the wicked and rewards the good, and
restores Prospero to his dukedom.
In Atwood’s Hag-Seed, Prospero is a widower theater
director named Felix, and his usurper is his erstwhile
business partner, Tony. For a time they worked together on
a Shakespeare festival, but after Felix’s young daughter
Miranda dies of meningitis, Felix’s productions grow ever
more avant-garde: Pericles with aliens, A Winter’s Tale with
vampires, and the like. Craftily, Tony uses the pretext to
have Felix fired and take his place as the artistic director of
the festival.
Felix, meanwhile, retires to a shack in the country, where he
begins to half-imagine, half-hallucinate visions of Miranda
lurking around him. In an attempt to keep his sanity, his
takes a job teaching theater at a local prison. When he
learns that Tony — now highly placed in the Canadian
government — and his cronies will be visiting the prison to
evaluate Felix’s program, he decides to stage The Tempest
for them. But this production will be a fully immersive
theatrical experience, one that will punish the wicked,
reward the good, and get Felix his job back at the
Shakespeare festival.
The novel cleverly casts the play itself
as a a literal prison
It’s a bit of a leap from Shakespeare’s magical island to a
prison, but it is, as Atwood points out through Felix’s
lectures, one that’s justified by the text.
Felix has his students count the prisons in the play: the
island holding Prospero and Miranda, Ariel in the oak tree,
and so on. They count eight, but there are, Felix tells them,
nine in total:
"It’s in the Epilogue," says Felix. "Prospero says to the audience,
in effect, Unless you help me sail away, I’ll have to stay on the
island — that is, he’ll be under an enchantment. He’ll be forced to
re-enact his feelings of revenge, over and over. It would be like
hell."
"I saw a horror movie like that," says 8Handz. "On Rotten
Tomatoes."
"The last three words in the play are ‘set me free,’" says Felix.
"You don’t say ‘set me free’ unless you’re not free. Prospero is a
prisoner inside the play he himself has composed. There you have
it: the ninth prison is the play itself."
Treating the play and the island as literal prisons lets
Atwood treat Felix/Prospero’s enormous vengefulness and
anger and grief and guilt as a prison in itself. She doubles
Ariel and Miranda: As Felix goes to work, he keeps seeing
the spirit of Miranda flitting about him. She whispers Ariel’s
lines to him, and her ghost becomes Ariel’s "brave" and
"tricksy" spirit, rendered out of Felix’s grief.
Grief is, ultimately, the engine on which Felix’s plot turns:
grief and guilt over failing to save his daughter’s life. So
when Felix, like Prospero, frees Ariel at the end of the book,
he’s freeing the hallucinated Miranda as well, and liberating
himself from his grief.
Unfortunately, Atwood fails to solve
the problem of Caliban
All told, Hag-Seed is a marvelous and thoughtful adaptation.
But it still leaves you with questions: Namely, why the title?
"Hag-seed" is what Prospero calls Caliban when he curses
him, because Caliban is the son of a witch. Yet there’s a
certain emptiness in Atwood’s novel where Caliban should
be.
Caliban is a troubling figure in The Tempest: He’s violent,
and he tries to rape Miranda, but only after Prospero forcibly
conquers his island and enslaves him. It’s hard to read The
Tempest in a postcolonial era and not feel sympathetic to
Caliban, especially when he has some of the most vividly
poetic language in all of the play:
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
Caliban’s poetry comes, we’re told, from Prospero, who
taught him language — but that’s a mixed blessing. "You
taught me language; and my profit on’t / Is, I know how to
curse," says Caliban. "The red plague rid you / For learning
me your language!"
In Hag-Seed, the prisoners who act in Felix’s play know
exactly who they are: They are all Calibans. "We get him,"
they say. (None of them, I should note, try to rape anyone.)
Enthusiastically, they rewrite Caliban’s speeches as raps,
and while Atwood is an accomplished poet, it can be hard to
read these scenes without feeling as though you are
watching that scene from a '90s teen comedy where the
English teacher sits backward in his chair and starts rapping
a sonnet:
Ban-ban, Ca-Caliban,
Don’t need no master, I am not your man!
So stuff it up your hole, gimme back what you stole,
Tellin’ you it’s late, I’m fillin’ up with rage,
I’m gettin’ all set to go on a ram-page!
Beyond the clunky rap scenes, the prisoners are wholly
underwritten. They’re a swell of voices ready to be educated
by Felix, demanding more violence and sex in their
Shakespeare until they learn, with guidance from their wise
teacher, to appreciate the beauty of the Bard. Hag-Seed is
not interested in doing any kind of character study on these
prisoners; it is also not interested in offering a social
commentary on the state of Canada’s prison system.
So why, with this gaping hole in the book where Caliban
should be, does Caliban get the title? "There is a reason,"
Atwood has said, but it’s hard to see what it could be.
Yet, even with a less-than-compelling Caliban, Hag-Seed is
a treat. It’s a beautifully constructed adaptation, one that
stands on its own but is even richer when read against its
source — and can, in turn, enrich its source material. It’s
playful and thoughtful, and it singlehandedly makes a good
argument for the value of adapting Shakespeare.