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
Frederick finds a hood descending over his head and a voice telling him that “you’re going overboard.” He hears Tony calmly telling everyone that a prison riot is occurring, and they all need to stay calm. His father is shouting at the prisoners to release his son, but the door opens and closes, and Frederick is gone. Another voice demands that Sal get up and follow him away. Tony vows that the prisoners will pay for their actions. In the background, the noise of waves and wind rises.
Frederick’s separation from his father and Sal’s fear for his life are the only sympathetic aspects of the politicians’ plights. Their bond, which somewhat redeems Sal’s flawed character, contrasts starkly with Tony’s lack of concern for the people around him—he’s already thinking about revenge.
Themes
Frederick stumbles down the hall, telling his captors that they’re “making a mistake”; after all, his father is a Minister. The voices respond scornfully, telling him that Sal is “a dead duck by now.” He’s pushed inside a new room; when he pulls off the hood, he finds he’s in a prison cell decorated with cardboard palm trees and plastic Legos. Over the speakers an eerie speech begins, which Frederick recognizes as Ariel’s song in The Tempest, telling Ferdinand that his father is dead. This seems like a strange riot to him.
Even though Frederick frowned when his father tried to pull rank during the security inspection, in a moment of crisis he too falls back upon his privilege, but to no avail. Frederick is a character torn between the different aspects of his identity—by now, however, Felix understands that such contradictions within human character aren’t necessarily duplicitous, but simply the result of natural complexity.
Themes
When the music fades, Anne-Marie enters the room. She tells him to be quiet, since the room is bugged; he has to do what she says in order to survive. Someone in the prison is crazy, she says, and is trying to re-enact The Tempest. She hands Frederick a script and orders him to start doing Ferdinand’s speeches. When he asks her angrily if she’s part of the prank, she says soothingly that she’s just trying to help him.
It’s hard for Frederick and even the reader to tell what’s real and what’s fake here—Anne-Marie obviously knows more than she’s saying and is manipulating Frederick for Felix’s benefit, but she’s already behaving kindly, which suggests she’s more sympathetic towards him than she would admit.
Themes
Frederick reads out one of the speeches, in which Ferdinand first beholds Miranda; Anne-Marie tells him to give it more feeling, as if he’s really in love. He responds that he might actually be falling in love—with her. When he asks if she has a boyfriend, she giggles but tells him she doesn’t. He tries to take her in his arms, but she whispers that they need to return to their lines. This time, she takes Miranda’s part.
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