Hag-Seed: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

When Felix has been out of work for eight years and Miranda is twelve, he finally takes another job. In a local paper’s advertisements, he finds a notice for a job with the Literacy Through Literature program at the nearby Fletcher County Correctional Institute. He uses Mr. Duke’s email to send a cover letter and largely forged resume testifying to his experience teaching in high schools.

Almost immediately, Felix is granted an interview. He buys a new shirt and trims his beard, hoping to appear “sage.” In a McDonald’s near the prison, a middle-aged woman named Estelle conducts the interview. She’s a professor who supervises many of the academic courses offered at the prison, and she’s used her political connections to spearhead and gain funding for the Literacy Through Literature program.

Estelle immediately ferrets out Felix’s real identity; she’s been attending plays at the festival since she was a child. He tells Estelle that he’s adopted an alias in order to avoid been seen as “overqualified” by the hiring committee, and tells her that she can be his “confidante.” Obviously warming to this, she says it’s an honor to be able to work with him.

Estelle warns Felix that he won’t receive a large salary, and that the work will be difficult: he’ll be teaching convicted criminals who lack the basic literacy skills to get jobs upon reentry. Felix reassures her that he relishes the challenge, and tells her that as a director he’s used to handling different personalities. Anyway, in Shakespeare’s day most of the actors would have been shady characters, considered “next door to criminals.”

Seeing that Estelle is impressed with him, Felix stipulates his own conditions. He’s uninterested in teaching the usual novels and short stories offered by the prison course, and announces that he’s going to offer a course on Shakespeare. Estelle is leery of this idea, telling him that Shakespeare is much too complicated for men who can barely read. Felix reminds her that Shakespeare’s actors may not have been able to read themselves; they memorized only their own lines and improvised frequently. Estelle says that Shakespeare is “such a classic,” but Felix counters that the playwright had “no intention of being a classic;” he was just writing the plays he thought would be most popular.

Trying to sound authoritative, Felix states his belief in “hands-on” education and says that he will stage Shakespeare productions with the prisoners as actors. He even says that he’ll get them to write essays about the plays he chooses. Estelle clearly doesn’t believe he can accomplish this, but she gives him three weeks to try.

While Felix’s first three weeks are indeed difficult, and he once has to threaten to quit, his class ends up a roaring success. Writing and reading scores improve, and the second time he offers the class there’s a waiting list of people who want to be involved. Estelle is getting a lot of credit for Felix’s work in the outside world, but he doesn’t care because once again he’s subsumed in the world of the theater, feeling purposeful for the first time since his firing.

Now Felix has been teaching his course for three years. He chooses his plays carefully, usually political dramas with violence and treachery that feel relatable and interesting to his students. They always have strident opinions about how the heroes could have managed their lives better and avoided their inevitable doom: Richard III assassinates too many allies, and Macbeth trusts the witches too much. Felix stays away from romantic comedies, which would prove unappealing, and tragedies that are too depressing.

Felix uses the same method to teach each play. He gives each student a shortened text and a glossary that he himself compiles. When the class first meets, they talk over the “keynotes” of the play. Next, Felix instructs the students to compile a list of swear words from the play itself; these are the only curses they’re allowed to use during the class. The game encourages them to interact with the text, and Felix rewards those who are most successful with cigarettes smuggled into the prison at the end of the course.

At this point, the class analyzes each character one by one, discussing what “makes them tick” and what their motivations are. Felix never has to say anyone is wrong, because with Shakespeare there’s always more than one answer. Each main character gets a team of prisoners who work as actor, understudy, prompter, and costume designer. As long as they don’t change the plot, they can rewrite the parts to be more modern. After the play has been performed, each team has to write an “afterlife” for its character, predicting what happens to it in the world after the play.

After studying the text, the prisoners rehearse the play, create a soundtrack, and make costumes from materials Felix brings from the outside—obeying all the prohibitions against sharp objects. Since there are rules against gathering the entire inmate population for assemblies, the prisoners film each scene and compile the play digitally—allowing Felix to assure his superiors that the students are learning marketable videography skills.

When everything is finished, the play is shown via closed-circuit TV in every cell. Felix watches with the Warden and other guards, always happy to hear cheers and applause coming over the intercom. The prisoners love the fight scenes—which, Felix knows, is why Shakespeare included them in the first place. It’s not the professional work Felix is used to producing, but he feels that the prisoners show more emotion and enthusiasm than any actors he’s worked with before.

After the screening, Felix throws a cast party with potato chips, soda, and contraband cigarettes. Everyone likes to watch the last part of the video, to see their names roll in the credits. The actors congratulate each other, and Felix is touched to see that “for once in their lives they loved themselves.”

Felix lives for the three months during which he teaches his class. But during the rest of the year, he continues to question what exactly he’s doing with his life and what’s happening to him. He still longs for his vengeance, but he doesn’t know how this new occupation will help him attain it.