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
Just then, two security guards enter the room, evidently waiting on Tony’s command. Despite Felix’s protests, Tony has him escorted out into the rain to his car, where he finds a stack of boxes. Without saying anything, the guards help Felix load them into the car; Felix doesn’t even know what’s inside them, and he feels it can’t be that important. He considers dumping everything on the ground and burning it, but he knows this would just confirm Tony’s argument that he’s mentally unstable.
While Felix isn’t being actively jailed here, Tony is using physical force to restrain and humiliate him. It’s these experiences that build Felix’s sense of being imprisoned by Tony, and which make him especially pleased when he’s finally able to corner his nemesis within an actual prison.
Themes
Felix sees the Board’s chairman, Lonnie Gordon, shuffling towards him with an umbrella. Weakly, he tells Felix that he didn’t vote for the termination, and that he’s sorry; Felix is too angry and disgusted to reply. In a plastic bag, Lonnie is carrying the animal skin cape, which he gives to Felix. While it would have looked fantastic onstage, it’s pathetic in the rain. Lonnie is truly upset at this new development, and actually looks like he might cry.
Sometimes the magic cape connotes grandeur and power, but other times it’s just pathetic—much like Felix himself. Right now, Felix views the cape’s changeability as evidence of its fundamental uselessness, but later he will see its ability to mutate as evidence of valuable complexity.
Themes
Lonnie gives Felix his annotated script of The Tempest as well, but Felix sneers that he’ll never need it again; his career is ruined, and both Lonnie and Tony know it. Known as an eccentric and already over fifty, it’s too late for him to start over again. Relenting somewhat, Felix thanks Lonnie for the effort; he feels that the old man will soon be pushed out under Tony’s new regime.
Here, Felix shows an absolute lack of belief in the power of personal transformation: he is the way he is, and will never be able to start on any new path. However, as the novel goes on, he will completely disprove his own hypothesis.
Themes
Lonnie advises Felix to take a rest, especially after his two recent losses. He came to both Nadia’s and Miranda’s funerals, and was genuinely upset each time. Felix thanks him sincerely. The security guards tell him to drive safely, and wish him luck. They probably know better than Felix how it feels to be fired. Felix drives away from the festival, “into the rest of his life.”
Lonnie is a well-intentioned and kind character, but Felix disregards his good qualities because he has no power to help him. It’s important that the next time Felix finds himself in a position of power, he will have come to value Lonnie’s character regardless of its utility.
Themes
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