The Awakening

I just finished re-reading Kate Chopin's The Awakening, with the Women's Studies class I am currently teaching.  Reading it, I particularly noted the sea motif that runs through the novel.  It is most directly apparent when Chopin alliteratively notes, "The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude" (p. 175).  This passage leads the reader to Edna's final act of the tale, but the same words are used earlier in the text, when she first begins to realize herself and question her life.  Subtly suggesting this motif, Chopin first introduces Edna returning from the shore.  Further developing it, Edna's learning to swim is an important moment in the novel, which impacts her summer activities, as well as the novel's conclusion.

I myself love the sea.  Is there a distinction between the sea and the ocean?  The book is decidedly regional--the location and the Creole people and customs are essential to the story.  The sea in Chopin's text is the Gulf of Mexico where it touches Louisiana's coast, which is vastly different than the Atlantic Ocean with which I am acquainted.  Do all seas whisper, clamor, and invite?  This leads me to wonder, had Edna lived elsewhere, had she not found herself by the sea, would her story have developed as it did?  Would her soul have gone wandering elsewhere?

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Selected Stories. New York: Penguin Books, 1984. Print.

Hag-Seed Revisited

I finished reading Atwood's tale over the weekend, and it resolved itself fairly neatly.  The book opened with an intriguing snippet of what was the climax--the viewing in the prison of the videotaped production of the play--which created suspense from page one.  When the narrative finally led back to that point in the text, I was glad that no real physical violence transpired.  The glimpse at the start made it seem a possibility, with stage notes regarding shots fired and voices shouting "Lockdown!"

The resolution offers Felix, the protagonist and director of the play, the revenge he long sought, after having lost his much-loved career, yet it comes about in an unexpected way, which is really more satisfactory than any possibility I imagined while reading.  It also mimics Shakespeare's text neatly, as intended.  The bad guys, who took Felix's career from him, get what's coming to them, and it comes about through a dream-like imprisonment (in an actual prison, as opposed to on an island, as it is in the original).

When I began reading, I didn't realize the publication is one in a series of re-imagined plays, all undertaken by different contemporary authors.  This one sparked my interest in reading some of the others.  They have not yet all been written, but they have been imagined and commissioned and are noted on the following link:
http://hogarthshakespeare.com/

Hag-Seed

I am a lover of all things Margaret Atwood.  I enjoyed an independent study of her writing my senior year of college, but I still have not read everything she's written.  I didn't even know of Hag-Seed until a colleague and fellow English teacher mentioned it in conversation.  I think we were talking about the vast popularity and disturbing relevance of The Handmaid's Tale, which was the first Atwood text I encountered.

Hag-Seed is a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, which I studied early in my undergraduate program, under the tutelage of a nun, with intense focus on written criticism of the play.  Atwood sets it as a play within a play.  I've linked a review of it here:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/16/hag-seed-review-margaret-atwood-tempest-hogarth-shakespeare

One of the aspects I find most intriguing is the phantom daughter of the main character, Felix.  She, Miranda, named after the daughter of The Tempest, died prior to the novel's outset; yet, she is alive and still developing in Felix's mind.  He sees her in his home.  I am unsure how this will be resolved in the story, but it suggests a heart-wrenching need for self-awareness and a squaring with reality.

I'm also intrigued by the play within the story's setting in a prison.  The Tempest itself has multiple prisons--both literal and figurative--built into it, so it's entirely (and symbolically) appropriate that this retelling centers around a prison.

One final, for today, point of interest is the chronology.  It opens with the production and viewing of the play, then takes the reader back in time, so we can see what led to that point.  I flipped back to that beginning yesterday, although I'm mid-way through, to revisit the beginning, which I suspect is also the climax of the tale.