Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hag-Seed, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Theater and The Tempest
Vengeance
Imprisonment and Marginalization
Transformation and Change
Grief
Summary
Analysis
Felix already knows which actress he wants to play Miranda: Anne-Marie Greenland, the girl he engaged for the part twelve years ago. After much searching on the Internet, he’s managed to locate her. She’s had a few minor parts in the Makeshiweg festival and in other productions, but never anything big. Felix is angered to learn this, knowing that by canceling the play all those years ago Tony has ruined not only his career but also Anne-Marie’s.
At this point, Felix’s anger on Anne-Marie’s behalf seems mostly like an extension of his own resentment of Tony. However, he will eventually grow genuinely interested in the actress’s well-being, independently of its relation to his own.
Themes
For the last several years Anne-Marie has worked mostly as a dancer; there are several impressive videos of her on YouTube. Felix wonders if she has a partner or husband, but no such information appears on any of her profiles; although she’s no longer a girl, she’s still young and wiry enough to play Miranda. Felix has sent her a message via Facebook and, miraculously, she’s agreed to meet with him. As it happens, she’s working as a barista in a local coffee shop.
By casting Anne-Marie, Felix is trying to make this production of The Tempest as similar as possible to the one he originally planned to stage—resisting the idea of change in himself, the other actors, or his goals.
Themes
On the appointed day, Felix picks Anne-Marie up at the coffee shop, making a rare foray into Makeshiweg. They go to a nearby pub, where she orders a burger and fries; Felix remembers his own days as a young actor, when he learned to capitalize on free meals. Anne-Marie distrustfully asks where he’s been for the last years, and he vaguely explains that Tony fired him; when he tells her how sorry he is that she never got to act in The Tempest, she warms up to him.
Just as when he has lunch with Estelle, Felix is good at speaking to Anne-Marie in a way that makes her like him. In this sense he’s much like Prospero, using his abilities to manipulate those around him. However, he’ll eventually learn that trying to control other people limits his ability to form sincere relationships with them.
Themes
Diving into his plans, Felix announces that he wants Anne-Marie to return to her abandoned role—but this time, in a production at Fletcher Correctional. Anne-Marie is highly skeptical of working inside a men’s prison, but Felix speaks persuasively, saying that the men are excited to meet her and will behave respectfully. He flatters her by telling her that she still has a “freshness” he wants for his production, and she wryly compares herself to a “new-laid shit.”
Anne-Marie’s irreverent attitude is similar to that of Felix himself. She’s already starting to prove herself the inheritor of his aesthetic sensibilities, paving the way for the father-daughter relationship they’ll eventually develop.
Themes
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Anne-Marie asks if Felix will be taking on the role of Prospero, and he assents. Suddenly, she smiles; saying that Felix is as crazy as he’s ever been, she agrees to the plan. He warns her to call him Mr. Duke, never Felix Phillips, and tells her about the prohibition on swearing, which she dubiously accepts. When they shake hands, she has “a grip like a jar-opener.”
Anne-Marie’s “fresh” and girlish aura contrasts notably with her actual toughness. This makes her both similar and notably divergent from Felix’s imagined Miranda, whose character is entirely sweet and innocent.
Themes
Felix asks about the meaning behind Anne-Marie’s bicep tattoo, a small bee. She explains that after Felix’s failed Tempest she had a brief relationship with the actor who played Ariel; the bee was an inside joke between them, but she never explains the punch line. Instead, she turns to her burger and begins devouring it.
Just like it was for Felix, the failed production of The Tempest seems to be a source of regret and anxiety for Anne-Marie.
Themes
