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Tony Price
Felix’s daughter, who dies at the age of three, just before Felix is fired from his position at the festival, in a sudden attack of meningitis. Although Felix was often a distracted caregiver, leaving Miranda with nannies while he planned and rehearsed his plays, he’s also a devoted father, enthralled by his daughter’s every action and proud of her ability to sit quietly in a crowded theater, seeming to take in the plays despite her age. Some years after her death, Felix begins to imagine that Miranda is visiting him as a spirit; although it’s never clear how seriously he takes these delusions, the ghostly Miranda begins to keep him company in his cabin every day, growing over the years from a young child into a sensitive but mature teenager. In some ways, her “existence” keeps Felix from going insane from grief and loneliness; he remembers to eat because he thinks he needs to feed her, and the idea that he’s taking care of her gives him a sense of purpose. On the other hand, his obsession with her and inability to confess his imaginations to anyone else keeps him from overcoming his grief and forming meaningful new relationships. The ghostly Miranda takes a strong interest in Felix’s staging of The Tempest, even learning Ariel’s part and whispering the lines in Felix’s ear. However, by the end of his production Felix realizes that by conjuring up Miranda’s presence he’s not preserving his daughter but rather trapping her and himself. Just as Prospero released Ariel, his spirit helper, at the end of the play, Felix releases the ghost of Miranda in order to start a new life. Miranda corresponds to the characters Miranda and Ariel in The Tempest.
Miranda Quotes in Hag-Seed
The Hag-Seed quotes below are all either spoken by Miranda or refer to Miranda. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
What to do with such a sorrow? It was like an enormous black cloud boiling up over the horizon…He had to transform it, or at the very least enclose it.
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Miranda would become the daughter who had not been lost; who’d been a protecting cherub, cheering her exiled father…What he couldn’t have in life he might still catch sight of through his art: just a glimpse, from the corner of his eye.
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Chapter 9
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If she’d lived, she would have been at the awkward teenager stage: making dismissive comments, rolling her eyes at him, dying her hair, tattooing her arms…
But none of this has happened. She remains simple, she remains innocent. She’s such a comfort.
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Chapter 17
Quotes
Fool, he tells himself. She’s not here. She was never here. It was imagination and wishful thinking, nothing but that. Resign yourself.
He can’t resign himself.
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Chapter 29
Quotes
Idiot, he tells himself. How long will you keep yourself on this intravenous drip? Just enough illusion to keep you alive. Pull the plug, why don’t you? Give up your tinsel stickers, your paper cutouts, your colored crayons. Face the plain, unvarnished grime of real life.
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Epilogue
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What has he been thinking—keeping her tethered to him all this time? Forcing her to do his bidding? How selfish he has been! Yes, he loves her: his dear one, his only child. But he knows what she truly wants, and what he owes her.
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Get the entire Hag-Seed LitChart as a printable PDF.
Miranda Quotes in Hag-Seed
The Hag-Seed quotes below are all either spoken by Miranda or refer to Miranda. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
What to do with such a sorrow? It was like an enormous black cloud boiling up over the horizon…He had to transform it, or at the very least enclose it.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Miranda would become the daughter who had not been lost; who’d been a protecting cherub, cheering her exiled father…What he couldn’t have in life he might still catch sight of through his art: just a glimpse, from the corner of his eye.
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Chapter 9
Quotes
If she’d lived, she would have been at the awkward teenager stage: making dismissive comments, rolling her eyes at him, dying her hair, tattooing her arms…
But none of this has happened. She remains simple, she remains innocent. She’s such a comfort.
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Chapter 17
Quotes
Fool, he tells himself. She’s not here. She was never here. It was imagination and wishful thinking, nothing but that. Resign yourself.
He can’t resign himself.
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Chapter 29
Quotes
Idiot, he tells himself. How long will you keep yourself on this intravenous drip? Just enough illusion to keep you alive. Pull the plug, why don’t you? Give up your tinsel stickers, your paper cutouts, your colored crayons. Face the plain, unvarnished grime of real life.
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Epilogue
Quotes
What has he been thinking—keeping her tethered to him all this time? Forcing her to do his bidding? How selfish he has been! Yes, he loves her: his dear one, his only child. But he knows what she truly wants, and what he owes her.
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