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 is packing up the few possessions he has in his cottage. After his electricity went out recently, he’s found that Maude and her family have deserted their farmhouse; now, except for a stack of bills, it’s as if they’d never been there, or as if they existed only as long as Felix needed them.
In a way, Maude and her family are like the goblins in The Tempest—they exist only as long as they have utility to the protagonist. Their sudden absence contributes to the surreal nature of Felix’s self-imposed exile.
Themes
Felix has finally been able to make his enemies suffer, and he’s followed his revenge with benevolent acts of forgiveness. Having lost his political power, Tony won’t be able to get back at Felix; he is out, and Felix is “in, which is as it should be.”
Even though Felix has embraced the idea of transformation in himself and others, he retains a rigid and unchanging view of his relationship with Tony.
Themes
Felix has even gotten his old job back and could stage the Tempest he originally envisioned, but he knows he can’t improve on his last production. In fact, he’s realized that it’s time to let younger people take over the festival, so he’s training Frederick as an Assistant Director and hiring Anne-Marie to choreograph the musicals that are being added to the festival.
It’s wonderful to see the young people working together, full of enthusiasm and wonder for set designs and costumes. Watching them, Felix feels a “strange mixture of nostalgia for the past mixed with joy for the future.” He’s glad to have helped them get a start in this difficult industry. Even Sal has accepted his son’s unconventional career choice, so relieved is he that he’s survived the “riot.”
At the beginning of the novel, Felix was incapable of taking such wholehearted pleasure in the well-being of others. This moment shows how much he’s changed. It also points out implicitly that it’s Felix’s own drive for revenge which has allowed him to help his protégés in their careers.
Themes
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Meanwhile, Estelle has arranged for Felix to go on a cruise, which she presents as a relaxing break after the last stressful months. He won’t have to pay for anything as long as he gives some lectures about his work in the prison system. She’s going on the cruise as well, and will be able to keep him company. At first Felix was hesitant to join a bunch of old people doddering around the deck, but he’s realized that as long as he’s on “the road to death,” he might as well enjoy the ride.
Just as The Tempest ends with the main characters sailing back to Naples, the novel ends with a journey by boat. However, while Prospero is feeling lonely and unsatisfied at the end of the play, Felix is clearly on the brink of a new relationship —the ship is a marker of new beginnings, rather than definitive endings.
Themes
Felix has accepted the offer but stipulated that 8Handz come as well. He’s finally been granted parole, and Felix wants to keep an eye on him during the precarious period of reentry into society. He’s going to help Felix out with the lectures on the ship, and maybe he’ll be able to meet some businessmen who can put his tech skills to use. When she hears this suggestion, Estelle smiles and squeezes Felix’s arm.
Again, it’s Felix’s revenge that secures early parole for 8Handz. While his intentions were largely self-centered, the results have been beneficial to many people around him. In fact, Felix’s own reward consists mostly in observing the happiness he has facilitated.
Themes
Now, Felix surveys his magic garment, and impulsively decides to take it on the cruise. He leaves the staff, which is no longer magic but only a “wooden stick.” Sudden he realizes how wrong he’s been about his Tempest; he always thought of it as an attempt to revive Miranda, but he’s actually been attempting something much different.
While Felix has scratched his itch for revenge, his grief for Miranda is much harder to dispel—he can’t cure it by humiliating an enemy. The play has fulfilled one of his goals, but he’s come to realize that it has no real bearing on the other.
Themes
Felix picks up the photo of his daughter that rests on his night stand. Miranda is there in the past, but she’s also watching him as he prepares to leave the cottage where he has trapped them both for so long. It seems like she’s “fading” and “losing substance,” but he can tell she’s asking if she must “accompany him on the rest of his journey.”
Felix is most resistant to transformation when it comes to his daughter; in the spirit he’s conjured up he’s tried to forestall not only her inevitable death but all the changes that attend the growth of a child. Now he realizes that his refusal to accommodate change has not protected his daughter, but trapped her.
Themes
Felix asks himself why he’s forced Miranda to stay with him for so long, doing everything he asks. He’s been selfish, but now he can see what she really wants, and what he must do for her. Speaking directly to her, he says, “to the elements be free.”
