PAC-V Analysis

Purpose

• To simultaneously critique and celebrate Shakespeare’s text

• To revitalise Shakespeare’s text - allowing a postmodern generation to also appreciate Shakespeare BY making it more palatable for this audience - in terms of what is appreciated, critiqued and celebrated

• Comment on prison reform in Canada

• To participate in a renewal of Shakespearean themes in literature from celebrated authors

Audience

• Contemporary audience

• Writing to a new, postmodern generation of readers of canonical literature - wanting to reinvigorate Shakespeare’s text to be appreciated and celebrated, whilst also critiquing his values

• Readers who are acquainted with the hypotext (The Hogarth Shakespeare) 

• Atwood presents Hag-seed as separate to yet inspired by the Tempest, in that it is easily accessible for her audience who both have and have not read the original text.

  1. For those who have, she draws subtle parallels and makes innuendoes that enhance the meaning of the original, but the story is separate enough that people who read it as a standalone receive an insightful exploration of the Tempest's ideas.

• Quite straightforward presentation of ideas, although the text itself is layered and interwoven with allusions to The Tempest and an exploration of more complex ideas

• People seeking to learn more about the Tempest (either those who have or have not read it) and achieve a greater appreciation for the complexity of the source text

Context

• Most of the Western world has adopted a “Tough on Crime” stance over the past decades. This led to an over-representation of minorities in the prison system.

• Straton Shakespeare festival - Yearly festival in the Canadian town of Straton

• Hag-Seed as a ‘caper’ (crime sub-genre, where crimes are in full view of the audience)

• Postmodern (post-post-modern; i.e. contemporary literature w/ postmodern values)

• Contemporary

• Canadian Feminist Perspective

  • Empowered and strong female characters

  • Individuality of women

  • Juxtaposition of Miranda in Shakespeare as sexualised and naïve, whereas Atwood's versions are powerful and knowledgeable

Values

• • • Brings to the forefront discussion of little spoken about topics such as grief and coping mechanisms

      • Trauma and its effects on the individual

    • Transformation and Change

    • Imprisonment and Marginalisation

    • Vengeance

    • Theatre, Meta-theatricality

    • The Tempest itself (as a text) is a motif in Hagseed  

    • Post-feminist perspective

    • Secularism and Technology vs Religion and Fantasy

    • The desire to free Miranda from Shakespearean confinement by reimagining a more nuanced, realistic portrait of femininity

    • Redefinition of the identity of women through the portrayal of Anne-Marie and its juxtaposition with Felix’s dead daughter.

    • Introduction of the idea of equal societal class to challenge Shakespeare’s Jacobean context

  • The importance of theatre and creative expression