An Understanding Of The Context In Literary Texts: Hag-seed Versus The Tempest

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An understanding of the context in literary texts is fundamental in order to further appreciate the connections and references created. It can be argued that Margaret Atwood’s postmodern text ‘Hag-Seed’ (2016), is a post-modern appropriation of William Shakespeare’s seminal text, ‘The Tempest’ (1611). Atwood’s reinterpretation aids in illuminating Shakespeare’s underlying themes by reimagining them for modern audiences. In order to truly comprehend the connections between the two texts, an understanding of their individual contexts is needed.

‘The Tempest’ was written during the Jacobean period where there was a shift from medievalist ideals to Renaissance humanism. With this shift, came a transformation in respective values for individuals. Prospero, the protagonist, personifies this contextual shift as he changes from a vengeful wizard, to a seemingly more compassionate individual. Comparatively, Atwood’s text is situated within the post-modern, technological zeitgeist of today. In doing so, she is able to recreate the wizardry of Prospero, through the modern-day illusion of technology. By re-contextualising Shakespeare’s concepts, Atwood makes the plot comprehensible and relevant to modern audiences.

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Upon the conclusion of both texts, the central theme of forgiveness becomes apparent and the protagonists, both Prospero and Felix, forfeit their vengeful plans. Ariel, Prospero’s loyal spirit, prompts Prospero to forgive in the line “mine would sir, were I human”. Ariel’s ironic phrase alludes to Renaissance humanism, as it emphasises the value of Ariel having stronger individual humanity as a sprite of the air than his human master. This prompts Prospero to relinquish his magical powers and forces him to embrace humanist values like forgiveness. As a result of this, Prospero declares he will “break his staff, and down his book”. Such declarations are reflective of him metaphorically severing ties with his medieval and turbulent values. This further displays the ethics of humanity during the early 1600s as it depicts notions of Christian forgiveness as well as individual self-determination to choose to forgive. It also gives a modern audience a better understanding of the context of Renaissance humanism.

Atwood uses Hag-Seed to create a textual conversation with Shakespeare’s piece, however utilises her post-modern context in order to illuminate the idea of forgiveness for modern audiences. Atwood uses an intertextual reference to ‘The Tempest’ with “a shadow, a wavering of the light”, whispers, “I would, sir, if I were human”. While this mirrors Ariel’s statement in ‘The Tempest’, Felix’s shadowy figure, Miranda, symbolically reflects his own subconscious. Also, in doing so, Atwood adopts a sense of psychological realism to allow modern audiences to comprehend his transformation from ‘vengeance’ to ‘virtue’.

Similar to Prospero, this dialogue causes Felix to “break out of his cell”, metaphorically representing how Felix was imprisoned by his own vengeful plan. In deliberately crafting the text in this way, Atwood enhances the idea that both protagonists were imprisoned by their need for revenge, however their eventual freedom is achieved through forgiveness.

Imprisonment is a common motif throughout both texts, in The Tempest being a metaphorical prison, whereas in Hag-Seed imprisonment is more literal. Prospero is trapped on a deserted island after losing his kingdom in a coup; Atwood’s equivalent for Felix is when he exiles himself to a remote cabin after being fired from his job. Revenge and guilt also create a metaphysical imprisonment for Felix.

Felix and Prospero are exceedingly comparable in a variety of ways, both physically and metaphorically. Both plays convey the main characters as directors of their plays. Prospero is the mage and directs through magic. He states things like “The past is prologue”, metatheatrically referencing the very play in which he’s in. He links this directorship of the play to the act of Art. Art is personified throughout due to its capitalization and represents both his Art as a director who controls the action of the play through The Tempest (with pathetic fallacy in the storm during the prologue), but also through the Art of creating magic itself, as a way to gain his revenge. Felix is a literal director who draws parallels between himself and Prospero. He does this through the motif of the magic cloak, both also lives in exile which is in some ways self-imposed and adds to the idea of imprisonment.

The idea of the “mage” is contextually transformed in Hag-Seed. Magic doesn’t exist in Atwood’s retelling of the story, and so instead she plays on ideas of memory in conjunction with psychology, and special effects to represent magic. Felix, however, can be seen as a modern-day reiteration of the mage.

The changing illustration of magic between the two texts is suggestive of the cultural atmospheres (contexts) of the authors. Shakespeare was revolutionising the theatrical telling of texts through his final and most experimental of plays, as he built his stagecraft through dialogue and through the language of his characters. Magic in the play could even be seen as a metaphor for Shakespeare’s own form of magic—playwrighting—and Prospero’s willingness to give it up was reflective of Shakespeare’s personal context, in which he returned to a quieter life with his family shortly after the release of The Tempest, his final play.

However, magic in Hag-seed manifests quite differently. Atwood explores how magic-like qualities can be created through the use of special effects that have become possible due to the technological capabilities of the contemporary world in which she wrote Hag-Seed in. This further brings an understanding of the context to the reader as it emphasises societal influences such as technological manipulation in order to continue to engage the textual conversation about the difference between illusion and reality. Ultimately, Atwood uses these conventional images of society to display how humanity, in recent years, has created their own form of ‘magic’.

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