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
It’s the day of the performance, but first Felix has to give a “pre-battle speech.” He adjusts his magic garment and walks down the hallway, peeking inside the classroom where a bowl of grapes, each injected with the hypodermic needle, is waiting. In full costume, the cast waits for him in the classroom. 8Handz stands by the screen that hides all the technical equipment. The tense atmosphere is familiar from all the premieres that Felix has been a part of.
Rallying his troops, Felix emphasizes how similar this play is to professional productions he’s staged. At the same time, because of its real-life implications this one is fundamentally unique.
Themes
Encouragingly, Felix tells the actors that they’re ready for anything. His reminder that these politicians want to destroy the theater program is greeted with boos. Felix reiterates that “they think you’re a waste of time,” that “they want you to stay ignorant,” and that they think Shakespeare is irrelevant. However, if everything goes according to plan, they can avert the cancellation and put everything to rights. They’re going to show everyone that “theater is a powerful educational tool.”
Throughout the course, the play has been a vehicle of empowerment to the prisoners; now, it gives them a chance to demonstrate that empowerment to the people who intend to exploit them for political gain. In this sense theater is “powerful” both by facilitating personal growth and by upsetting entrenched power dynamics.
Themes
Next, Felix goes over the instructions one last time. The sailors will escort the politicians into the room and serve refreshments. Sal and Lonnie must drink from blue cups, while Tony and Sebert will get green ones. Everyone else has clear cups. When the screen goes dark, everyone needs to insert their ear buds and put on their masks while TimEEz removes all the security alarms. If there’s any trouble, the alert is “scurvy monster.”
Again, it’s clear that Felix and the players know much more about what’s going to happen than the reader does. By withholding information, the narrative essentially imprisons the reader, who experiences the ensuing events in ignorance—much as the unwitting politicians do.
Themes
Anxiously, Bent Pencil says he hopes no one will get hurt, but Felix reassures him everything will be fine, as long as they don’t fight. He reminds the goblins not to use too much force, and sends everyone to their places: the dressing room is now Prospero’s cave, while one of the demonstration cells is decorated as Ferdinand’s prison, where Anne-Marie will “babysit” Frederick O’Nally. The actress wonders aloud if their treatment of the young man—who hasn’t done anything to hurt them—is ethical, but Felix brushes these concerns aside, reminding her that it’s his father who “crapped up your career.”
Felix tries to cast himself as a generous benefactor selflessly enabling those around him—from the prisoners to Anne-Marie—to achieve personal vengeance. In refusing to come clean about his own aims in this project, he’s continuing to project an illusory version of himself to the prisoners.
Themes
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The other demonstration cell will be the “nap-time location” for Sal and Lonnie. Felix reminds the goblins how important it is that everyone is placed in the right room, and reassures them that security won’t know what’s going on. Admiringly, Leggs tells Felix that he’s a genius, but he modestly says that it’s Ariel, or 8Handz, who has facilitated everything. Wishing each other “merde” (the French word for “shit”) instead of luck, the cast bumps fists before the show begins.
Even though Felix is still somewhat self-centered in the importance he places on his own revenge, he’s become very fair in distributing credit for the play’s success, showing his ability to transform even as he’s fulfilling the goal that has consumed him since the beginning of the novel.
Themes
