Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare's The Tempest Retold

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Rather than forgive Tony, Felix devotes years of his life to a revenge that is ultimately unsatisfying.

• What message about forgiveness does Hag-Seed convey? (topic sentence)
• Give at least three examples from separate places in the text that support your interpretation.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, connect your analysis to the novel’s larger thematic concern with the ways in which Your Mind Can Be a Prison.

2. Hag-Seed contains three epigraphs from well-known texts.

• What is the relationship between one of these epigraphs and the rest of Hag-Seed? (topic sentence)
• Give at least three examples that demonstrate this relationship.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, connect your analysis to the novel’s larger meaning.

3. The Fletcher County Correctional Institute plays a significant role in the story.

• What is the symbolic significance of the prison setting? (topic sentence)
• Give at least three examples from different places in the text that support your interpretation of the symbolism of the prison setting.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, connect your analysis with one or more of the text’s larger thematic concerns: The Marginalization of Imprisoned People, Your Mind Can Be a Prison, and Empowerment Through Transformation.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Although the novel is narrated in the third person, the reader sees much of the story from Felix’s perspective, even hearing elements of his voice in the narration. This narrative strategy is called “free indirect discourse.” How does this impact the reader’s experience? How does it impact the novel’s tone and the reader’s experience of its mood? How does it impact the reader’s opinion of Felix and his choices? How does Felix’s unreliability affect the reader’s trust in the third-person narrator?

Write an essay in which you analyze the impact of the narrative strategy of free indirect discourse in Hag-Seed. Connect your analysis with the novel’s thematic assertion that Your Mind Can Be a Prison or its concern with Empowerment Through Transformation. Support your assertions with both quoted and paraphrased evidence drawn from throughout the text. Be sure to cite any quoted material.

2. What stance does Hag-Seed take relative to the colonial power structure in The Tempest? Is Atwood ignoring the original text’s problematic power structure, or even endorsing it? Or does Hag-Seed function in some way as counter-discourse, speaking back to the original play’s assumptions about imperial power and control?

Write an essay in which you take and defend a position about Hag-Seed’s relationship to the colonial power expressed in The Tempest. Connect your discussion with the novel’s thematic concern with The Marginalization of Imprisoned People. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from both Atwood’s novel and scholarly sources on The Tempest. The Internet Shakespeare Editions’ discussion of “The Play in the World” might be helpful; note the website’s information on how to cite the page. Be sure to cite any quoted evidence and all outside sources.

3. In what way does Felix use literature as a coping mechanism? Consider not just his use of The Tempest but the other Shakespearean plays he directs, his reading, and his beliefs about literacy. What impact on Felix and on other characters does Felix’s devotion to literature have? What relationship does this motif have to the powers and limitations of literature? How does this contribute to Hag-Seed’s impact as metafiction?

Write an essay in which you analyze the role that literature plays in Hag-Seed, connecting your analysis to the novel’s larger meaning. Support your assertions with evidence drawn from throughout the text. Be sure to cite any quoted material.