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Chapter 5
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 soon realizes that the world hardly notices his disappearance. In fact, the festival seems to go on perfectly well with Tony at the helm. He imagines people speculating about him, wondering if he’s had a breakdown or committed suicide; however, he knows that soon other ordinary issues will drive him from everyone’s mind.
One of the most traumatic aspects of losing his job is realizing that this change is monumental only for him – now that he realizes his work isn’t as important as he once thought, he has to find a new sense of purpose.
Themes
Felix makes a bank account and rents a PO box in a nearby town, setting them up under the name F. Duke. The new alias gives him a sense of possibility; he feels that more things are possible to F. Duke than Felix Phillips. Maude, Bert, and their children Walter and Crystal know him only by this assumed name.
The persona of F. Duke is a kind of costume for Felix, like the stage names he will encourage his actors to discuss. Although it’s a lie, it also allows him to access the determination and grit which, as Felix Phillips, he doesn’t think he possesses.
Themes
Sometimes Felix amuses himself by imagining Maude as Sycorax, the witch from The Tempest, and Walter as her son Caliban. However, the analogies never seem real; for example, Crystal is too “podgy” to be anything like Miranda, and there’s no one to stand in for Ariel. Felix pays Bert to install an electrical cable in the cottage, which he uses for a small stove and fridge. He feels that if Maude’s family has any relationship to The Tempest, they are “lesser elementals, a source of power.”
The failure—or perhaps the evident falsity—of Felix’s imaginings here suggests that theater can’t always be viewed as a blueprint for one’s actions in real life. This is a sharp contrast to later events in the plot, when the people around Felix will seem to perfectly reflect and mimic their counterparts in The Tempest.
Themes
What Felix really lacks right now is a sense of purpose. His growing feelings of revenge will fill that void for a time, but Felix will eventually see that they can’t satisfy him indefinitely.
Themes
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To fill his time, Felix slogs through Russian novels checked out from the library, but he’s discouraged by all the tragedy they contain; instead, he begins to read children’s books in which everything turns out well. The librarian assumes that he reads to his grandchildren, and he doesn’t correct her.
Like a children’s novel, The Tempest is a play in which everything turns out well in the end; however, especially in Felix’s production, it also lays bare the maneuvering and illusion necessary to engineer such a satisfactory ending.
Themes
After a while this too grows boring, and Felix spends increasing amounts of time sitting on a deck chair and staring into space. When he gets too restless among the bird songs and chirping crickets, he drives into town and makes a small purchase from the hardwood store. He wonders if people talk about him, or consider him an eccentric. He thinks he doesn’t care if they do, but this makes him wonder what exactly he does care about, now that he no longer has an occupation or a family.
For Felix, who has always been a highly driven man, not caring about anything is the most frightening possibility of all. In this sense, even though grief and revenge are negative feelings, they also save him from true apathy.
Themes
Felix thinks about traveling, but knows it would be lonely and pointless. He knows he could have a fling with a middle-aged woman, but it would probably be pointless for both of them. He could develop a hobby or join a club, but clubs and hobbies repulse him. He could drown in the lake or shoot himself. When he has these thoughts, he dismisses them as “idle speculation,” but they still disturb him.
Felix hates the idea of sinking into conventional middle age, which he thinks of in the most reductive and clichéd terms. By the end of the novel, he’ll have changed his opinions on this subject.
Themes
Felix decides he needs something on which to focus. There are two “projects” that appeal to him. First, he wants to stage his Tempest and release Miranda from “her glass coffin.” Secondly, he wants to get revenge on Tony; by this time, he daydreams about vengeance constantly. Both of these things seem more imperative to him everyday, but he doesn’t know how to accomplish them.
Imagining Miranda as imprisoned somewhere, Felix avoids acknowledging the finality of her death. While imprisonment is usually viewed as highly negative, when it comes to Felix’s relationship with Miranda it’s somewhat hopeful, because it at least implies the possibility of release.
Themes
