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Chapter 26
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
When Felix returns to his cottage, the sun is setting beautifully and snow flurries are falling. A few years ago, Miranda would have been frolicking outside in weather like this, but now he can’t see any sign of her. However, when he goes outside and calls her name, she’s in the corner, waiting for him. He shows her all his purchases and she pores over them wonderingly, asking what each thing is; she has almost no knowledge about the outside world. Felix tells her that he’s putting on a play and then has to explain what a play is. She listens “attentively.”
Felix imagines that Miranda is too old to play with toys, but she still lacks even the most basic knowledge about the outside world. Felix isn’t reincarnating a realistic version of his daughter; he’s creating a pastiche of characteristics best suited to soothe his grief. In this sense, he’s constraining his daughter’s memory, rather than preserving it.
Themes
During Felix’s next session at the prison, Miranda reads the entire Tempest. Felix has never wanted her—a vulnerable and sensitive girl—to go into a harsh industry like theater, but she’s fascinated by the play and wants to play Miranda in his production. When he tells her this is impossible, she gets mad for the first time in her life. To Felix’s dismay, she disappears from the cabin, leaving him with no idea where she is.
For the first time, Felix and Miranda have an interaction that actually resembles a real parent-child relationship. Paradoxically, while this scene makes their relationship seem more “real,” Miranda’s disappearance reminds Felix that she is in fact imaginary.
Themes
