Comparing Adaptations of the The Tempest
The Tempest adaptations, Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood and This Island’s Mine by Philip Osment have created just as complex, cynical, and zealous of a set of characters as the characters in Shakespeare’s original work itself. Hag-Seed is a novel and follows the Prospero equivalent Felix in his fall from and rise to power. Along the way many of the same ills that plagued Shakespeare’s society continue to linger like misogyny, corruption, and unjust incarceration. In This Island’s Mine there are families and friends whose experiences mimic themes of The Tempest like loneliness, rejection, and subjugation. The play opens with Luke, a small boy, pedaling home on his bike and anticipating how he will tell his parents, Frank and Maggie, he is gay. However, Luke lives in England’s fierce homophobic society during the 1980’s under the conservative leadership of Margaret Thatcher. This is evident in the first scene as his schoolmates limply flap their wrists to mock Luke’s sexuality and the billboards that he passes blatantly instruct parents to not teach their children to be gay. Luke having seen this and upon arriving home is ashamed and censors what he had planned to say. Shakespeare would be proud of himself in seeing that Osment has genuinely united his play’s struggle with The Tempest. Out of all works of literature from which Osment could have chosen, he went with a wacky 17th century play. Shakespeare’s The Tempest boldly holds a mirror to society, and exposes and critiques its flaws. The Tempest emboldens future artists like Osment and Atwood to attack society’s most messy and uncomfortable issues like sexuality and race. Further, Frank and Felix invest in the rigid gender stereotypes that the culture has sold to them which come at a steep cost to them: familial estrangement and constant inner conflict, and those around them. For Frank that cost is losing his brother in law and his son; for Felix the cost is suppressing his true feelings.
Felix empathizes with Miranda’s situation, but censors and withholds this progressive perspective from Annie-Marie. Felix’s “filter”, his reliance on a misogynous perspective of Miranda, controls not only Anne-Marie, but himself too. As their second lunch date comes to an end, Felix has an empathetic epiphany of Miranda’s reality: “Maybe her eyes aren’t wide because of innocence. Maybe it’s fear. He has a split instant of seeing Prospero through the gaze of Miranda — a petrified Miranda who’s suddenly realized that her adored father is a full-blown maniac” (Atwood 147). Felix progresses his understanding of Miranda who he has always seen through Prospero’s perspective. Now, “through the gaze of Miranda ‘’, Felix sees Miranda not as innocent, but as afraid (Atwood 147). Miranda, to the men in The Tempest, is only innocent, youthful, and pure: incapable of any complex emotions like fear or sadness. For example Ferdinand incessantly comments on Miranda’s virginal innocence, to place her on a pedestal from which he can control and use her. Felix is capable of evolving, but is trapped in the same misogynous mindset of The Tempest’s male characters. This narrow mindset equates misogyny to having power and its inverse: that feminist support is synonymous to losing power. Consequently, Felix suppresses his honest acknowledgment that Miranda is emotionally complex. He concludes, “No, Felix, it isn’t, he tells himself firmly” (Atwood 148). This internal dialogue censors a progressive thought, effectively controlling Felix too. The result is an unhealthy, persistent battle between a misogynist voice and a progressive voice within Felix’s mind. The victor in this battle and in many more is the voice of misogyny. However it ‘wins’ him disconnection from Miranda, Anne-Marie, and ultimately to himself by suppressing his genuine empathy. Further, Felix is imprisoned in a toxic cycle of internal strife.
Felix has an internal progression, as seen in his empathy towards Miranda, but then can not act upon it, whereas Frank, in This Island’s Mine, experiences the inverse. Frank disingenuously supports the LGBQT+ community in that he acts like a progressive but internally harnesses homophobic sentiment. Frank calls upon his fellow strickers heckling the gay pride march to stop: “‘All right lads, that’ll do’” (Osment 22.278). Frank further adds, “‘Their support group has given us €300 for the / strike fund’” (Osment 22.278). Frank then hypocritically and condescendingly offers to them, “‘People have got to stick together / Help each other out, / Not bash each other over the head. / You should have learnt that by now’” (Osment 22.278). Frank can bring himself to play the part of a progressive without any type of internal conviction, unlike Felix. Frank had to lose his job and become similarly disempowered to come to accept the LGBQT+ community. Further, it is a conditional acceptance in that this group have, “‘given us [Franks strike group] €300 for the / strike fund’” (Osment 22.278). Their financial donation prompts a utopian and uncharacteristic message from Frank: “‘People have got to stick together / Help each other out’” (Osment 22.278). This acceptance of the LGBQT+ community is ultimately utilitarian. Frank’s heroic action, diffusing a violent natured mob and partnering them to the very group they were heckling, is not a genuine undertaking. Frank does not wholeheartedly ally with LGBQT+ community out of love or empathy. This is strategy. Frank is interested in securing future financial donations from them, so he demands cooperation and tolerance from his strike group. Frank tactically uses their common enemy in Margaret Thatcher to reinstate his job. This social courage and cunning intelligence reveals his intense motivation to regain that job. Frank, unlike Felix, equates employment with masculinity and power. Frank, unlike Felix, has no internal progressive thoughts. Frank’s homophobia towards his brother in law is further proof of a disingenuous motive. Maggie, Frank’s wife, told her brother Martin, that Frank, “‘doesn’t want you in the house, / He’s afraid of the effect you might have on / Luke” (Osment 10.266). Frank and Felix are two power hungry individuals who are incessant in their need to control others and the effect is a disconnection from thought and action and those close in their lives.
Felix holds Anne-Marie to impossibly high standards, because of her gender, and the effect of Felix’s sexist behaviour humiliates him and empowers Anne-Marie. Felix confines Anne-Marie’s speech, thinking upon her swearing, “That foul mouth of [Anne-Marie’s] had always startled him. He was never ready when a slice of filth came out of her child-like mouth” (Atwood 145). Atwood comments that men, to this day as they did in Shakespeare’s time, inherently expect purity from a woman, regardless of her age. This exposes Felix’s misogyny as he demeans Anne-Marie, an adult woman, with: “her child-like mouth” (Atwood 145). The disrespect continues to mount, as Felix, clearly disillusioned with Anne-Marie’s crude speech, demands she quit: “You’re doing well, only quench the swearing. It’s off-limits, remember; especially for Miranda” (Atwood 145). Felix instructs, “especially for Miranda’’, which implies she also does not swear out of character (Atwood 145). Felix masks censoring Anne-Marie’s speech by invoking Miranda’s purity. Frank similarly masks acting homophobic for his greater intention of reinstating his job. To Felix, the less emotionally complex Miranda is the less human she becomes. This makes it easier to use Miranda and her purity like objects to control Anne-Marie. Yet Anne-Marie humiliates Felix by humanizing Miranda: “But you know teenage girls, they desert their adored daddies the minute some young ripped stud heaves into view. Don’t blame me, blame my fucking hormones” (Atwood 145). Anne-Marie has taken control of Miranda’s narrative, yes she uses her, but in an empathetic and humane way. This nonconformity diminishes Felix’s power. Atwoods comments that by empathy and humanization greater power and truer control is achieved against the fallacy of power derived in objectification and misogyny.
Felix fails to hold Anne-Marie to a high standard of innocence and is humiliated. Whereas, Frank can not hold himself superior to his wifes common tasks, when having lost his job. This is seen through the perspective of Frank’s son, Luke:
Saturday mornings, / Luke gets up late, / Has the house to himself. / His Mom and Dad catch the bus to town, / To get the week’s groceries. / … / Remember a time his father wouldn’t be seen dead on a bus / Let alone in a supermarket. / But now, / His male pride battered by lack of work, / He looks forward to these weekly outings with his wife, / The biggest event of his week (Osment 5.261)
Frank once felt his wife’s common procedure was beneath him, as, “[he] wouldn’t be seen dead on a bus / Let alone in a supermarket” (Osment 5.261). When Frank is unemployed he is emasculated, “His male pride battered by lack of work”, and humbled in now looking, “forward to these weekly outings with his wife, / [which are ] The biggest event of his week” (Osment 5.261). Frank, emasculated and trapped in this house, wants any excuse to leave even for minimal time on a grocery errand. Leaving the house, even if it does humiliate him to take the bus or be in a supermarkt, helps him escape the pain of being unemployed. Frank progresses by embracing what once he saw inferior to him: displays of lower class and wifely duties. However, again, Frank does this to avoid the lesser of two pains and no internal progression is truly achieved. Osment juxtaposes Frank’s emasculation to his son, Luke who is being emasculated in a completely different way. Luke cannot publically share a side of his masculinity concerning how he chooses feminine accessories to express himself. Luke secretly wears his mother’s jewelry to fulfill and unleash his true identity: “Slowly opening the top right-hand drawer, / There where she keeps her jewelry / [ … ] / When he’d crept in here, lured by the need / To open the box / And let Pandora trapped in every man / Parade around his parents’ bedroom / Decked out in his Mother’s finery” (Osment 5.261). Restricted by a fiercely homophobic culture, Luke cannot unapologetically be himself, like Anne-Marie can, and needs to find a true home. So Luke memorizes his uncle’s address in London to escape there: “Out of sight and out of mind of the / family. / Letters from his uncle, / In London. / He opens one and reads the address, / Repeating it to himself several times, / Committing it to memory” (Osment 5.261). In both adaptations Felix and Frank thwart the authentic selves of those they see beneath them. But in doing this the male too is trapped and they lose the closest person they may have. The effects of homophobia or misogyny are again just as toxic to the men who embrace it as to whom they subject it to.
Luke and Anne-Marie face societal and personal oppression, yet they both advocate for themselves, challenge these oppressors, and do not allow them to dictate who they are. Luke meets his Uncle Martin in London who welcomes and accepts him. Luke does this, without his parent’s knowledge, because he does it fully for himself. Luke allows himself, not his parents, to form his identity: “‘I think I might be . . .’ / And so Luke tells his uncle why he left” (Osment 10.265). This self-advocacy and self-empowerment is similar to Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie does not let the fact that Felix is paying for her lunch or directing this next play condition how she speaks to him. Anne-Marie challenges Felix that he has cast her as Miranda, for not her acting skills, but her body: ‘“It’s because you think I look like a kid,” she said. “No tits”’ (Atwood 99). With this assertion Anne-Marie wants to not only expose his objectification of her body, but also initiate a dialogue to progress Felix. Martin calls Luke’s parents on his behalf, because Luke is not ready for that dialogue with his parents: “‘Do you want me to phone?’ / ‘Yeah’” (Osment 10.265). Luke is like the young Miranda, trying to figure it all out, while Martin is a veteran to the world’s abuse like Anne-Marie. Both Martin and Anne-Marie can bring up uncomfortable subjects like misogyny or homophobia, because they are secure in their identity and are experienced at having these challenging conversations. This social courage is derived from a high self worth and self respect. Whereas Frank and Felix draw “courage” from homophobia and misogyny.
Frank and Felix each try to break free from misogyny and homophobia, but unfortunately it is ingrained into them. Their efforts to fill their internal strife or change is rarely identified and empathized with. Ironically it is Anne-Marie and Luke, who are oppressed by these men, that are internally the strongest. While it is easier to hate Frank and Felix for their cruel ways, to demonize them is not the answer. The harder but necessary option is to understand the driver of their behavior. Frank and Felix at a critical stage of development possibly received restrictive messages about masculinity either by their parents, society at large, or both. Misogyny and homophobia were “marketed” as advantageous, but in using them Frank and Felix experience painful loneliness and familial estrangement. Seen in this light, Felix and Frank are victims too.
