Fletcher Correctional Facility (Metaphor)
Fletcher Correctional Facility serves as a metaphor for the act of revenge fantasy and wish fulfillment. The prison is an environment full of unfamiliar operations, people, and events, all of which Felix, like Prospero, is able to control and bend to his singular will as the revenger.
Miranda (Metaphor)
Felix's daughter Miranda is a metaphor for his obsession with unfinished business or unresolved issues in his life. He sees her constantly and imagines that she is living with him in the shanty and attending rehearsals of the play. Felix carries the memory of his daughter around, much like he carries around his desire for revenge. The novel even suggests that part of the reason Felix wants revenge is because he lost his daughter when she was so young.
The Tempest (Metaphor)
The play that Felix decides to produce at Fletcher Correctional Facility is a metaphor both for his own life -- characterized by grief and revenge -- and for the process of literary engagement more generally. Through close study of The Tempest, Felix is able to overcome his grief and enact his revenge. The inmates at Fletcher are similarly granted the opportunity to think freely and creatively while they work on the production of the play.
Anne-Marie Greenland (Metaphor)
Anne-Marie plays Miranda in the prison's production of The Tempest. While Felix originally sees her as an innocent and girlish personality, Anne-Marie proves a formidable dancer and actress with a tough attitude. In this way, she represents well the character of Miranda in The Tempest because, as Anne-Marie notes in the final section of the novel, Miranda is at the mercy of her father's control but is still a strong, savvy young woman who has learned to navigate the island on her own as well.
The Theater (Metaphor)
Throughout the novel, the theater is privileged as a place of freedom and creative expression while also serving as a space of control and containment. Felix mentions that Prospero himself is imprisoned by the play, and this assertion at the end of the novel suggests that the theater serves different purposes for audiences and performers alike. Ultimately, the novel raises the question of what kind of "freedom" can exist in a literary and performative medium that has been around for nearly six centuries.
