Tempest hagseed essay - Grade: 12 PDF

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Comparative eassy on The Tempest and Hagseed...

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Through Margaret Atwood’s intentional retelling of Shakespeare’s, The Tempest (1611), her novel Hag-seed (2016) makes poignant commentary on aspects of the original play through metatheatre, parallelism and metafiction, offering audiences new perspectives pertaining to the ideas of power and corruption and the recontextualising of magic through performance allowing a nuanced disposition on the influence contextual knowledge has on meaning. When comparatively analysed both compositions participate in a conversation, emphasised by Atwood’s stylistic originality that engages the means of intertextual language concepts and features to reimagine the key values and purposes in a way that is able to shape new meaning. Written through the strict lens of the JudeoChristian world, Shakespeare explores notions of magic which Atwood deconstructs to create dissonance between the texts, innovatively incorporated through the reimagining of magic through technology within Hag-seed, providing a greater appreciation for the contextual influence driving the reconstruction of the original text. The Tempest explores the abuse of power and corruption within The Age of Discovery which Atwood has used as a vehicle for her neo-Shakespear novel, to accentuate the human condition and the eventual relinquishment of control. Atwood’s divergence in form and characterisation, consequently explores the impact of power and corruption, utlizing her context as an influence in style and technique, reframing the postmodern rejection of closure and abnegation of ‘magic’. The conversation initiated by Atwood, and hence proffers an awareness of context to enlighten her audience with a new meaning through an alternate perspective, proving the unuiversality of the themes Shakespeare explores.

Parallelism is a central literary device used in The Tempest, which is further drawn upon by in Hag-Seed through Atwood’s through the alignment between the play itself and Felix’s life, developing the metafictional nature of the novel;, which is a reflection of the metafictional qualities within the Tempest. The theme of performance in both texts further strengthens the theatrical nature of each, and this is utilised by Atwood to develop a deeper metatextual link between the two. This is evident in The Tempest through Prospero, who serves as a metaphorical director by being the catalyst of events that pushes forward the plot, which is mirrored by Felix as an actual director. “He smiles: the illusion of a smile. Pretense, fakery, but who’s to know'' further characterises Felix through the dissonance between performance and reality, and emphasising his unreliability, as done with Prospero through his reliance on memory, which he calls the “dark backward, the abysm of time”. Parallelism is hence used by Atwood to reflect the metatheatrical nature of The Tempest and its themes; . This is discernable within Hag-seed through other central themes, such as power and corruption, represented bythrough Tony, a parallel to Antonio; in

both texts, these characters are the physical embodiment of corruption, greed for power, and the willingness to murder for anas a means to increase in status. Hence, through Shakespeare’s themes and representations of power and corruption, Atwood highlights the continuity of such themes in relation to her own context, both emphasising the enduring value and universality of Shakespeare, while creating a work of contemporary significance. In this way, Atwood’s use of parallelism not only allows her to engage in a dialogue with Shakespeare’s work, but also to engage in a dialogue with her contemporary audience. (287)

The Tempest, as one of Shakespeare’s most experimental and ambiguous works, is one of the only plays in which magic is a central element of the text, withand his Jacobean Renaissance context which was held together by a deeply religious society which playinged a central role in his representation of both the divine and the supernatural. It is also evident through his characterisation of Prospero as a Renaissance mage with both his continual references to cosmology and reliance on fate, such as “by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon a most auspicious star.” The auspicious star serves as a metaphor for fate, which is also personified by Prospero as “dear Lady Fortune.” Atwood generates this by representing fate and luck through Estelle, who Felix ironically calls “Lady luck” and “a true star”. The role of magic is also central to the conflicting aspects of Prospero’s character, as the use of elemental magic allows him to become an all powerful, god-like figure within the play, while the relinquishing of his powers enables him to descend from his omnipresent godlike power and express a deeper level of humanity, evident when Prospero states “this rough magic I here abjure” and “I’ll break my staff and drown my books''. While the representation of magic through Prospero as a mage was considered acceptable for Shakespear’s deeply reigioussuperstitious audience, the idea of the mage is contextually transformed in Hag-Seed, as magic doesn’t exist in Atwood’s retelling of the story, it is instead it is recontextualised in a recognizable form which allowings her to maintain the central themes and remain grounded in her reality. The possibilities of the internet and technology were utilised as a way of making magic perceptible to a modern audience, while also using language alluding to the supernatural to further the characterisation of Felix in the mage-like image of Prospero, such as, “he was summoned by email, by which he divined there were no other applicants”. While the hallucinatory effect of drugs and the potential of digital media were also used to evoke magical elements of the original text, the most poignant representation of magic is through the power of theatre, making commentary on the continual value of Shakespeare’s work, as evident when stated “Felix found that strangely moving, for once in their lives they loved themselves.” Ultimately, Atwood uses these conventional images of society to display how humanity, in recent years, has created their own form of ‘magic’ creating a divergence in the illustration of magic between the two texts, suggestive of the authors cultural atmospheres of

the authors. GThis is furthered through theme of appearance versus reality, as Felix describes “the illusion of a smile, pretense, fakery, but who’s to know,” in which Atwood also strengthens the metatheatrical nature of Hagseed with Felix as an actor within the story he constructs. This draws on the metatheatrical elements of The Tempest, as Prospero, in his final soliloquy, breaks the fourth wall, asking “as you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgences set me free” further blurring the distinction between illusion and reality. It is hence evident that the context of both authorstexts played a central role in the representation of magic, which has a significant impact on the characterisation of the protagonist as Atwood’s utilises style and form for the thematic development of the notion of illusion versus reality and the role of metatheatre and metatextuality. (565) Central to both texts is the representation of power, which is recontextualised by Atwood to adapt to both her literary and political context. Both Prospero and Felix are characterised through their abuse of “rough magic” for selfish, vengeful purposes, with their power they wield being central drivers of the plot, allowing Prospero to become a metaphorical director, paralleled by Atwood through Felix’s role as a literal director. While Felix’s humanistic characterisation representsation him in a more complex manner, as he is less abusive with his power and instead befriends the Caliban-collective, Atwood does maintains parallels to Prospero’s abuse of power over the gentry. This is done using accumulative listing and visceral language to convey Felix’s obsessive excitement to abuse his power to enactgain vengeance with Sal and Tony, as he imagines, “Tony and Sal, surrounded by goblins, menaced by them. Herded by them. Reduced to a quivering jelly.” In light of Atwood’s postmodern literary context, her audience wouldn’t accept a character as essentially good or bad, therefore her characterisation of Felix requiringed a more complex backstory to justify Felix’shis actions and the extreme lengths he went to for revenge. This evokes a greater sense of empathy within the audience, however Atwood simultaneously undermines this by dismantling his reliability through the use of congery, “The secrecy, the sabotage. The snake-like subterfuge, the stupendous betrayal”, which serves to emphasise the melodramatic and obsessive nature of Felix’s narrative voice, paralleling Shakespeare’s characterisation of Prospero through dialogue, with his obsessive nature and need for a sense of authority, evident through his continual questioning of whether Miranda is paying attention, with the reputation of “dost thou attend me?”. The use of hyperbolic rhetoric and exaggerative narration display Atwood’s manipulation of language in Felix’s characterisation. In this way, Atwood’s recontextualisation of the theme of power was central to the postmodern characterisation of Felix, while also allowing her to not only engage in a conversationdialogue with Shakespeare’s work, but also her own contemporary context. This displays the inherent importance of the context in which each protagonist was constructed to understand their characterisation, and

highlights the intentional resonances and divergences Atwood created through style and form. between Felix and Prospero. (355)...