TEXTUAL CONVERSATIONS: MODULE a ESSAY: How Has the Context of Each Text Influenced Your Understanding of the Intentional Connections Between Them?
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TEXTUAL CONVERSATIONS: MODULE A ESSAY: How has the context of each text influenced your understanding of the intentional connections between them? Textual conversations enable a re-imagination of universal ideas, prompting responders to gain a deeper understanding of the enduring desire for power inherent to the human condition. William Shakespeare’s 1611 comedy, The Tempest, endures through its Jacobean representation of how patriarchal hierarchies within the play are maintained through oppression and restored through the power of illusion. These enduring features are reimagined through displaying Margaret Atwood’s post-modern novel, Hag-seed (2016), where she simultaneously displays paralleling power structures, but instead examines the prevalence of gender roles and modern technology to evoke forgiveness in her Fourth- Wave feminist context. Thus, Atwood’s secular re-imagination resonates through the universal idea of forgiveness, with the dissonant values surrounding each text prompting new post-colonial and feminist interpretations to emerge. Through textual conversations established by Hag-seed, Shakespeare’s representation of the complex power relations between colonizer and colonized prompts contemporary responders to question the morality associated with such subjugation, contextually alluding to the expansionist agendas that characterized the Jacobean Era. Drawing upon the archetypal master-slave dynamic, Shakespeare establishes a microcosmic representation of the colonizer and colonized through “Malignant” Ariel’s repeated reference to Prospero as “master”, with the sycophantic tone reinforcing the servile nature of their relationship. Hence, in conversation with Hagseed, audiences facilitate a more nuanced contemporary perspective of the colonialist subjugation Shakespeare presents. Furthermore, through the motif of language evident in the simile describing Caliban “gabbl[ing] like a thing most brutish,” Shakespeare symbolises the dominion and moral implications of colonialism as a result of Caliban’s “vile race,” contextually alluding to Montaigne’s essay “Of Cannibals” to falsely equate European society as the only vison of civilisation. Moreover, the enslaved Caliban uses paradox to assert that “all the subjects that you have,/ which first was mine” highlights the loss of ancestral land inherent to colonialism, ignoring the rights of the ostensibly “savage” to instead impose monolithic European values. Hence, Shakespeare represents Jacobean colonialist views surrounding the repression of individuals to maintain class structure, which, through textual conversations with Atwood’s Hag-Seed, prompts responders to critique British colonial expansionism in the Jacobean Era. Atwood’s Hagseed resonates with Shakespeare’s representation of complex power relations between the coloniser and the colonised, but instead reshapes her representation of power structures through the lens of gender, aligning with the feminist views of her Postmodern context. Atwood ironically satirises the lack of skill regarding “the practical side of baby care,” through criticising Felix’s propensity to evade parental responsibility, as he “hired help, he’d needed some women,” when taking care of his daughter, a Fourth-Wave feminist criticism of patriarchal power structures. Further, the ephemeral characterisation of Felix’s wife illuminates the essential facelessness of Prospero’s wife in The Tempest, scrutinising the enduring tendency of literature to negate the female voice. The deliberate negation in the simile, “His wife, Nadia… she faded like an old polaroid,” criticises gender based disempowerment across contexts. Moreover, Atwood’s intertextual allusion to The Tempest when she comments that Miranda is “trapped on the island… with a stronger male who tries to have sex with her against her will”, illuminates the cross-contextual negation of the female experience through displaying how the bodily autonomy of women remains threatened in her Fourth-Wave feminist society. Hence, through Atwood’s appropriation of The Tempest, she mirrors the ways in which individuals are rendered faceless in Shakespeare's era, intentionally connecting that women in her own contextual discourse are still subject to such subjectivity. It is through Prospero’s use of illusion through the textual conversations within “The Tempest,” that Shakespeare self-reflexively critiques his influence as playwright, reinforcing Jacobean perspectives of the power of art and the supernatural throughout the Renaissance to facilitate forgiveness. Shakespeare’s utilization of dense stage-directions to represent the art of illusion in the play’s supernatural dimension presents the didactic power of Prospero’s illusions through the “strange music, a European vision of foreignness , which is further informed through our contemporary reading of the play. Further, Alonso’s reflection of the affective power of illusion as “an enchanted trifle to abuse me,” highlights the capacity of the art of illusion to mislead, paralleling Shakespeare’s role as a dramatist to influence and sway, emphasising the significance of Renaissance Art. At the conclusion of the play, Prospero discards his “magic robes,” a symbol of finally being restored to his rightful place within the power structures of society. This parallels Shakespeare’s conclusion as an ageing playwright and is reflected in Hagseed through Felix’s own role as a director, displaying the Renaissance ideal of the power of art-making to illuminate the importance of forgiveness over acts of revenge. Moreover, Prospero’s capacity for “nobler reason” is portrayed as he “do forgive,” a product of a proto-humanist conception of individual value and forgiveness, where their statuses as Duke and King no longer justify Prospero’s use of illusion to betray. It is through these textual conversations, that Hag- seed’s contemporary context influences responders’ current view of the ideas of illusion that Shakespeare presents. Hence, Shakespeare reinforces the power of illusions to instead reflect his own role as a dramatist and emphasise the significance of forgiveness through illusion in the Renaissance. Atwood reimagines Prospero’s use of illusion to display how Felix’s use of technology in an increasingly globalised modern society has precipitated exploitation, ultimately mirroring Shakespeare through the importance of forgiveness over acts of revenge. Atwood metaphorises online stalking to that of a “spider” catching its prey through a “web,” where she displays the hostile implications of Felix’s use of technology in his revenge plot, reflecting wider contemporary issues that come with online interconnectivity. Further, Atwood’s subsequent representation of Felix’s Prospero-like omniscience in the exclamatory question “Did we record all that?” presents paralleling influences of social order through weaponization of technology to revenge Tony. However, the novel concludes with a moment of epiphany, with Felix’s realisation mirroring that of Prospero’s, as he realises the value of forgiveness within his relationship with Miranda. The act of “free[ing]” Miranda parallels Ariel’s departure at the end of “The Tempest,” as it is only through freeing them and forgiving oneself that one can facilitate growth. Hence, through adapting Shakespeare’s representation of the supernatural, Atwood displays the universality of forgiveness regardless of context and continues to emphasise its importance in enabling self growth. KEY: YELLOW- quote GREEN- context BLUE technique PINK- link to rubric GREY- link to alternative text .