He even engineers the romance between his daughter, Miranda, and Sebastian’s son Ferdinand.įelix obviously has no supernatural powers, but his creative genius makes him equal to Prospero in manipulating those around him (reincarnating him as an actual thespian, Atwood strengthens the link between the powerful protagonist and the world of theater). He causes a storm that strands his nemeses, Antonio and Sebastian, on his island, and he leads them to start plotting against each other, making them powerless against him and eventually forcing them to apologize. In The Tempest, Prospero is a wizard who uses his magic powers to bring about the outcomes that he wants.
Often seeming to control the actions of those around them, both Prospero and Felix are like playwrights controlling the theater of their own lives their outsized power points out the artificiality lurking in even the most realistic theatrical productions.
However, while Shakespeare seems to use Prospero to meditate uneasily on his own long career as a playwright, Atwood ultimately uses this contradiction to argue for the moral utility of theater and the importance of prioritizing it within a society. Both works use their powerful protagonists to contrast the inherently contrived nature of theater with its ability to reflect and influence real life. In this sense, Shakespeare’s Prospero-who uses his magic powers to exact revenge on his enemies-and Atwood’s Felix-whose craftiness as a thespian allows him to achieve his own vengeance-represent the playwright or author who inevitably controls his or her creative work. Both novel and play center around a protagonist who does his best to control the direction of the plot and the actions of those around him.
A retelling of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed tells the story of a director named Felix who, after being ousted from his job at a prominent theater festival, begins teaching Shakespeare in a prison, eventually using his new position to get back at his old enemies.
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