Transformation and Change Theme Analysis

Like the play on which it’s based, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Hag-Seed is a novel full of transformations, in which characters constantly change roles, ascend to power, or fall into disgrace. The novel’s protagonist, Felix, initially sees such transformations as inherently false and unjust; he devotes most of the novel to returning himself and his adversary, Tony, to their original states. However, as his revenge plot progresses it becomes evident that rather than betraying the natural order of things, transformations can also help characters improve their lives, and Felix’s habit of clinging to a static notion of his own place in the world proves unhealthy and unrealistic. Ultimately, the novel affirms the positive role of change and transformation in bringing out the best parts of human nature and facilitating personal growth.

Felix spends most of the novel trying to reverse the major transformation that occurs at the outset: Tony’s rise to prominence within the theater festival, and his own fall into disgrace. He sees his nemesis’s ability to change both their positions so abruptly as evidence of his “devious” and immoral nature. Moreover, he sees himself, by virtue of his talent and creativity, as inherently entitled to his fame and cushy job; any deviation from his privileged status is a violation of his core being. Indeed, Tony’s rise to political power after usurping Felix emerges as a series of hoaxes and bribes. He becomes a state minister with demonstrably bad morals and no clear qualifications. Tony’s trajectory characterizes the idea of personal transformation as inherently false and insidious. At the same time, it’s interesting that Felix feels this way, given that he’s a director who excels at creating his fantastical effects onstage, transforming his actors from ordinary people into exotic and powerful characters. At the beginning of the novel, it’s clear that he doesn’t see transformations onstage as having any relation to ones that occur in real life.

As Felix begins to stage Shakespeare productions at the Fletcher Correctional Center, he experiences and observes transformations that are natural and good—particularly in the extent to which they meld theater and real life. No one thinks that the prisoners will take to Shakespeare, but the program proves hugely successful. Transforming into characters like those in Macbeth and Julius Caesar isn’t a betrayal of the prisoners’ natures; rather, it brings out their latent creativity and confidence and helps them address the violence and crime that has shaped their lives and led to their incarceration. In this sense, transformation affirms their good qualities and helps them work through their mistakes.

Similarly, Felix thinks of his persona as a teacher as inherently a pose; when he dresses in his stereotypically academic clothes, he imagines himself donning the costume of a “genial but authoritative retired teacher and theatre wonk.” However, by the end of the novel he becomes this person he’s pretending to be, and this transformation is a marked improvement on the self-centered and duplicitous nature with which he began the novel. Even some of the artificial transformations that occur within Felix’s staging of The Tempest lead to beneficial changes in real life—Felix throws Frederick and Anne-Marie together in an extremely contrived set-up, but he sparks a sincere and positive romance that rescues both young people from loneliness.

In many cases, it’s actually by avoiding change and clinging to stability that characters bring falsity into their lives. Felix frequently hallucinates that his dead daughter Miranda exists and keeps him company. Her ghostly presence allows him to ignore the terrible change that her death wrought in his life. However, as the years pass, he feels that Miranda’s spirit is becoming unhappy and restless in the circumscribed, static life she shares with him. At the end of the novel, he realizes that by conjuring up Miranda’s little-girl persona he’s not preserving her spirit but “keeping her tethered to him.” When he gives up her hallucination, he feels that she’s “fading” and “losing substance.” While this isn’t a pleasant transformation, it’s presented as important and unavoidable, both for Miranda’s tranquility and Felix’s mental health.

On another note, it’s also interesting that when Tony and Sal visit the prison to see the production of The Tempest, they see the prisoners as having falsely transformed themselves by becoming actors. Atwood presents their views as punitive and ungenerous—just because of the prisoners’ criminal past, the politicians see them as unworthy of intellectual growth and a new life. However, their beliefs are very similar to the ones with which Felix begins the novel. This juxtaposition shows how much Felix’s own views have transformed over time.

While not every transformation in the novel is positive, they always help people develop; rather than betraying their essential character, they reveal it. Ultimately, the novel embraces transformations, using them to promote an essentially fluid version of human nature, which is defined by the changes it undergoes rather than the extent to which it stays the same.