mod. a: hag-seed Flashcards
steak
revenge and forgiveness
“He wanted revenge. He longed for it. He daydreamed about it… It tastes like steak, medium rare.”
gustatory, predatory imagery, enhanced diction
* predominant desire for revenge
* parallels “bloody” imagery by shakespeare -> aligns betrayed protagonists
* overhwleming and consuming nature of revenge
* toxic light to audience
anguish
revenge and forgiveness
“How will they react when… Will there be anguish? Yes there will be anguish. Double-twisted anguish. No doubt about that.”
free indirect discourse, continued motif of predatory imagery, hypophora, high modality
* transparency of felix’s emotions -> increasing significance of mental health
* grief fuels felix’s desire for revenge opposed to usurpation
* power imbalance within felix and his prey -> parallels propero and his brother
* consuming nature of revenge
selfish
revenge and forgiveness
“What has he been thinking… How selfish he has been!”
tempest’s five-act structure, free indirect discourse, rhetorical questioning, extended metaphor
* felix’s psychological transformation
* realisation that he has been keeping miranda trapped in his own grief –> liberation of her spirit –> extended metaphor to felix’s freedom from his pyschological imprisonment
* discordant conversation on forgiveness - approaches compassion towards oneself as opposed to shakespeare’s literal compassion towards others
* mirrors more progressive aspects of shakespeare’s context through notion of revenge and forgiveness as it had evidently shifted from a religious Christian understone - focusing on ability to free oneself from their psychological prison in Hag-Seed, through Felix’s transparent free indirect discourse
dejection
representation of the other
“The smell of dejection, shoulders slumping down… the body caving in upon itself,”
anti-aesthetic imagery, asyndeton, depressing atmosphere, morbid setting
* deeper understanding into adversities of the prisoners’ experience - atwood’s post-colonial attitudes
* metaphor for caliban’s experience as an indigineous person
* positions prinsoners to similar status to caliban
names
representation of the other
“He call me a lotta names, the play a lotta games… but I’m Hag-Seed,”
synthesis of verse and rap
* evolving forms to evolving attitudes
* titular reference shows shift in power regime
* parallels use of verse in calbian’s evocative verse
