Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare's The Tempest Retold

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key plot points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 9

Reading Check

1. When does Chapter 1 take place in relation to the Prologue?

2. Whom does Felix blame for his removal as artistic director?

3. What kind of books does Felix read when he is living in isolation?

4. Where does Felix get a job working as a literacy teacher?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How did Felix end up raising Miranda alone?

2. What lengths does Felix go to in Chapter 5 to disguise his whereabouts?

3. How does Felix’s imagination help him cope with Miranda’s death?

4. What does Felix find while searching for his winter coat, and how does it function as an element of foreshadowing?

Paired Resource

“Teaching Shakespeare in a Maximum Security Prison”

• This 14-minute NPR interview shares the experiences and perspective of Laura Bates, who has written a book about her time teaching Shakespeare to prisoners in an Indiana prison.
• This resource relates to the themes of Your Mind Can Be a Prison, Empowerment Through Transformation, and The Marginalization of Imprisoned People.
• Why did Bates see a particular need for education in the unit that Don was transferred into? In what sense does Bates’s work transform the prisoners and offer them a form of freedom? How does her attitude compare with Felix’s attitude toward similar work? What are Felix’s goals for his work with the prisoners? What circumstances and personality traits cause Felix to approach his work so differently from Bates?

Part 2, Chapters 10-19

Reading Check

1. What does Felix use to bribe the prisoners to memorize their lines?

2. What Tempest role does Felix reserve for himself?

3. In Chapter 17, what game does Felix imagine playing with Miranda?

4. In Chapter 19, which part do many prisoners want to audition for?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What justification does Felix give Estelle for choosing The Tempest as his next play?

2. Why do the other teachers and the prison-rights activists object to Felix’s program at the prison?

3. What concerns do the prisoners have about playing Ariel, and how does Felix change their minds?

4. In his discussion of the play with the prisoners in Chapter 18, how does Felix describe Prospero’s island?

Paired Resource

“Prospero’s Penitentiary: The Theater of Rehabilitation in The Tempest”

• This essay by Andy Bird from Oakland University’s journal was published the same year as Hag-Seed. It explores Prospero's island as a prison and analyzes the implications of the character’s use of theater as a vehicle for redemption.
• This resource relates to the themes of Your Mind Can Be a Prison, Empowerment Through Transformation, and The Marginalization of Imprisoned People.
• What are the key ideas that Bird proposes in this essay? How do they relate to the ideas that Felix offers about the island and to his thoughts about theater? What does Bird’s analysis suggest about the universality of Atwood’s themes?

Part 3, Chapters 20-29

Reading Check

1. When does Felix propose to tell the prisoners about the ninth “prison” in The Tempest?

2. What does Felix promise 8Handz in return for help rigging the security system?

3. To what city does Felix go to search for props and costumes?

4. What does Felix finally do in Chapter 29 that was foreshadowed in Chapter 9?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In Chapter 23, how does Felix struggle with the characterization of Miranda, and what doubts does it cause him to have about the play?

2. What leads Felix to have to excuse himself to hide his emotional breakdown during the rehearsals in Chapter 25?

3. In Chapter 27, what actions does Felix’s hallucinated version of Miranda perform?

4. How does Chapter 28 introduce the novel’s title into the narrative?

Paired Resource

“Miranda’s Drowned Book”

• This poem by Debora Greger offers Miranda’s perspective on Prospero.
• This resource relates to the theme of Your Mind Can Be a Prison.
• How does Miranda portray her father in this poem? In what ways does he limit or “imprison” her? What is the rhetorical function of her comparing herself to a colony? Is she in any way complicit in her own subjugation? How is this perspective reflected in Felix’s concerns about the play in Chapter 23? How is this similar to and different from Felix’s hallucinated version of his daughter? In what sense is Felix the real “prisoner” in this situation?

Part 4, Chapters 30-39

Reading Check

1. What does Felix inject into the grapes?

2. What role is Frederick told he is to play in The Tempest?

3. Which of the visitors receives a covert warning not to eat the grapes?

4. What are Red Coyote and TimEEz dressed as when they enter the Green Room?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How do Felix’s concerns about the digital feed in Chapter 30 reveal how deeply he is lost in his hallucinations?

2. What does Estelle reveal in Chapter 31 that makes it seem as if Tony’s betrayal of Felix is about to be repeated?

3. What plan does Tony propose to Sebert that reveals the depths of his corruption?

4. In Chapter 39, what demands does Felix make in return for his silence?

Paired Resource

“The Complicated Psychology of Revenge”

• This article from the Association for Psychological Science reviews research on several aspects of the anticipation and aftermath of revenge.
• This resource relates to the themes of Your Mind Can Be a Prison and Empowerment Through Transformation.
• What complicated relationships does the research reveal between revenge and satisfaction? How does this relate to what Felix feels before and after he enacts his revenge on Tony? How does this research highlight the way in which Felix has become a prisoner of his own feelings and suggest a way that he might actually find some kind of peace again?

Part 5, Chapter 40-Epilogue

Reading Check

1. What kind of party does Felix attend in Chapter 40?

2. Which character does Anne-Marie imagine emerging triumphant?

3. What does Bent Pencil imagine as the foundation of Gonzalo’s colony on the island?

4. Which character is the subject of the rap the prisoners perform for Felix in Chapter 46?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What irony does 8Handz note in Ariel’s ability to feel empathy?

2. What future does SnakeEye imagine for Antonio?

3. What hopeful epilogue does Leggs invent for Caliban?

4. In the Epilogue, what are the two primary ways that Felix demonstrates he has learned to let go of the past?

Recommended Next Reads 

Prospero’s Daughter by Elizabeth Nunez

• This retelling of The Tempest transplants the action to a leper colony near Trinidad and follows the story of an English girl whose father falsely accuses the boy she loves of raping her.
• Shared themes include The Marginalization of Imprisoned People and Your Mind Can Be a Prison.
• Shared topics include revenge, prejudice, manipulation, fatherhood, The Tempest, and intertextuality.
• Prospero’s Daughter on SuperSummary

Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn

• Shakespeare’s story of King Lear is transposed to modern times, as media mogul Henry Dunbar finds himself imprisoned in a sanatorium while two of his daughters attempt to wrest away control of his empire.
• Shared themes include The Marginalization of Imprisoned People and Empowerment Through Transformation.
• Shared topics include revenge, forgiveness, fatherhood, Shakespeare, and intertextuality.