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Summary
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
It’s March 13th, 2013. An audience sits before a stage on which a screen announces that Shakespeare’s play The Tempest will be performed by the Fletcher Correctional Players. An announcer begins the play by ominously telling the audience that “what you’re gonna see, is a storm at sea: winds are howlin’, sailors yowlin’.”
Shakespeare productions may call up the idea of extravagant or archaic language, but the announcer speaks in modern, recognizable vernacular. Right away, the production and Atwood herself are collapsing the distance between theater and real life.
Themes
A boatswain enters, dripping with water. He shouts that the ship is sinking, and will soon be run aground. Voices offstage call for help and accuse the boatswain of being an idiot. The spirit Ariel enters, wearing a bathing cap and goggles, followed by “an odd shadow.” He points upward and lightning claps.
In The Tempest, the spirit Ariel is known for his ability to control the weather. In this production 8Handz, the prisoner who plays Ariel, is responsible for the special effects that create the illusion of weather.
Themes
Suddenly all the lights go black. The audience wonders aloud what’s happening, and if a blizzard has caused a power outage. Suddenly, shots are heard outside the room and everyone starts to panic. Inside the room, an unknown voice instructs everyone to stop moving and keep their heads down.
It’s hard to tell which developments are part of the performance and which are a departure from it. By confusing this crucial distinction, Atwood suggests that the line between theater and life is much less strict than people usually think.
Themes
