Stone Angel By Margaret Laurence Essay, Research Paper
The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence is a heart-warming story of a
ninety year old woman who is nearing death and who has very little to look
back on with pride. Her life had been ruled by her concern of outward
appearances and manners. Although she often felt love and happiness, she
refused to show it fearing it may be viewed by others as a weakness. Hagar
inherited this strong pride from her father, Jason Currie, along with other
poor qualities. Throughout her life, Hagar is desperately trying to escape.
First, she tries to escape from her family, mostly her father, but in so
doing she also cuts herself off from her brother, Matt. She also ends up
leaving her husband, Brampton. Secondly, Hagar tries to escape from her
own poor qualities to which she is captive; attempting to fill the
emptiness within her. Finally and futilely, she tries to escape death. All
of these attempts fail dismally. Throughout the narration of the novel many
images are put forth repetitiously to aid the development of Hagar’s
character and the main themes. The Stone Angel is a very effective story
due largely to the biblical, water, and flower imagery.
The biblical imagery is very strong and can be found numerous times
throughout the novel. The name of the main character, Hagar, is also the
name of a hand maid in a biblical story. Many parallels are made between
Margaret Laurence’s Hagar and the biblical Hagar. The Hagar in the bible
was to conceive a son with the husband of her owner, Sarah, who, herself,
was unable to conceive. Hagar did bear a son but Sarah became very jealous
of Hagar and had her thrown out into the wilderness. Hagar’s son was born
and they both returned to the place where Sarah and her husband, Abraham
(Laurence’s husband to Hagar was named Brampton to echo Abraham), lived.
Hagar and her son were cast into the wilderness once again when Sarah bore
a son of her own and Hagar’s son, Ishmael, mocked Sarah’s child. Nearing
death, Hagar and her son were saved by God who provided them with a well of
water. The Hagar in The Stone Angel is very similar to the Hagar in the
bible. Laurence’s Hagar became a housekeeper to Bram after she married
him, which is ironic for a woman with her qualities. Hagar realizes this
and sees herself as a bondwoman (this is also how the biblical Hagar is
described); therefore, she feels trapped like a prisoner. Hagar says, “I
was alone, never anything else, and never free, for I carried my chains
within me,” (pg. 261) thus showing Hagar as a captive of her position,
emotions, and her pride. The two Hagars are also very similar in that they
both go into the wilderness. Hagar Shipley goes out into the wilderness
when she leaves her father to marry Bram and live on his farm. The
difference between the two Hagars if that Hagar Shipley is not confronted
by a divine manifestation like the Egyptian Hagar. Hagar’s vision and
realization comes when she and her favored son, John, leave home. Hagar
slowly begins to see John’s true character. Hagar Shipley wished her son
was like Jacob, a faithful son in the Old Testament; however, she soon
realized that he was not like Jacob. When Hagar returned to Manawaka, the
statue of the stone angel had been pushed over and she requested that her
son, John, fix it. Hagar says, “I wish he could have looked like Jacob
then, wrestling with the angel and besting it, wringing a blessing from it
with his might. But no.” (pg. 159). Hagar’s second journey into the
wilderness was when she fled to Shadow Point. Here, Hagar realized that her
other son, Marvin, was her Jacob and that she had favored the wrong son.
The Hagar in the Old Testament bore a wild son, Ishmael, but she also
created a faithful son, Jacob (descendent of Isaac). The parallels between
The Stone Angel and the biblical Hagar are so strong that the effectiveness
of Margaret Laurence’s work rises dramatically.
The water imagery presented many times in the novel helped to develop
the theme of death. As everyone knows, water is viewed as the center of
life since, without it, life would cease to exist. An example of this is
when the drought occurred in Manawaka. Hagar returned during the drought
to find all of the Shipley’s flowers and vegetables dead. “They’d had no
water this year,” says Hagar, not yet realizing that she, too, has lived
most of her life in a drought. The water she was deprived of was that of a
wild and free spirit that could express itself without restraint. Hagar
experiences an actual lack of water when she goes on her sojourn at Shadow
Point. She had gone shopping on the way to her destination and had
forgotten to buy water. “I’ve not had a drop of water since – I can’t
remember how long it’s been. A long time… Water, water everywhere nor
any drop to drink. That’s my predicament,” (pg. 166) thinks Hagar. This
had always been Hagar’s predicament; life always surrounded her but she
could never have a taste of what life really meant. Hagar’s inner feelings
and emotions had been dying of thirst all her life and now she feared she
might physically die of thirst. After being found at Shadow Point, she was
brought to a hospital where she was to die. As she lay in her death bed she
requests a glass of water to quench her thirst and says as her
daughter-in-law tries to help her,
“I only defeat myself by not accepting her. I know this – I know it very
well. But I can’t help it – it’s my nature. I’ll drink from this glass, or
spill it, just as I choose… I wrest from her the glass, full of water to
be had for the taking. I hold it in my own hands.”
The drink of water symbolizes a cleansing of herself, of her guilt.
Even in her final minutes of life her pride won’t allow her to accept her
daughter-in-law’s help. This glass of water was an attempt at rejuvenating
herself for life after death.
The flower imagery aids the story by showing the two opposing ways to
live your life. In the novel there is imagery of wild flowers and of
cultivated flowers. Much like people, some are wild and others are tame or
predictable. Hagar lived most of her life like a cultivated flower. Her
inner responses are natural and wild; however, externally she acts
rationally and tamely in fear of her overall appearance being effected if
she acted spontaneously. Cultivated flowers symbolize death in that they
are not permitted to grow freely and naturally, the very cause of their
existence is being destroyed by their unnaturalness. The perfume “Lily of
the Valley”, which was given to Hagar by her granddaughter, Tina, was a
symbol of death. Hagar says to herself, “I would not expect her to know
that the lilies of the valley, so white and almost too strongly sweet, were
the flowers we used to weave into the wreaths for the dead.” (pg. 28).
(This was foreshadowing Hagar’s death). Hagar held a high affection for
lilacs, the flowers which grew at the Shipley place. These flowers were
not taken care of and they “hung like bunches of mild mauve grapes”.
(pg.25). Similarly, Hagar did not care about living a normal, natural
life, which caused her to be in miserable conditions, much like the lilacs.
When Hagar returned to the Shipley place years later, all the flowers were
dead. Her lilacs were “burnt yellow, and the branches snapped if you
touched them,” (pg. 150) and her marigolds, which she always took care of,
were “a dead loss”. (pg. 150). The death of her marigolds showed how
creating life artificially will not work, since her marigold were
cultivated continuously. Hagar’s life was lived artificially, with very
little naturalness or spontaneity, thus she stifled her enjoyment of a free
life for the sake of appearances. When Hagar went off on her final journey
of self-discovery, she realizes she has led a poor, artificial life and
although this realization has come very late in her life, she tries to do
away with this pretentiousness. At one point Hagar takes off her hat which
was “a prim domestic hat sprouting cultivated flowers” (pg. 193) and
replaced the hat with dead June bugs, in an effort to be natural.
There is other imagery (such as mirror imagery) which also helps to
develop Margaret Laurence’s story; however, it wasn’t personally seen as
powerful as the ones discussed. All the imagery throughout the novel helps
the themes, characters, or plot to be more effective. The biblical imagery
aids the development of Hagar’s character and the plot. The water imagery
helps to establish the theme of death and to attempt the impossible -
escape from death. The flower imagery showed the way Hagar lived her life
and the way she should have lived her life. Margaret Laurence is brilliant
in her use of imagery to further propel the strength of her story. Without
this outstanding application of imagery, the novel The Stone Angel would
not be nearly as powerful as portrayed.