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.