By performing a comparative study between The Tempest and Hag-Seed, one’s understanding of the thematic resonances and dissonances between texts is enhanced. To what extent is this true? Margaret Atwood has engaged the textual conversation between ‘Hag seed’ and ‘The tempest’ by recontextualising the text’s enduring base ideas while strengthening resonances and challenging dissonances. The textual conversation is based on his work - ‘The Tempest’ a tragic, romantic comedy which endorsed the allegorical traditional values of harmony and social cohesion while also challenging the notions of the time. Atwood extendents her postmodern values into her appropriated recontextualising of ‘The Tempest’ that aims to venerate the canonical text, ultimately creating an unparalleled reinterpretation which is present in the dynamic, metatheatrical interplay between the two.

Both composers present their representation of the dispossessed to emotionally resonate with their respective contexts through their purposes and presentation of outsiders. Shakespeare presents the main outsider within his text as Caliban - an oppressed, downtrodden slave of the vengeful Prospero. Caliban reflects Shakespeare's context by embodying the eurocentric perspective held regarding indigenous people and their cultures. Miranda projects these prejudices attitudes when she disparages Caliban ‘But thy vile race...had that in’t which good natures could not abide..’ The hag-seeds within the appropriated text are the inmates locked within the ironically named ‘Correctional system’. The conversation between both texts are harmonious with the critiquing of the belief that innate qualities we were born determine our capabilities within society, an nod to the

nature vs nurture debate. A modern day machiavelli, Sal O’Nally mirrors Miranda's belittling, believing that ‘Prisons are for incarceration...not to educate those… by their very natures’.This dehumanising attitude continues the decrepit cycle of repression and the creation of Hag-seeds, as shown in Leggs Rap, ‘Aint gonna get on the back of the bus, And give our land rights back to us’, strengthening Atwoods challenging the role of jails by the use of a popular, modern medium through assonance and alliteration. In ‘TT’, Caliban is presented as articulate, speaking in beautiful poetic language which expresses his deep love for the island. ‘The fresh springs, brine-pits...all the charms’ This suggests that Shakespeare didn’t agree with the treatment of natives during his context by giving Caliban redeeming qualities with the intent to humanise, which may have been influenced by Montaigne’s perspective in ‘Of Cannibals’. In conjunction, the inmates in the appropriate novel are humanised in a poignant scene where their tenderness and intuitiveness is shown by being caring enough to reach out to a grieving Felix when referring to photos of their own children. Both composers act as advocates for the dispossessed and use their textual conversation to illuminate that discriminatory behaviour has and is a universal value.

Within both texts, the thematic use of Women is littered with many resonances and dissonances which illuminate each composers respective contexts and their slow growth towards equality. In the appropriated novel, Anne-Marie - an irreverent and reconstructed 21st century gender paradigm is a recontextualised Miranda who’s traditionally presented as an idealised woman of the Jacobean era. This playful presentation of polar opposites twists the relationship into a hybrid that challenges the canons conceptual and thematic concerns and displays

the male hegemony of the time. Miranda’s compassionate and naive nature is revealed early in the play ‘O,I have suffered with those that I saw suffer!’. She is displayed as ‘feminine’ and emotionally driven,living a life subordinate to her father. Prospero, using magic, arranges a relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda ultimately controlling her fate. She is seen as ‘Worthily purchased’ and a political means to renew his dynasty, the seal being her virginity but defies her father in subtle and small acts of personally choosing Ferdinand.Anne-Marie is presented in a paradoxical way which challenges our modern definition of femininity which is prevalent in her physical description ‘Thin, muscular honey blonde. Big eyes’. This visual image of femininity is paired with the simile ‘She had a grip like a jar-opener’ referring to her physical strength while enforcing her differences from the canonical text. She’s blunt and her speech is littered with expletives, referring to herself ‘like new laid shit’ in a playful tone which highlights the vast difference of incongruity between Miranda and Anne-Marie.A major dissonance which has been thoughtfully structured is Felix’s deceased daughters role within the prose fictional novel. Miranda in The Tempest is young and sheltered from the outside world, which wouldn’t fit for a modern context writing. Felix’s fabrication of his own mind regarding Miranda is striking. Miranda acts as an aiding force throughout the novel, helping her father overcome his intense sorrow while sharing a symbiotic relationship full of love which is reiterated in the photograph motif. Atwood intentionally weaves from the artistic structure of The Tempest, giving a patriarchally restricted Miranda the chance to become liberated and grow - into a motivator of action rather than a receiver of patriarchal power, into a force of change and a free spirit through the thematic resonances and dissonances by each respective composer.

The role of forgiveness and agnarosis within each text has revealed collisions and similarities influenced by the respective contexts of both composers. The predominant role of christianity within Shakespeare's period contributes to the creation of a text filled religious reverence and concern for human beings imbedded with the humanist ideology. In the canonical text, Ariel instills fear within the villains referring to them as ‘Three men of sin’. The idea of transgressing christian codes of morality and ethics questions their worth in the eyes of god, risking being damned to hell for eternity. Harmoniously, a scene in Hag seed follows suit when three characters closely mirroring the canonical texts but in a secular context are drugged and experience a horrifying ‘trip’. ‘Sebert appears to believe he’s covered with insects…“Get them off me!”. This short, sharp syntax displays the urgency and terror through it’s dialogue, the same element of fear is instilled into is enemies but suited for a more modern relevance.Prospero’s moment of anagnorisis is one of empathy provoked by Ariel ‘Mine would, sir, were I human’. He realises in this moment of self-knowledge that he has engaged in extreme humanism by ‘playing as god’, beginning to show relevant forgiveness as it reflects the renaissance need for social cohesion.In his final soliloquy, Prospero states that ‘I’ll break my staff... I’ll drown my book’. This symbolic moment of growth and recognition of power enforces the christian context of Shakespeare's time.We are given an intimate glimpse into Felix’s psyche through his stream of consciousness, ‘How can you touch a spirit?... He’ll have to be content with the voice’.This quote displays how Atwood portrays him as delusional to display his layered, psychological confusion and the power of grief. In his vastly different moment of anagnorisis to Prospero, Felix realises how

selfish he had been in an explicit intertextual reference to the play, but does not forgive his antagonists as deeply and emotional unlike The Tempest. Both Hag seed and The Tempest act as illuminators, identifying the vices and virtues upheld in the composers context which further seep into the play and their resonating and disseminating thematic values. The textual conversation between ‘Hag-seed’ and ‘The Tempest’ present a dynamic, metatheatrical interplay between both composers and their celebration of their texts as promoters of the power of art and its reflection on the current context through its resonances and dissonances. The individualised ending for Felix in Hag Seed contrasts Prospero in The Tempest, commenting on our modern society and our differences. Personally, Hag seed has effectively created an emotional reinterpretation of The Tempest, breathing a new sense of revitalisation into a story that holds rich thematic values and rebirthing it into a postmodern society and era.