Atwood seeks to present some of the underlying theoretical and historical frameworks prevalent within ‘The Tempest’, ultimately, the reframing of renaissance colonialism and women’s role in 17th society provides major radical dissonances between the original text and the modern appropriation. Atwood incorporates many of her own perspectives, values, and context to convey a message which relates to her own contemporary societal problems. The influence of the Renaissance Age of Discovery and the Jacobean value of the ‘Noble Savage’ on Shakespeare’s tragicomic drama, The Tempest (1610) is palpable, where the contrast between the educated wizard, Prospero, and the Caribbean slave, Caliban shows Shakespeare’s criticism of cultural elitism. There are explicit dissonances between Miranda and her 21st-century counterpart, Anne-Marie, in Margaret Atwood’s novel Appropriation, Hag-seed (2016). Atwood contrasts the patriarchal aspects of the original play by characterizing Anne-Marie as an independent and free woman. Both texts present perspectives about colonialism and women’s role in society.
The Renaissance was a period of reformation for the human race following the middle ages. Many new values derived from the widespread new knowledge included the newly formed ‘Age of Discovery’ depicted in The Tempest. Prospero is seen as one of the white colonizers as depicted in history. Upon landing on Sycorax’s island, Prospero subdues her, rules the land, and imposes his own culture on the people of the land. In this interpretation, Prospero is not seen as a kind ruler instead, usurping Caliban's Island from him, by putting him under slavery and undermining him as a monster, we can take Prospero as a representative of the Europeans who usurped the land of native Americans and enslaved them. “This thing of darkness, I call my own”. The use of the metaphor ‘darkness’ alluded to slavery and the personal pronoun ‘I’ creates a sense of ownership which furthermore shows the colonizer’s attitude of looking down on the colonized people. Caliban is seen as a despicable entity and the whites looked down on people of another color. Some are born to dominate while others are born to be dominated, Caliban is portrayed as the latter. This is further reinforced in the quote “When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like a thing most brutish.” Miranda uses the metaphor of gabble to describe Caliban's own language, which represents colonial ignorance of the native way of life. Re-imagining common concerns and themes that frame the modern writer allows composers to re-imagine and adapt an original composition while still maintaining a textual conversation between them. Thus, Atwood takes the Renaissance idea of colonialism and modernizes it by focussing on prisons and the law system to relate to the contemporary audience. Atwood has stated “The last three words Prospero says are “set me free”. But free from what? In what has he been imprisoned? I started counting up the prisons and imprisonments in the book. There are a lot of them, in fact, every one of the characters is constrained at some point in the play. This was suggestive… so I decided to set my novel in a prison.” Throughout history, prisons have been through many forms, they were for political prisoners, criminals, debtors, etc. It wasn’t until the 19th century that prisons were seen as places for reforming and improvement. “The performances were a little rough, maybe, but they were heartfelt. Felix wished he could have squeezed half that much emotion out of his professionals.” Atwood utilizes juxtaposition, between 'rough' - (what the initial reaction is, from his perspective of a theatre director trained in Shakespeare), and 'heartfelt' - (what the prisoners brought to the table.) Felix is able to understand both the frame from which his initial reaction is coming and understand the merit that comes from the frame different from his (the prisoners). The freedom from the imprisonment that these undesired members of society are in, is through the understanding of them. In Hagseed, the text is centered around the evolving dynamic between Felix and the inmates, while in The Tempest, Caliban, and Prospero, each has their own story, that neither understands the other and neither story comes together harmoniously. Hence, Caliban is represented in Hagseed by all of the inmates, both of these characters/groups being treated differently in each text and consequently experiencing different levels of freedom as a reflection of cultural values and contexts of each time period.
By appropriating texts that were former representations of Jacobean ideologies, the post-modern composer can reflect on many issues present in the past with these issues being the role of women. Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, is the only female in The Tempest because there are no women, her character is used to represent an ideal woman. Prospero declares his power over his daughter by stating his dominance, this is evident when he controls Miranda’s fate by arranging the love affair between Ferdinand and Miranda. Prospero sees Miranda as property to be exchanged between him and Ferdinand, by telling Ferdinand that Miranda is “Worthily purchased”. The metaphor shows Prospero views Miranda as property that he controls, Prospero didn’t ask her daughter that much, but only when she meets Ferdinand does she have to stay away from him. Although he is the only person who was controlling the situation to rearrange a marriage, he has no control over Miranda’s feelings, Prospero keeps Miranda isolated even though he has that much power or magic to make them leave the island. “Miranda’s isolation from Milan and all of society allow for complete control by her father. He continually objectifies Miranda’s sexual purpose. Prospero’s character thus portrays society’s general depiction of women as “sexual tools”. It could be argued that an agonistic relationship may occur when reframing the plot, themes, or values from an older text. As such, Atwood can be seen to engage with the idea of women’s role in society and adapts it to fit the contemporary time period. Atwood is an avowed environmentalist and an advocate of women’s rights and this is evident through Anne-Mari, Miranda’s 21st-century counterpart. She’s seen as powerful and independent. We get a glimpse of her status and character through Felix’s description of her as he remembers her from another play. “She is a fabulous dancer. She had videos of dance performances with two male dancers on YouTube. She is stylish and good-looking, and she has a tattoo of a bee, which has some meaning. She was smart, she knows how to play chess.” Listing is used to conveying how educated Anne-Marie is. In conclusion, we can say feminism applies to The Tempest in the sense that Miranda was the only female character, Even though she is objectified as a sexual enticement by her father, Miranda embodies feminism by teaching language to Caliban and turning away from him when he makes sexual advances, she is both submissive and obedient, as demonstrated in her actions towards her father. It’s clear that Prospero loves his daughter, however, at the same time he tries to misuse his daughter as well. Conversely, we could see in Hag-seed we can see a bit of feminism in some jailer comments about Anne Marie. Miranda in The Tempest is a girl who was completely dependent on her father and her father uses her as his property. On the other hand Miranda in the Hag-Seed got all the freedom of her life, she was smart and educated. She was never treated as property which thus showed that she was self-dependent.
Ultimately, despite adapting The Tempest for Hogarth Shakespeare, Hag-Seed is very much a product of Atwood's perspectives, values, and context. Shakespeare’s The Tempest adopts Renaissance ideologies of colonialism and the noble savage to dehumanize people of color and challenge ideas of cultural elitism, it also incorporates patriarchal views to represent the 17th-century time period. However, Atwood’s postmodern tale of revenge and redemption reworks these values, in order to modernize the story and allows for a synergistic comparison of how different societies respond to these concerns.