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Chapter 2
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 about to begin rehearsals for The Tempest when Tony makes his coup. During a regular Tuesday meeting, Felix is starting to list off his demands and concerns when Tony, dressed in a fancy suit and “foppish” tie, abruptly says he has bad news. He’s just been to a Board meeting; Felix always skips these because the chair, Lonnie Gordon, is such a long-winded bore.
Even though he’s a master of theatrical illusion, in his personal life Felix is naively convinced that appearances must reflect reality—he can’t conceive that someone with bad taste, like Tony, is capable of outwitting an aesthetic genius like him.
Themes
Felix asks what’s wrong, not particularly interested, because he knows that Tony will take care of everything; he assumes it’s some small matter, like a disgruntled playgoer who got fake gore splashed on their clothes. However, Tony, barely hiding his smile, says that the Board has voted to fire Felix from his position as Artistic Director.
Felix has always been certain that his aesthetic dream-world and Tony’s mundane real life will never collide—however, Tony’s coup shows him that this collision is not only possible but necessary. Ultimately, this will broaden Felix’s ideas about the nature and possible applications of theater.
Themes
Felix thinks Tony is joking; he created the festival, after all, and without him it would hardly have achieved the wild success it enjoyed today. Tony explains that the Board thinks that he’s been “losing his edge” since Miranda’s death. He assures Felix that he pled with the Board on his behalf, but Felix knows he is lying. Everyone else on the Board is too spineless to decide on an action like this without Tony’s prompting.
One of the cruelest parts of Tony’s ambush is his use of Felix’s grief against him. Here, Tony casts grief as a weakness, something that prevents him from being a good director. However, it’s partly Miranda’s memory that will drive Felix to create the spectacular production of The Tempest he stages in the prison.
Themes
Tony says that Felix’s “contact with reality” is becoming impaired by his grief. For the Board, Felix’s recent decision to cast Caliban as a paraplegic, and his cape made of stuffed animals, are evidence of his declining faculties. Furthermore, the festival reviews from the last year have been mixed, showing that Felix isn’t able to please audiences as he once did. Tony hands Felix a letter enclosing his retirement package, saying he tried to make it bigger. Felix thinks he’s smirking.
In fact, grief does eventually alter Felix’s “contact with reality” when he starts to believe that Miranda is appearing to him. However, neither he nor Atwood state explicitly whether he’s deluding himself or actually perceiving his daughter’s spirit. In this sense, author and protagonist evince a much more flexible conception than Tony of what constitutes “real life.”
Themes
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Felix is in shock. He asks if he can at least finish his production of The Tempest, realizing that at this point he’s basically begging. Tony says that the Board wants “a clean break.” Not only is the production cancelled, Felix must surrender his security pass and clear out his personal stuff right away. Felix says that he’s going to take the matter to the Heritage Minister, but he knows this is an empty threat—he and Sal O’Nally have disliked each other since they went to high school together, and the Minister has disparaged the Makeshiweg Festival in several interviews. Tony says smoothly that Sal is in full accord with the Board’s decision.
Tony is already fusing his job in the festival with his political aspirations by drawing Sal O’Nally into his plots. He thinks that he can vanquish Felix by venturing into the political world, where his boss has little experience. However, Felix will use the rules of Tony’s new sphere to get back at him—again, showing how his fall from power eventually broadens his own horizons.
Themes
Felix asks who his replacement will be, and Tony admits that the Board has asked him to take over the Festival. He says it’s only an interim appointment, but Felix knows that he’s been “the implementer start to finish.” He calls Tony a “devious, twisted bastard,” but name-calling brings him small satisfaction.
Even though Felix later uses words—including curse words—to empower the prisoners he teaches, his own words feel powerless right now.
Themes
