Hag Seed Sparknotes
Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed is a “take on Shakespeare’s play” The Tempest. The plot focuses on Felix and how he represents, as well as performs as, Prospero. The story of Felix and the story of Prospero are often parallel to one another. However, the conclusion of the play and Atwood’s novel do not seem to line up with one another. Atwood offers a summary of The Tempest at the end of the novel and this summary describes how Prospero ends the play, “Prospero finished the play with an epilogue, in which he tells the audience that since his magic spells have now been overthrown, he must remain imprisoned on the island unless the audience pardons him, and sets him free by using its own magic to applaud the play,” (Atwood 297). This ending shows the reader that Prospero is at the mercy of the audience and his fate is uncertain. However, it also shows that Prospero is still
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able to display an air of arrogance by offering a suggestion, which feels like a command, to applaud the play. At the same time this ending explains that Prospero lacks his magic power although not by his own hand which is indicated by his magic being “overthrown.”
On the other hand, Felix in Hag-Seed ends the novel in a much more definitive way, as seen in the following quote, “What has he been thinking- keeping her tethered to him all the 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. “To the elements be free,” he says to her. And, finally, she is,” (Atwood 291-292). In this ending, Felix chooses to give up his powers of his own free-will. These two endings may seem dissimilar but they do share some common elements. Both works show Prospero/Felix as lacking magical powers and this leads readers to assume that their lives after the conclusion will be different for this reason. Similarly, Prospero/Felix end the works still in command. Felix is able to command Miranda to be free from him and Prospero seems to command the audience to applaud the play. I suggest that these two facts suggest that although the lives of Prospero and Felix will be different they both still suffer from a flaw, a flaw of desiring to be the one in charge or in
command.
able to display an air of arrogance by offering a suggestion, which feels like a command, to applaud the play. At the same time this ending explains that Prospero lacks his magic power although not by his own hand which is indicated by his magic being “overthrown.”
On the other hand, Felix in Hag-Seed ends the novel in a much more definitive way, as seen in the following quote, “What has he been thinking- keeping her tethered to him all the 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. “To the elements be free,” he says to her. And, finally, she is,” (Atwood 291-292). In this ending, Felix chooses to give up his powers of his own free-will. These two endings may seem dissimilar but they do share some common elements. Both works show Prospero/Felix as lacking magical powers and this leads readers to assume that their lives after the conclusion will be different for this reason. Similarly, Prospero/Felix end the works still in command. Felix is able to command Miranda to be free from him and Prospero seems to command the audience to applaud the play. I suggest that these two facts suggest that although the lives of Prospero and Felix will be different they both still suffer from a flaw, a flaw of desiring to be the one in charge or in
command.