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
The same day, Felix meets Anne-Marie for lunch. Somehow she already looks younger and more open; Felix thinks she’s “melding” into her role. She tells Felix she’s become a vegetarian; this reminds him of Miranda, who has done the same. He orders a burger for himself, wondering what Prospero and Miranda ate on the island before remembering that Caliban unwillingly caught them fish.
It’s interesting that while Anne-Marie is becoming more and more like Miranda, Felix is slowly starting to distance himself from Prospero, with whom he identified completely at the beginning of the novel.
Themes
Anne-Marie says that Miranda’s part has always been in her head, waiting for the day she could use it. Felix says he’s excited to perform together, but she’s a little grim to think that the biggest role of her life will be performed in an amateur prison production. Felix promises her that the production will seem “hyper-real” once she’s in it.
Felix is ironically referring to the secret play he intends to stage, but he’s also suggesting the ability of theater to reflect fundamental truths and influence real life, whether it’s staged in a prestigious theater or a humble prison.
Themes
Felix shows Anne-Marie his notes, and she protests that he shouldn’t have told her about their crimes; she doesn’t want to come into the play with preconceptions. He points out that normal actors already know all the dirty gossip that exists in the industry. Jokingly, Anne-Marie asks if Caliban will actually try to rape her, but Felix promises the other men would stop him. Since she’ll be working most closely with WonderBoy, he gives her some background on his insurance schemes and warns her not to be too seduced by his charms.
Felix is very negative about WonderBoy’s past, and worries about his ability to manipulate Anne-Marie—he also wants to manipulate her himself. Just as with Tony, Felix criticizes people who misrepresent themselves for their own ends while doing so himself all the time.
Themes
Anne-Marie says that Felix is already playing her “overprotective dad,” but reminds him that teenage girls always desert her fathers. Moving on, he asks her if she can help out with choreography during some of the musical numbers, and she agrees. They discuss Ariel’s controversial “bee-sucking” monologue, and Felix says that he might allow the actors to rewrite it. Finally, he asks if Anne-Marie has any ideas about making puppets or dolls for the goddesses. She suggests Disney princess dolls and promises to brainstorm.
With her offhand remark about teenage girls, Anne-Marie unwittingly points out everything that is false about Felix’s conception of Miranda; he’s not only pretending she’s alive but refusing to acknowledge the distance that inevitably grows between children and their parents. In his “relationship” with his daughter, Felix is attempting to forestall change on many levels.
Themes
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Feeling that he has an ally in his project, Felix is cheered and confident. Then, for a second, he doubts himself: maybe she’s not laughing in camaraderie but because she thinks he’s insane. He imagines the play’s Miranda having the same revelation about her own father—realizing that he’s talking to people who don’t exist and that he can’t perform all the magic he claims to know. Rather than being under the protection of a wizard, she’s trapped on an island with a doddering old man and a monster who wants to rape her. Firmly, Felix reminds himself that Prospero really is powerful, and tells himself to “trust the play.”
One of the reasons Felix is so fascinated by The Tempest is that it presents Prospero as sometimes omnipotent and sometimes full of human weakness. However, when he has to confront this paradox in his own life, it’s very unsettling. It’s notable that right now he’s worried about weakness not because it might inhibit his revenge but because it might hurt his daughter—a much more sympathetic motivation.
Themes
