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Chapter 25
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
To cheer himself up, Felix goes to Toronto over the weekend to buy props. First, he stops at a toy store; places like this no longer cause him pain now that Miranda is too old to play with toys. When he asks the saleswoman for boat-shaped toys, she assumes he’s a grandfather, and he doesn’t correct her. He also asks her to help him find Snow White, Jasmine, and Pocahontas dolls. The woman compliments him on his knowledge of girls’ tastes, saying he must have experience with daughters.
While Felix congratulates himself on the fact that toy stores no longer trigger sadness, he hasn’t actually overcome his grief—rather, he’s continuing to evade it by imagining Miranda as grown-up.
Themes
Next, Felix goes to a costume store and buys blue wings, makeup and face paint in various colors, a Godzilla hat, glittery fabric, confetti, and temporary tattoos. In the end, he has to buy a suitcase to carry all his purchases. In a sporting goods store, he buys skiing goggles and fifteen black ski masks, and nearby he finds a raincoat patterned in bugs and butterflies. At Staples, he buys construction paper, markers, and cardboard to create the island sets.
Like Felix’s animal skin cape, when described in the most factual manner the costume materials sound silly and even tacky. However, employed on the stage they manage not only to cast deceptive and realistic illusions but also allow the prisoners to express the hidden recesses of their characters.
Themes
Finally, Felix stops at a woman’s swimwear store to buy a blue swim cap. When the saleswoman asks if he’s shopping for his wife, he’s tempted to say it’s actually for a young criminal, but instead he assents and tells her they’re going on a cruise. The cap he ends up with is slightly small, and he hopes it will stretch enough to fit 8Handz.
Lying to the many sales clerks is convenient, but it also allows Felix to step into another life, one in which he hasn’t lost his wife and daughter. For once, the actual absence of this life doesn’t trigger despair—between the play and his revenge, he has a sense of purpose and much to think about.
Themes
