revenge and forgiveness in the tempest essay

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The Path of Forgiveness in the Tempest

In the Tempest, Prospero's initial desire to wreak revenge upon his enemies through insanity brought on by guilt is eventually overridden by his realization that he really desires reconciliation, which he will only achieve through forgiveness.

Revenge is one of the strongest and at the same time most disapproved of emotions. Almost everyone has at some point in their life been so deeply hurt by another that they desired some type of vengeance. However, most of us are able to keep these impulses for revenge in check, understanding that although our passions may run high, there are far more ?constructive? ways to handle the situation. But why is that? What?s meant by ?acting constructively?? Why shouldn?t someone pay for the pain they have caused you? Why (in the condescending logic most often used against revenge) must you be the ?bigger? person? Hey, if they were mean or stupid enough to mess with you, isn?t it your right to give them what they?ve got coming? William Shakespeare?s play, The Tempest deals with many of these questions through its main character, Prospero. Twelve years before the play begins, Prospero?s brother Antonio usurped Prospero?s throne, and with the help of Alonso and Sebastian, the king of Naples and his brother, put Prospero and his young daughter on a boat to die. Now after all these years, Prospero?s betrayers are near the island, giving Prospero the perfect opportunity to mete out revenge. However, Prospero?s initial desire to wreak revenge upon his enemies through insanity brought on by guilt is eventually overridden by his realization that he really desires reconciliation, which he will only achieve through forgiveness. Prospero obviously begins the play with thoughts of revenge, a revenge of mental anguish. After he creates the sea-storm Prospero explains to Miranda what Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian had done to him. When, Miranda inquires about his reason for causing them to become shipwrecked, he replies, ?By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune/?hath mine enemies/ Brought to this shore?(1.2.213-215). Here Prospero displays that he has decided that since his enemies are so close, he must take this opportunity to shipwreck them and enact his revenge. Propsero has had his revenge planned from the start, which explains why when Prospero?s spirit, Ariel, reports about the shipwreck, he takes care to explain, ? Not a hair perished/ On their sustaining garments not a blemish/ But fresher than before?as thou bad?st me? (1.2.259-260). Prospero had obviously given his servant strict orders not to harm these people. This is because Prospero?s revenge plan necessitates the survival of these men. Prospero?s plan for revenge is to make his three enemies go insane with guilt for their betrayal of him and the suffering they caused. This plan becomes exceptionally evident once Ariel, in the guise of a Harpy, begins to weave a spell around Antonio, Alonso, and Sebastian. She tells them that that they are being punished because,? you three/ From Milan did supplant good Prospero/ Exposed unto the sea? (3.3.87-89). For this betrayal they will suffer, ?Ling?ring perdition, worse than any death/ . . . /Upon your head- is nothing but heart?s sorrow? (3.3.95-100). Gonzolo, the rare moral man, watching the whole ordeal comments, ?All three of them are desperate. Their great guilt,/ Like poison given to work a great time after,/ Now ?gins to bite the spirits??(3.3.127-129). It is thus the regret and guilt these men feel for the acts they committed against Prospero that cause them to go insane. Watching this exchange, Prospero is pleased, and remarks, ?And these mine enemies are all knit up/ In their distractions. They are now in my power/ And in these fits ??(3.3.109-111). Here again, Prospero?s scheme for revenge is evident. From the beginning of the play, Prosepero has had a master plan for his vengeance- to make his enemies go mad with remorse and shame. However, right when Prospero?s plans come to full bloom, he finds himself of a different mind from when he began his revenge. Hearing how Gonzolo is moved by their sadness, Prospero states: Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th? quick Yet with my nobler reason ?gainst my fury Do I take part. The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance. . . My charm?s I?ll break, their senses I?ll restore. 5.1.32-36 Here, it is evident that Prospero has changed his mind about his plan for vengeance. He realizes that his passion and fury were urging him towards revenge. He decides that it is not worth the loss of his noble traits and honor in order satisfy this desire. Prospero realizes that what he in fact seeks is not revenge, but reconciliation, which is only attainable through forgiveness. This is why Prospero says to the three men, ?I do forgive thee? (5.1.98). This path to reconciliation does not work with all of them, but it does works with Alonso, for he replies to Prospero, saying, ?[I] do entreat/ thou pardon me my wrongs? (5.1.130-131). Thus, in the end, Prospero gives up on his revenge because he decides it is not what he is really looking for, instead he is seeking some sort of reconciliation. So what does all this verbiage on revenge and forgiveness boil down to? Prospero?s actions are ones everyone has at some point envisioned in one form or another. The thought of that vengeance often feels so much better than the thought of exchanging the both banal and empty I?m sorry?s and I forgive you?s that are often the conclusion of such situations In this play, we see Prospero begin down one path- revenge- and then switch to the other- reconciliation. However, his final efforts towards forgiveness end up in two places. With Alonso, Prospero ends up reconciled. The words are on the page, but the why of the exchange is left ambiguous. But why does anyone choose reconciliation over revenge, forgiveness over grudges? Do they reconcile for their own closure? To maintain their dignity and honor? Or is it as simple as this: they are unwilling to give up on the parts of their friendship that used to be so important, that held them so close. However, the flip side of this story is the final dynamic left between Prospero and Antonio. Antonio, in the end, refuses to say anything at all to Prospero. The play ends, and we are left wondering what is going on in Antonio?s head. Is he just such a hate-filled man that cannot bear the thought of apologizing? Does he feel Prospero?s revenge was so harsh as to be unforgivable? Does he not really care to put the effort into the relationship that mending it would entail? Whatever his reason?s, we deeply feel the void of Antonio?s silence. The void created when someone reaches out a hand, and you turn away.

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Tempest Revenge Quotes

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Vengeance and Forgiveness in Shakespeare’s the Tempest

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The Tempest, at the surface level, is a story of Prospero, who is an exiled Duke of Milan. Prospero is a character that is at the center of the Tempest. Within the play, he has a lot of action and the last work. The book revolves around Prospero’s search for revenge against the people who overthrew him. He is seen as an all-powerful, all-knowing, God-like character who has power over the island and could easily destroy his enemies in a variety of ways (V.i.1). Instead of destroying them, he chooses to bring them face-to-face with their mistakes forcing them to repent. He later forgives them and allows them to marry his daughter. In the book, it is clear that forgiveness is heartfelt and real and shows the author’s need for a humanist future where bigotry and religious hatred can be transcended.

In the Tempest, Prospero tells his daughter Miranda as they are watching the storm from a shelter on the island of how he was once the Duke of Milan, but he was overthrown by his brother Antonio in a conspiracy created by him and the King of Naples, Alonso. After Prospero is banished, his brother Antonio barters away the sovereignty and independence of Milan by agreeing to apply annual tributes to Alonso. Prospero was banned from Milan together with his infant daughter, who was only three years old at the time (1.2.48). They have been shipped to the island in the middle of the night, left to be consumed by the dangers of the sky and the vast sea. They were only able to survive the dangers of the island through the compassion and kindness of Gonzalo, an old courtier who has lived within the inhabited island for years. Gonzalo has put provisions and Prospero’s books on the ship until they came to the shore. For 12 years, he took care of Miranda and educated her on what they needed to know. Prospero also took the time to study and learn more about the supernatural and how the magic happens. He began to rule the island, which was previously the territory of Sycorax, a wicked witch. He also freed Ariel, who, for some reason, had also been banished to the island. Ariel had been imprisoned by the witch in a cloven oak tree. After being freed, Ariel becomes a supernatural aid for Prospero along with the spirits of the air. He is one of the reasons why Prospero appears to be all-knowing throughout the book..

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During the return of Alonso from his daughter’s wedding ceremony to the King of Tunis, Prospero engineers a storm on the sea. The storm is so strong that their ship is wrecked, and the king and his men are scattered all over the island. They are bewildered and distracted by the supernatural things that are happening in their surrounding. They are lost and in a panic until the king decides to bring them all together (3.3.53). By the time Prospero brings them all together, they are deeply affected. At first, Prospero is determined to destroy them all completely. Within the island, while trying to make everyone understand their mistakes and be sorry for them, Prospero discovers that each setup stage has a different group of people, some who are unrelenting and violent. Sabastian and Antonia show their brutality by plotting to kill the king. The scheme was originally created by Prospero, and it fails, leading Antonio to try and kill Gonzalo as well. Prospero throughout the years had admired Gonzalo for his nature and how he took him and his daughter to safety (1.2.163-65). He therefore decides to save his life. Looking and Gonzalo’s nature is the reason why he chose to forgo his plans to torment and brutally punish Antonio, Alonso, and other enemies.

Ariel, a mere spiritual being, tells him how moves he is at the cries of the king and his men. It is then that Prospero decides to forgive his enemies. Nevertheless, his act of forgiveness is judicial, impersonal, and solemn. He finally understands that punishing his enemies will not return to him the years he had lost while living on the island, and it may not have changed the nature of his enemies. He forgives because he refuses to wrong his own higher nature by cherishing the unworthy passion for revenge. He forgives both his brother and Alonso, who seems to have chosen to seek forgiveness after the loss of his son (Act 5, scene 1). He also chooses to forgive Sabastian and the drunken trio Trinculo, Caliban, Stephano, for conspiring against him (5.1.20-24). He, however, gives them the condition that they should return the stolen trumpery and trim his cell handsomely. Shakespeare appeals to the audience by making it clear that the best life is one where individuals are willing to forgive and be forgiven for their mistakes. Prospero’s take is that forgiving is much more moral and noble than taking revenge as revenge sucks the happiness out of life.

Prospero’s plays a smart game. He is not just looking to have his enemies suffer for what they did to him and his daughter, he is also looking for a way to regain the kingdom his lost and get back to the ruling ranks of Milan. He realizes that Antonio and Alonso may not easily give him back what they took from him. However, he can find a way for his daughter to be part of the kingdom. This is why he pushes for his daughter and the king’s son Ferdinand to fall in love (1.2.467). This would be a union guaranteed to secure their future. These are his first steps to getting his life back to normal. At the first encounter of Miranda and Prospero in the book, it is clear that Miranda suspects that her father is behind the storm. He does not deny this allegation. He instead responds and says, “nothing but in care of thee” (1.2.16) . This shows a break-up of the traditional father-daughter relationship. It is an answer typically given by lovers. It is clear that his entire plan revolves around his need to give his daughter a better future. It is also clear that he forgave his enemies because he wanted to be a great role model for his daughter.

In conclusion, the Tempest is an excellent play that revolves around the themes for revenge and forgiveness. Throughout the book, Prospero plots to take revenge against everyone who conspired against him. He uses supernatural beings like Ariel to attain his mission but later discovers that his plan will not help him restore everything he lost. However, forgiveness would free both his enemies and him, allowing him to plot for a better future for himself and his daughter.

Works cited

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. The Tempest . Cambridge :Harvard University Press, 1958.

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HSC English Advanced: Textual Conversations - The Tempest and Hag-Seed

Katriel's guide to The Tempest and Hag-Seed in Module A, HSC English Advanced!

English Team

Katriel Tan and Marko Beocanin

Prospero is not the only one with magic!

If you are anything like me, dealing with Module A - Textual Conversations can seem extremely daunting at first due to the sheer fact that there is more than just ONE prescribed text, but I can promise you it gets so much easier once you properly understand the module! So, let’s get you sorted with this module, available resources and all the main things you need for Tempest x Hag-Seed, so that you can quickly work your magic on your essays!

What is a Textual Conversation?

The term ‘textual conversations’ is thrown around loosely in Module A - but what exactly does this even mean?

Well, this module is uniquely comparative, and as such involves a study between a pair of prescribed texts that directly interact with each other. This means that it’s our job to identify how the new text reshapes, amplifies, critiques, comments, resonates, reframes or challenges the values and ideas of the original. The purpose of the module is to portray how literature across time becomes a reflection of the universal values that become keystones of our humanity.

In the most simple way, you need to be noting how the two texts are different and how they resonate. Ask yourself, what ideas do they bring to the table separately, and what is it saying about the idea when the texts are studied in parallel?

As with every module in HSC English Advanced , the rubric/syllabus is your best friend . Understanding and integrating words from the rubric shows your marker that you are actually taking into consideration the purpose of the module AND NO SURPRISE HERE but a lot of essay questions come from simple manipulations of the rubric wording! In the HSC, I had printed and highlighted copies of all of the module rubrics, to help me remember how to frame each essay and just for general essay practice! It was an absolute lifesaver!

You can find all the module rubrics and other resources for HSC English here !

But, for this article, let me show you one of the main parts directly from the Module A - Textual Conversations rubric:

“They further develop skills in analysing the ways that various language concepts, for example motif, allusion and intertextuality, connect and distinguish texts and how innovating with language concepts, form and style can shape new meaning.”

Grasping how a joint study of the two texts develops a more complex and nuanced understanding of a certain concept or value is one of the key takeaways of this module!

William Shakespeare | The Tempest

Quick Plot Recap

The Tempest follows the journey of Prospero, former Duke of Milan as he is exiled to an island by his brother Antonio. Prospero uses magic to conjure a storm (a Tempest), shipwrecking Antonio and the King Alonso of Naples. He lives on the island with his daughter Miranda, a spirit named Ariel and a half-man / half-monster named Caliban. He also uses magic to manipulate Ferdinand into marrying his daughter, and results in a supernatural wedding. The resolution of the play centres on Prospero asking the audience for forgiveness and freedom.

The Tempest’s Context

The play was written in 1610 - the Renaissance Jacobean Era. The Tempest fits into the ‘Late Romance’ genre of Shakespeare’s plays as the main incidents are ‘romantic’ -  artistic interpretations of events that lie out of common experience, young lovers are reunited after various trials and the exotic setting. The play tackles the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation and as such the blend between light hearted and more serious themes make the play more emotionally complex than a history or comedy.

Religion is a major influence of the play, particularly the revival of Renaissance conceptions of philosophy and other epistemological concerns. Plato’s Theory of Forms, which asserted that the physical realm is a mere imitation of a perfect conception of reality, was also a prominent influence on the characterisation of Duke Prospero. As a result, Prospero struggles with the idea that he is an imposter, merely a creature of performativity. William Shakespeare challenges the normal understandings of religion, as Prospero’s magic is a threat to the very traditional ideas of Creationism, established by the Catholic Church. This all culminates in the final soliloquy where Prospero reflects that life itself is an illusion.

Shakespeare’s individual context is not as crucial, as his play is moreso said to be shaped by contextual influences of his world at large and the royal era at the time. But it could be good to note that this play was the last written before his death in 1616.

Themes, Concepts and Ideas in The Tempest

Now, it’s important to understand that there are so so so many different themes and interpretations of the text and this is merely just to give you a good starting point to build your own deeper understanding surrounding the play. These are the top 3 main thematic tensions that arise in The Tempest:

Revenge and Forgiveness:

This theme is popular to explore using this text due to the sheer amount of textual evidence you can collect under these concepts. The whole play revolves around Prospero’s need for inner and external forgiveness and as such, raises the complex question of whether justice is better achieved through revenge or forgiveness.

The essential context here is Christian Humanism - the embodiment of the values of forgiveness, moderation, compassion and virtue.

Some quotes that are explicit to this theme:

“Yet with my nobler reason against my fury do I take part: the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance” - Prospero’s declaration (a reflection of Renaissance Humanist Thought)

“If you now beheld them / Your affections would become tender / Mine would sir, were I human” - Ariel’s plea that convinces Prospero

Human Connections:

Again, this theme is an important one to explore and can be a great gateway into making more complex observations on aspects of societal interactions. It includes both aspects of positive and negative interactions i.e. those that lend to healing or revenge plots that discourage one from forgiveness.

The connection between Prospero and Miranda is multifaceted - whilst being depicted as an object and pawn in the games and lives of other men, without her, the future is barren. Her character becomes a motif for connectedness and compassion, reminding us that life can be pure and innocent.

“O, a cherubin. Thou wast that did preserve me.” - Prospero shows that even though he feels desolate from being cast out from society, he finds strength and a guarantee for legacy in Miranda.

“I might call him a thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble” - Miranda yearns for romantic love with Ferdinand, and becomes infatuated by his aura.

This theme is based around the context of British colonisation in 1607. This sparked an ongoing colonial discussion around a Eurocentric, colonial viewpoint and ‘The Other’. This perspective dominates the Tempest as it was a concern of Shakespeare’s time. It is important to understand that ‘The Other’ is a societal concept and construction used to describe the segregation between groups of people.

This is a great theme to explore in your essays, especially due to its strong foundations in worldly context!

“The red plague rid you / For learning me your language” - Conflates colonial English with disease imagery to highlight how Caliban’s discovery by Prospero has led to his own corruption.

“What ho! Slave! Caliban!” - Prospero does not speak to him in developed sentences and as such emphasises his inferior status through these short utterances.

Looking for more HSC English Study guides? Check out Project Academy’s range of study guides , essays , study notes and more!

Margaret Atwood | Hag-Seed

Hag-seed follows the journey of Felix, the artistic director of a Theatre Festival who is betrayed and kicked out by his assistant. Following the death of his daughter twelve years ago, Felix is stricken by grief and loss, and thus isolates himself in a cabin. He spends 9 years in seclusion, imagining a life with his dead daughter Miranda. He treats her as if she is still alive and with him. He eventually then takes a job at Fletcher Correctional Institute where he directs reproductions of Shakespeare’s plays as a kind of transformational literacy program.

Margaret Atwood’s Context

Written in 2016, Hag-seed is categorised as a postmodern psychological fiction which focuses on the spiritual and emotional responses of the characters to their environments and interactions with others. Atwood’s work is a reflection of her social and moral conscience and opinions. As with many postmodern works her work is ficto-critical and experimental, balancing objective truth with subjective experience. She has also been described as proto-feminist. Comparative to Shakespeare, some of Atwood’s personal context is important to know and great to write about explicitly in your essays. For example, Atwood was involved in numerous protests in Canada against closing prison firms where inmates learned to interact and care for animals as part of their rehabilitation process. Atwood is an advocate for learning empathy and education as a means of character progression. HINT HINT! Can you think of where this piece of context would fit - as a marker, I personally love seeing this piece of context in the Tempest x Hag-seed essays as it really links to the overall purpose of her text and some of the actions of her characters :)

Atwood makes it clear that she supports a wide study of arts and a rehabilitative approach to incarceration.

Textual Conversations

You may be wondering: Kat, where are the themes, concepts and ideas for Hag-Seed as a stand-alone text?

Well…moving straight into the textual conversation actually shows you something really important about the module and the essays you write! In Module A, you are always working off of the ideas of the original text - the later text cannot possibly ever influence the original! This sounds simple, but it’s something that some students get really confused about! This is not to say that the later text can’t bring up new ideas that are completely unattached to the original, it’s just to show you that in Module A it’s much more efficient to bring up ideas that BOTH texts make reflections on.

So let’s explore Hag-seed through the lens of Shakespeare’s themes present in The Tempest !

In Hag-seed, Atwood also questions whether justice can better be achieved through seeking revenge or forgiveness, bringing to light ideas surrounding the need for reconciliation between society and the incarcerated. At a deeper level, Atwood re-asserts the Shakespearean notion of forgiveness as a mechanism to set ourselves free from the self-imposed prisons we too suffer under. In Hag-seed revenge is explicitly mentioned prominently throughout the text.

Some quotes from Felix that are from this theme:

“Suddenly revenge is so close he can actually taste it. It tastes like steak, rare” “His enemies had suffered which had been a pleasure” “Then Felix had strewn forgiveness around”

Atwood also incorporates epigraphs throughout the novel from Sir Francis Bacon, Charles Dickens and Percy Shelley that amplify the focus of the novel on the impacts of revenge.

As said before, human connections is a broad term that encapsulates all interactions between individuals and reflects the intricacies of human relationships. Yet, it is through the continuation of this theme in Hag-seed that we reveal the pure universality of such a theme and its importance across time and space. There is a paradox of dislocation and isolation - for Felix his time in the prison allows him to regain his creativity and spiritual freedom. Just like Miranda’s representation in the Tempest, she thus becomes a spiritual force in Hag-seed that encourages Felix to choose to forgive.

Some quotes from this theme:

“It’s as if they were made for each other like a pair of ice-dance champions” - Anne Marie and Freddie have a connection that mirrors Miranda and Ferdinand’s

“Getting back into the world, re-engaging with people - he hoped it would ground  him” - As he deals with feelings of loss, grief and betrayal, Felix re-connects with his previous love of theatre.

Comparatively, in Hag-seed , the Other is not only explored from a colonial perspective, but more generally in regards to how humanity creates arbitrary divides and sees groups of individuals as an ‘Other’. This is amplified by Atwood’s explicit use of prisoners and the unsettling context of a prison, showing the immense casting out of individuals deemed ‘inaccessible’ to us. The Prisoners thus become the Other and are comparable to Caliban.

“She clearly had a vision of Felix laying on the floor with a homemade shiv sticking out of his neck.” - Off-handed comments suggest that the inmates are less human and are merely dangerous individuals.

“Why should the other ones get a second chance at life, but not him?” - Rhetorical question which prompts introspection on how inmates are just as worthy in starting again and gaining redemption.

So there you have it! Notes and a great starting foundation for your Shakespeare and Atwood Tempest x Hag-seed essays! Hopefully this helps you out and clears up any confusion you have surrounding the module and HSC English Advanced! You got this! Keep writing and reviewing ! :)

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Hsc module a: 20/20 essay notes for the tempest and hagseed.

• Uncategorized
• margaret atwood
• textual conversations
• the tempest
• william shakespeare

What is a textual conversation?

To truly understand what we are supposed to be looking out for in our critical evaluation of Hag-Seed and The Tempest , we refer to the rubric for Module A: Textual Conversations.

The rubric dictates that students are to explore how the “comparative study of texts can reveal resonances and dissonances between and within texts” and consider how the reimagining or reframing of certain facets of a text “ mirror[s], align[s] or collide[s] ” with the other text. Put simply, students are to consider the similarities and differences between the representation of “ values, assumptions or perspectives ” in the two texts to then impute a reasoning to why these aspects of the texts may mirror, align or collide with one another based on context, authorial perspective, audience and more.

The textual conversations between Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest , and Margaret Atwood’s modern appropriation of the tragicomedy , Hag-Seed , is a complex one. To really comprehend this conversation  we must consider how each text is influenced by the other, but is also a product of the composer’s context, values and perspective, ultimately shaping overall meaning.

How does context influence this textual conversation?

Context informs composers’ perspectives and so, shapes their purpose and meaning. As such, it is important to keep these social influences in the back of your mind as you navigate the textual conversations.

Some of Shakespeare’s contextual influences include:

• Renaissance Humanism vs Christian Providentialism

The growing prevalence of Renaissance Humanist ideals during Shakespeare’s composition of The Tempest espoused the outlook that individuals were capable of acting autonomously and were not following a predetermined path dictated by religious providence. This further fostered a climate of individuals seeking power, knowledge and new adventures. Shakespeare’s presents the nuances within these humanist ideologies through his portrayal of Prospero whose quest for knowledge and agency in creating his own destiny leads to his ethical and moral turpitude as explored further below.

• The Age of Discovery

The Tempest was written during a period when many great expeditions were undertaken by Europeans to colonise new lands. In that same period, Montaigne’s Of the Caniballes gained wide recognition following John Florio’s translation of it into English in 1603. The essay introduced the idea of cultural relativism: the concept that human behaviour is a product of culture and as such cannot be judged by those without this cultural context.

These endeavours to colonise the non-European world included the institution of European governance systems in conquered territories and often resulted in the unjust subjugation of native peoples to allow for the exploitation of their land. This is manifested in Shakespeare’s portrayal of how Prospero deems himself of greater civility and intelligence than the island native Caliban. He then enslaves and exploits the spirit as a means to his own selfish ends, serving as an allegorical parable for the intricacies in the implications of European Colonisation at the time.

• The Great Chain of Being and the Divine Rights of Kings

The Great Chain of Beings was the Elizabethan belief that there was distinct hierarchy from everything within the universe as dictates by God, and that monarchs were in power by divine mandate itself, and thus had the divine right to only be answerable to God. In alignment with this ideology, Shakespeare’s entire work is a quest to restore this hierarchical structure that was displaced by Antonio’s greed for power and Prospero’s own neglect for his duties as a ruler due to his preoccupation with his studies. As Prospero questions the failure of the Great Chain, he realises that to truly restore order they must all engage in introspection, repentance and forgiveness, in a true display of compassion.

Some of Atwood’s contextual influences include:

• High Incarceration Rates

At the time Atwood was composing her work, incarceration in the United States was the highest it had ever been since the early twentieth century. Furthermore, there was a stark disparity in the demographics of these incarcerated peoples where ethnic people of colour were disproportionately represented. Influenced by both the overwhelming incarceration in America, and Canada’s adoption of the Nova Scotia Restorative Justice System that challenged traditional adversarial justice, Atwood explores intricacies the inmates’ experiences as an alienated and marginalised collective.

• Shifting Social Paradigms

Atwood reflects the growing empowerment of females in modern society through her distinctly different representation of women in Hag-Seed . While in The Tempest , Miranda was characterised to be of innocent purity and passivity, Felix’s daughter is more empowered in her role as the catalyst of his ethical transformation. 

Concepts and Themes in the Textual Conversation

Pursuit of Revenge

Both texts ultimately expose the futility of revenge to provide emotional fulfilment and its incapacity to serve as a solution to resolve suffering and loss. Felix and Prospero are both motivated by revenge and as a result, neglect their moral obligations. Prospero is blinded by his desire to restore his position as prescribed by God’s Great Chain of Beings, but in exacting his revenge he is deceitful and cunning, in neglect of the Christian ideals of compassion and mercy. Similarly, Felix too falls prey to the corruption caused by his desire for vengeance against Sal and Tony.

Sample Topic Sentence:   In The Tempest , Shakespeare exposes how the sophisticated nexus between hubris and the inherent human desire for power and revenge leads to ethical turpitude and ultimately impedes individuals from achieving personal fulfilment.

Imprisonment

As Felix famously sums up that The Tempest is “ a play about prisons ”, the recurring motif of prisons is evident throughout both texts to the extent that Hag-Seed is quite literally set in a penitentiary centre.

The most salient interpretation of these prisons is both protagonists’ confinement within their obsessive pursuit for revenge. It is only when he forgives his enemies that Prospero is truly set free. We also see that individuals such as Caliban in The Tempest and the prisoners in Hag-Seed are imprisoned within society’s perception of them.

Ultimately, both composers advocate for empathy, compassion and forgiveness for individuals to break free of these internal shackles as further discussed below.

Compassion and Forgiveness for Reconciliation

Shakespeare presents the perils of an obsessive thirst for vengeance only to provide a solution for it through compassion and forgiveness. The Jacobean-Christian principle of unconditional forgiveness and divine absolution of sin underpin Shakespeare’s portrayal of how Prospero’s forgiveness and  renunciation of magic and his past grievances in “ this rough magic, I here abjure ”, are the key to his reconciliation. Through returning to the Christian ideals of compassion and forgiveness, Prospero manages to restore order.

While Atwood’s appropriation still asserts the enduring relevance of self-reflection and compassion for personal development, her postmodern secular context challenges Shakespeare’s representation of unconditional Christian clemency through the relative lack of reconciliation between Felix and his adversaries. Despite this distinction, Atwood does, in agreeance with The Tempest , propose the futility of seeking revenge through Felix’s confession after he exact his revenge through the hypophora “ Why does it feel like a letdown? ”.

Both texts didactically warn against the pursuit of vengeance yet explore reconciliation in distinct ways, reflective of their contextual influences.

Good vs Evil and the Alienation of the ‘Other’

Shakespeare represents the conflict between Renaissance Humanism and the predeterminism of Christian Providence through his portrayal of Prospero’s moral ambiguity. Prospero’s kindness towards Miranda and his altruistic reconciliation at the end of the play starkly contrast his cruel subjugation of Caliban and Ariel, and his shipwrecking of his enemies.

Alternatively, Shakespeare also explores the Christian Providence through his relatively one-sided judgement of Caliban to be the ‘evil spirit’ and Ariel as the ‘good spirit’. He presents how Prospero deems that Caliban, as Sycorax’s offspring, must be evil without hope for redemption. Ultimately Caliban is the alienated ‘other’ and his anger at his mistreatment drives his behaviour which ultimately, fulfils Prospero’s judgement of Caliban’s evil tendencies.

In contemporary society, this overly reductionist judgement of good and evil characters leads to incarcerated individuals struggling to reintegrate into society and being marginalised both within the system and after they complete their sentences. Reflective of this, Atwood presents the ethical depravity of individuals in power, such as Sal, and presents a more human side of the prisoners to challenge audiences’ assumptions about the personal characters of incarcerated individuals.

So, both composers blur the distinction between wholly altruistic or wholly corrupt motivations to challenge audiences’ assumptions about the prevalent perceptions of good and evil in their respective contexts.

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Forgiveness In The Tempest Essay

Forgiveness or Revenge Is it possible to let anger blind any other emotion? The Tempest by William Shakespeare, is the story of the mage Prospero struggling between revenge towards the people that banish him, and strip him of his Dukeship, or the act of forgiveness. The play consists of Prospero enacting his revenge fantasy towards those who have wronged him, his slave Caliban, an outspoken, deformed person, and Ariel, a magical spirit taking the shape of a human, who feels indebted to Prospero for freeing him from a tree.

In the play, Prospero struggles between choosing the side of good or evil; In the end the light in Prospero wins over, ultimately proving that in an inner conflict between good and evil, choosing the good inside oneself is hard to do, but in the end it is best. Prospero shows his transformation to becoming a better person through his ongoing treatment of Ariel, who represents the good that is trapped inside of him. When Prospero first speaks to Ariel about his job when it came to the people that he shipwrecked, Ariel asks when he will be freed. Ariel] I will be correspondent to command And do my spriting gently. [Prospero]

Do so, and after two days I will discharge thee. (1. 2. 352-255) When Ariel is saying he will be “correspondent to command” it is really a way of saying that Prospero’s good inside him is being poisoned by evil. The light is listening to everything the darkness is saying to do. The alliteration of the words is meant to emphasize how Prospero’s good is still there but is blinded by his evil. Prospero’s willingness to “discharge” Ariel, is Prospero’s way of saying he is willing to expel his inner light to the surface.

Prospero is implying that once he has finishes his revenge, he is willing to become good, but for now he is pushing the light inside of him down until he finds it of use. Prospero’s last act of magic was letting Ariel free. Prospero wishes Ariel the best saying, “That is thy charge. Then to the elements/ Be free, and fare thou well… ” (5. 1 378-9). When Ariel is let go, Prospero simultaneously let go his enslavement of the good hidden inside him, and by releasing Ariel to “be free” he was thereby releasing his inner light, to finally be good.

As Ariel represents Prospero’s inner good, Caliban in turn represents his inner evil. Caliban represents the inner darkness inside Prospero, as shown through the way Prospero constantly refers to him in a negative light. When the reader is first introduced to Caliban, the malformed child of an evil witch, Prospero commands Caliban whilst referring to him as a “poisonous slave, got by the devil himself / upon thy wicked dam” (1. 2 383-4). Prospero calls Caliban “poisonous” as a reference to his own inner tendency towards darkness.

Poison implies that the darkness inside Prospero is similar to a disease, creeping in, and slowly getting worse and worse. His hatred towards Caliban actually shows Prospero’s hatred of his own evil inside himself, and his desperate wish to get rid of it. Furthermore, towards the end of the play Shakespeare is talking about Caliban as a … demi-devil, For he’s a bastard one, had plotted with them [Trinculo, Stephano] To take my life… … This thing of darkness Acknowledge mine. (5. 1. 27-331) Prospero’s reference of Caliban as a “demi-devil” also reveals that he feels that Caliban is the evil inside of him, just as a devil is widely considered a great evil, but demi is placed in front of the word to show that Prospero feels he is only half bad, with a chance for change. It is also shown Prospero’s reference to “this thing of darkness” that he is talking about his inner darkness in correlation to Caliban himself.

The “darkness” he is referencing is that of his inner evil shown through his bitter use of the word. In contrast to the light of the the spirit Ariel, Caliban represents he evil inside of Prospero. Although he does not like it, he feels he has to admit it is there. Once Prospero finally acknowledges his own darkness he can take strides to rid himself of it. Prospero best shows his change, by showing how he is willing to no longer partake in his original fantasy of revenge. In the play, Ariel convinces Prospero to take pity on those he enacts revenge on. Prospero in response replies “Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury /Do I take part. The rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance… ” (5. 1 35-6,37-8).

This quote is the turning point in the story transforming Prospero from the bad person he used to be, to a decent human being. The choice to use the phrase “in virtue than in vengeance” is emphasized by the fact they share the same consonants. This phrase is purposely placed to stick out to emphasize that Prospero is choosing the moral high ground and is truly giving up his revenge fantasy for good. Prospero reveals that he no longer needs his magic for revenge when he says … I’II break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book. 5. 1 64-6)

Prospero is revealing that he associates magic with his previous darkness and is getting rid of it once and for all. His reference to putting his staff in “certain fathoms in the earth” shows how he views the staff as going to the underworld, where he believes it belongs. In other words Prospero thinks that his staff belongs in the ultimate place for evil. The act of drowning his magical book has a negative connotation as well, to show how the idea of magic as a whole is evil. By getting rid of all his evil possessions, he is also ridding himself of his own evil.

Overall Prospero can not become completely good without giving up everything evil that he is holding on to. Prospero’s inner conflict between revenge, and forgiveness is finally resolved when Prospero opts to choose to forgive those that have wronged him, showing that good can always prevail. Throughout the play it is revealed through Ariel representing the good inside Prospero, and Caliban, the bad, that Prospero finally chose to be good. Once Prospero can let go of all things bad in his life, and let in the good he is finally able admit what he has done wrong and begin a path to change.

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The Tempest The Theme of Revenge

The Tempest is a play with many themes and motifs which guide the story of the play through out. One of the main and most important themes in the entire play would be the theme of Revenge. The concept of revenge is the main object fuelling the story and the reason behind Prospero's strange actions. Act 2 of the play; introduces all the characters and presents an insight to each characters' psyche. This act is really important because it really introduces and sets up the storyline of the whole play.

After each of the character has been introduced in this act the audience is then able to distinguish the important elements of the story. The audience can begin to realize why Prospero has created the storm, why only these people have been caught in the storm and not the rest of the fleet? The base of the story has been set up and the most important theme in the play (Revenge) is beginning to be revealed. Revenge as a theme is in attendance during the whole play, but it is this Act where the theme is the most powerful and noticeable.

The act starts out with Adrian discussing the importance of the island and how it can be a wonderful place if people view it that way. Prospero has started to set up his game of revenge with great planning. Every action committed by Prospero is deeply influenced by his desire of revenge. The Tempest itself was conjured by Prospero to bring the people on that ship to his island so he could teach them a lesson. Prospero is a great man because even though he is taking his revenge he makes sure he does not hurt anyone. He does not make use of any hurtful means to get his revenge.

The revenge itself is purely based on the ideology of correcting a mistake for Prospero. Frankly Prospero is trying not to get his revenge in the sense of hurting anyone but he is trying to get them to learn a lesson and giving them a chance to realize what they did was wrong. The way Prospero sets up stages for each group of people on the island separately. Antonio and Sebastian show their brutality when they try to kill the king but this whole scheme was planned by Prospero beforehand and it didn't go exactly as planned and Antonio tried to kill Gonzalo as well.

Prospero always admired Gonzalo for his nature and this is why he decided to save his life. Prospero had a minor change of heart during the play, it is believable that he was more likely to have had tormented Alonso, Antonio etc. but he decided not to be so brutal and gave them a chance. Although his actions were driven by the craving for revenge but he realized that tormenting them wouldn't change them. Prospero wanted his life back and wanted his daughter to have a good life. Prospero's revenge was the right thing to do and it shows his character and personality.

It shows how he isn't a bad person and just wants the people that did this to him to learn a lesson and realize how cruel they have been. Prospero is an extremely smart person and Revenge isn't the only thing that influences his actions. He also relies on other factors that he wants to correct like his family and his situation at the moment. Prospero is able to get his daughter and the kings' son Ferdinand to fall in love so that their future can be fixed. Basically, what Prospero does in this act is to make the first steps into getting his life back to normal.

He wants to get his dukedom back and get his daughter what he thinks she deserves. Bibliography:1. 'NovelGuide: The Tempest: Theme Analysis. ' Novelguide: Free Study Guides, Free Book Summaries, Free Book Notes, & More. Web. 09 Jan. 2007. . 2. 'Revenge play: Encyclopedia II - Revenge play - Origins conventions and themes. ' Enlightenment - The Experience Festival. Web. 10 Jan. 2007. . 3. 'SparkNotes: The Tempest: Act III, scene iii. ' SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. Web. 10 Jan. 2007. .

Author: Angel Bell

Margaret Atwood

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Set in a idyllic Ontario town, Hag-Seed is Margaret Atwood’s retelling of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest . Just as the play’s protagonist, Prospero, seeks revenge on the man who steals his kingdom, Felix wants to get back at Tony , a former colleague who supplants him as director of a prestigious theater festival. For years after this act of betrayal, Felix is dominated by anger and bitterness. As his desire for revenge becomes more obsessive, it prevents him from building a fulfilling life and brings out the duplicitous and self-centered side of his character. Felix doesn’t get over these feelings until he’s finally able to avenge himself, but his vengeance takes the form of a clever scheme that actually benefits several other people. By presenting Felix’s final actions in this positive light, the novel shows the negative moral effects of a desire for revenge while also pointing out the ability of restorative action to provide fulfillment and closure after an instance of injustice.

At the beginning of the novel, Felix is dominated and crippled by his desire for revenge. He first appears brooding on his plot to get back at “that devious, twisted bastard, Tony,” whom he blames for ousting him from his directorial job and reducing him to living in an isolated cabin, teaching theater classes at a prison. Felix doesn’t have any friends, and he spends his leisure time obsessively observing Tony’s rise to political power on the Internet. While Tony certainly did Felix a disservice, it’s probable that he could find a better house or otherwise improve his life if he desired; in this sense, Felix uses his sense of betrayal to avoid challenging himself or confronting his insecurities.

Moreover, Felix’s desire for revenge leads him to make problematic moral choices. The theatrical revenge he eventually stages within the prison involves all the prisoners, exposing them to punishment or extended sentences; it also implicates Estelle , a prison advocate who stakes her reputation on his ability to do his job. In order to enact the scheme, he lies to almost everyone he knows, including people who have been kind to him for years. In this sense, his desire for revenge causes him to become as “twisted” and “devious” as the man he despises.

However, while Felix’s thirst for vengeance highlights the selfishness of his motivations, his revenge itself actually benefits all of the novel’s positive characters. Finding out that Tony and his political cronies, Sal and Sebert , are visiting the prison to see his play, Felix stages an “interactive” version of The Tempest during which he drugs and films his nemesis in order to destroy his political career. Tony is on the brink of announcing cuts to prison education programs like the one that Felix runs, but Felix uses the footage to blackmail him into increasing funding instead. He thus saves a social program that has proved immensely beneficial to the prison’s inmates.

He also takes the opportunity to throw together Frederick O’Nally , Sal’s son, and Anne-Marie, the tough but lonely actress playing Miranda. After the staging of The Tempest , the two young people embark on a relationship. While Felix uses his new power to reclaim his post as director of the theater festival, he grooms Frederick and Anne-Marie to take his place, improving their previously floundering careers.

Felix moves from seeing himself as a wronged and pitiable man to someone who can and does use his intelligence to help others. At the close of the novel, he’s less self-centered than he once was and more connected to the people around him, suggesting that he will be able to build a more fulfilling life in the future. Desiring revenge brings out the worst aspects of Felix’s character, but his method of achieving it demonstrates his good qualities and makes him a better person.

While the novel shows that an excessive hunger for vengeance can impair one’s ability to live a meaningful life, it steers clear of unrealistic platitudes about the importance of forgiveness. Rather, it shows how one’s worst impulses can be turned to personally and socially positive ends.

Vengeance ThemeTracker

Vengeance Quotes in Hag-Seed

His magic garment is hanging in there too, shoved to the back. The cloak of his defeat, dead husk of his drowned self.

No, not dead, but changed. In the gloom, in the gloaming, it’s been transforming itself, slowly coming alive.

This is the extent of it, Felix muses. My island domain. My place of exile. My penance.

My theater.

Fool, he tells himself. She’s not here. She was never here. It was imagination and wishful thinking, nothing but that. Resign yourself.

He can’t resign himself.

…the island is a theater. Prospero is a director. He’s putting on a play within which there’s another play. If his magic holds and his play is successful, he’ll get his heart’s desire. But if he fails…

Prospero says to the audience, in effect, Unless you help me sail away, I’ll have to stay on the island – that is, he’ll be under an enchantment. He’ll be forced to re-enact his feelings of revenge, over and over. It would be like hell.

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Guest Essay

The View Within Israel Turns Bleak

By Megan K. Stack

Ms. Stack is a contributing Opinion writer who has reported from the Middle East.

It was the pictures of Palestinians swimming and sunning at a Gaza beach that rubbed Yehuda Shlezinger, an Israeli journalist, the wrong way. Stylish in round red glasses and a faint scruff of beard, Mr. Shlezinger unloaded his revulsion at the “disturbing” pictures while appearing on Israel’s Channel 12.

“These people there deserve death, a hard death, an agonizing death, and instead we see them enjoying on the beach and having fun,” complained Mr. Shlezinger, the religious affairs correspondent for the widely circulated right-wing Israel Hayom newspaper. “We should have seen a lot more revenge there,” Mr. Shlezinger unrepentantly added. “A lot more rivers of Gazans’ blood.”

It would be nice to think that Mr. Shlezinger is a fringe figure or that Israelis would be shocked by his bloody fantasies. But he’s not, and many wouldn’t be.

Israel has hardened, and the signs of it are in plain view. Dehumanizing language and promises of annihilation from military and political leaders. Polls that found wide support for the policies that have wreaked devastation and starvation in Gaza. Selfies of Israeli soldiers preening proudly in bomb-crushed Palestinian neighborhoods. A crackdown on even mild forms of dissent among Israelis.

The Israeli left — the factions that criticize the occupation of Palestinian lands and favor negotiations and peace instead — is now a withered stump of a once-vigorous movement. In recent years, the attitudes of many Israelis toward the “Palestinian problem” have ranged largely from detached fatigue to the hard-line belief that driving Palestinians off their land and into submission is God’s work.

This bleak ideological landscape emerged slowly and then, on Oct. 7, all at once.

The massacre and kidnappings of that day, predictably, brought a public thirst for revenge. But in truth, by the time Hamas killers rampaged through the kibbutzim — in a bitter twist, home to some of the holdout peaceniks — many Israelis had long since come to regard Palestinians as a threat best locked away. America’s romantic mythology and wishful thinking about Israel encourage a tendency to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the main cause of the ruthlessness in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 35,000 people. The unpopular, scandal-ridden premier makes a convincing ogre in an oversimplified story.

But Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, the creeping famine, the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods — this, polling suggests, is the war the Israeli public wanted. A January survey found that 94 percent of Jewish Israelis said the force being used against Gaza was appropriate or even insufficient. In February, a poll found that most Jewish Israelis opposed food and medicine getting into Gaza. It was not Mr. Netanyahu alone but also his war cabinet members (including Benny Gantz, often invoked as the moderate alternative to Mr. Netanyahu) who unanimously rejected a Hamas deal to free Israeli hostages and, instead, began an assault on the city of Rafah, overflowing with displaced civilians.

“It’s so much easier to put everything on Netanyahu, because then you feel so good about yourself and Netanyahu is the darkness,” said Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist who has documented Israel’s military occupation for decades. “But the darkness is everywhere.”

Like most political evolutions, the toughening of Israel is partly explained by generational change — Israeli children whose earliest memories are woven through with suicide bombings have now matured into adulthood. The rightward creep could be long-lasting because of demographics, with modern Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews (who disproportionately vote with the right) consistently having more babies than their secular compatriots.

Most crucially, many Israelis emerged from the second intifada with a jaundiced view of negotiations and, more broadly, Palestinians, who were derided as unable to make peace. This logic conveniently erased Israel’s own role in sabotaging the peace process through land seizures and settlement expansion. But something broader had taken hold — a quality that Israelis described to me as a numb, disassociated denial around the entire topic of Palestinians.

“The issues of settlements or relations with Palestinians were off the table for years,” Tamar Hermann told me. “The status quo was OK for Israelis.”

Ms. Hermann, a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, is one of the country’s most respected experts on Israeli public opinion. In recent years, she said, Palestinians hardly caught the attention of Israeli Jews. She and her colleagues periodically made lists of issues and asked respondents to rank them in order of importance. It didn’t matter how many choices the pollsters presented, she said — resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came in last in almost all measurements.

“It was totally ignored,” she said.

The psychological barrier between Israelis and Palestinians was hardened when Israel built the snaking West Bank barrier, which helped to forestall attacks on Israelis toward the end of the second intifada — the five-year Palestinian uprising that erupted in 2000, killing about 1,000 Israelis and roughly three times as many Palestinians. The wall helped keep West Bank suicide bombers from penetrating Israel and piled extra misery on ever-more-constrained Palestinian civilians, many of whom refer to it as the apartheid wall.

Many Israelis, Ms. Hermann told me, are at a loss when asked to identify the border where Israel ends and the West Bank begins. Her research from 2016 found that only a small percentage of Israelis knew for sure that the Green Line was the border delineated by the 1949 Armistice. The question of whether this border should even be depicted on Israeli school maps has been a heated topic of debate within Israel; with a rueful laugh, Ms. Hermann described many of the classroom maps as “from the river to the sea.”

Such ignorance is a luxury exclusive to Israelis. Palestinians make it their business to know exactly where the border between Israel and the West Bank lies, which checkpoints are open on a given day, which roads they may and may not use. These are not abstract ideas; they dictate the daily movements of Palestinians, and confusing them could be fatal.

Israel’s uneasy detachment turned to rage on Oct. 7.

A handful of songs with lyrics calling for the annihilation of a dehumanized enemy have been circulated in Israel these past months, including “Launch,” a hip-hop glorification of the military promising “from kisses to guns, until Gaza is erased” and suggesting that the West Bank city of Jenin is under the “plague of the firstborn,” a reference to the biblical story in which God smites the eldest sons of Egypt. The smash hit “ Harbu Darbu ,” addressed to “you sons of Amalek,” promises “another X on the rifle, ’cause every dog will get what’s coming to him.”

“There is no forgiveness for swarms of rats,” another song goes . “They will die in their rat holes.”

Israeli shops hawk trendy products like a bumper sticker that reads, “Finish them,” and a pendant cut into the shape of Israel, with East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza seamlessly attached.

Israeli protesters have repeatedly taken to the streets in anguish over the hostages held in Gaza and rage at Mr. Netanyahu (who faced intense domestic opposition long before Oct. 7) for failing to save them. But the demonstrations should not be conflated with international calls to protect civilians in Gaza. Many Israelis want a cease-fire to free the hostages, followed by the ouster of Mr. Netanyahu — but the protests do not reflect a groundswell of sympathy for Palestinians or a popular desire to rethink the status quo ante of occupation and long-silenced peace talks.

If anything, with the world’s attention fixed on Gaza, Israel’s far-right government has intensified the domination of Palestinians. The single largest Israeli land grab in more than 30 years happened in March , when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the state seizure of 10 square kilometers of the West Bank. The land takeovers are accompanied by a bloody campaign of terror , with an ever-less-distinguishable mix of soldiers and settlers killing at least 460 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, the Palestinian health ministry says.

Meanwhile, inside Israel, the police have handed out guns to civilians and set up de facto militias in the name of self-defense. But questions about whom these newly armed groups are meant to defend, and from whom, have created a creeping unease.

The weapons have gone not only to West Bank settlements or towns adjacent to Palestinian territories and Lebanon but also to communities set deep in Israel’s interior, particularly places that are home to a mix of Arab and Jewish residents . An analysis published in January by the newspaper Haaretz found that while the national security ministry wouldn’t disclose which communities got gun licenses or the criteria used to decide, Arab communities — even those on Israel’s frontier — did not seem to be eligible.

The guns sent a chill through Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have often been invoked in defense of the state. Look, Israel’s advocates often say, Arabs live more freely in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East.

Hassan Jabareen, a prominent Palestinian lawyer who founded Adalah, Israel’s main legal center for Arab rights, told me that many Arab citizens of Israel — who constitute one-fifth of the population — live in fear.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have in the past provoked community protests, riots and clashes among Arabs and Jews in Israel. After Oct. 7, though, the message was clear: Stay quiet.

“The police left no doubt that we were enemies of the state,” Mr. Jabareen said, “when they started arming the Jewish citizens of Israel and called Jewish citizens to come to the station and take your arms to defend yourself from your Palestinian neighbor.”

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer who lives with her family in the Israeli city of Haifa, told me that these past months have been thick with unease. She has long imagined herself as a living holdover from the once-thriving Arab population that was largely displaced from what is now Israel. A “remnant,” she calls herself, who for years moved through Israel feeling invisible.

Now the sense of invisibility has melted. Both Ms. Buttu and Mr. Jabareen said that the current atmosphere in Israel had drawn closer and sharpened in their minds the mass displacement known in Arabic as the nakba, or catastrophe, as if history might yet loop back. Mr. Netanyahu evoked the same era when he referred to Israel’s current onslaught as “Israel’s second war of independence.”

“They didn’t see us,” Ms. Buttu said. “We were the ghosts; we were just there. And now it’s like, ‘Wow, they’re here.’ There is an interest in trying to get rid of Palestinians. We’re on the rhetorical front lines.”

Long before this current storm of violence, Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right government had worked to strengthen Jewish supremacy. The 2018 “nation-state law” codified the right to national self-determination as “unique to the Jewish people,” removed Arabic as an official language and established “Jewish settlement as a national value” that the government must support. Palestinian members of the Knesset famously shredded copies of the bill in Parliament and yelled, “Apartheid,” but it passed all the same.

In 2022, Israel reauthorized its controversial family unification law, largely barring Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens from receiving legal status — or living with their spouses in Israel — if they are from the West Bank or Gaza. The law also applies to people from the “enemy states” of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq (homes to Palestinian refugee communities), as well as Iran.

With legal disadvantages and social pressures mounting, Palestinian citizens of Israel have started to look abroad for support. Mr. Jabareen told me that his organization is preparing an application to the United Nations to request international legal protections for Palestinians inside Israel. In March a Palestinian citizen of Israel was granted asylum in Britain after arguing that returning would very likely expose him to persecution because of his political views and activism for Palestinian rights and Israel’s “apartheid system of racial control of its Jewish citizens over its Palestinian citizens.”

Another stark sign of Israel’s hardening is the hundreds of Israelis — mostly Arabs, but some Jews, too — who have been arrested, fired or otherwise punished for statements or actions regarded as endangering national security or undermining Israel’s war efforts. Even a social media post expressing concern for Palestinians in Gaza is enough to draw police scrutiny.

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a scholar who lectures at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Queen Mary University of London, said on a podcast that Zionism should be abolished, that Israel may be lying about the extent of sexual assault that took place on Oct. 7 and that Israelis were “criminals” who “cannot kill and not be afraid, so they better be afraid.” Israeli police responded in April by jailing Ms. Shalhoub-Kevorkian overnight and asking a judge to keep her locked up while they investigated her on suspicion of incitement. The judge decided to release her but acknowledged that she “may have crossed the line from free expression to incitement.”

For nearly two decades — starting with the quieting of the second intifada and ending calamitously on Oct. 7 — Israel was remarkably successful at insulating itself from the violence of the occupation. Rockets fired from Gaza periodically rained down on Israeli cities, but since 2011 , Israel’s Iron Dome defense system has intercepted most of them. The mathematics of death heavily favored Israel: From 2008 until Oct. 7, more than 6,000 Palestinians were killed in what the United Nations calls “the context of occupation and conflict”; during that time, more than 300 Israelis were killed.

Human rights organizations — including Israeli groups — wrote elaborate reports explaining why Israel is an apartheid state. That was embarrassing for Israel, but nothing really came of it. The economy flourished. Once-hostile Arab states showed themselves willing to sign accords with Israel after just a little performative pestering about the Palestinians.

Those years gave Israelis a taste of what may be the Jewish state’s most elusive dream — a world in which there simply did not exist a Palestinian problem.

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator who is now president of the U.S./Middle East Project think tank, describes “the level of hubris and arrogance that built up over the years.” Those who warned of the immorality or strategic folly of occupying Palestinian territories “were dismissed,” he said, “like, ‘Just get over it.’”

If U.S. officials understand the state of Israeli politics, it doesn’t show. Biden administration officials keep talking about a Palestinian state. But the land earmarked for a state has been steadily covered in illegal Israeli settlements, and Israel itself has seldom stood so unabashedly opposed to Palestinian sovereignty.

There’s a reason Mr. Netanyahu keeps reminding everyone that he’s spent his career undermining Palestinian statehood: It’s a selling point. Mr. Gantz, who is more popular than Mr. Netanyahu and is often mentioned as a likely successor, is a centrist by Israeli standards — but he, too, has pushed back against international calls for a Palestinian state.

Daniel Levy describes the current divide among major Israeli politicians this way: Some believe in “managing the apartheid in a way that gives Palestinians more freedom — that’s [Yair] Lapid and maybe Gantz on some days,” while hard-liners like Mr. Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir “are really about getting rid of the Palestinians. Eradication. Displacement.”

The carnage and cruelty suffered by Israelis on Oct. 7 should have driven home the futility of sealing themselves off from Palestinians while subjecting them to daily humiliations and violence. As long as Palestinians are trapped under violent military occupation, deprived of basic rights and told that they must accept their lot as inherently lower beings, Israelis will live under the threat of uprisings, reprisals and terrorism. There is no wall thick enough to suppress forever a people who have nothing to lose.

Israelis did not, by and large, take that lesson. Now apathy has been replaced by vengeance.

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Megan K. Stack is a contributing Opinion writer and author. She has been a correspondent in China, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Afghanistan and the U.S.-Mexico border area. Her first book, a narrative account of the post-Sept. 11 wars, was a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction. @ Megankstack