Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel Essay

Margaret Laurences The St peerless Angel is a novel, which depicts the conclusion days of life of the patron Hagar Currie-Shipley. soak, loneliness and final journey to decease are the main themes of the novel. The temper of Hagar is transformed through the novel and the readers kitty see different stages this dis utilise woman comes in her perception of some some oppositewise hoi polloi, life and demise. Multiple flashbacks founder us idea to the highest degree the life of the main character and people who surround her. Margaret Laurence goes further than mere description of regular(a)ts. Deep investigation of Hagars beliefs, thoughts and ideas present non solely a valuable investigation of gaga ladys inner world, but withal make the readers to confer on much(prenominal) heavy themes as love, friendship, pride, sustainance of death and glide path in terms with ones human bes.Margaret Laurence wrote in one of her interviews that she was not sure if the last days of ninety-year old woman could be an interest reading for the wide audience. exactly she dared and fulf unhingeded her idea and the novel became normal among the readers. It was included into several(prenominal) study courses soon subsequently it was published. The subject moved(p) in the novel echoed in the hearts of the readers and they were ready to share an arrive of destruction woman and reflect on the themes of pride and loneliness.Pride is the exceed characteristic of the main character. All Hagars life is dedicated to one ultimate purpose she wants to make a good appearance by any operator. Any manifestations of emotions she regards as weakness, which should be avoided by any means. The detect of the novel operates a symbol for this pride, which makes the main purpose of Hagars life. From primordial age she feels superior to other children. An casualty on the Manawak dump is in truth characteristics for better understanding of Hagars character.When Hagars f riend Lottie killes small chicks in the Manawak dump Hagar sprains greatly impressed by this accident. This accident made such a great impression on Hagar that she was not able to lead close to it during all her life. Many days later she retold this accident to Lottie after the death of their children. This accident had such an impression on Hagar not only because of her extra sensitiveness. For her killing birds became manifestation of strength. This strength was manifested by her shy friend.As Hagar herself describes her Lottie was light as an eggshell herself, and I felt surly toward her slightness and pale fine hair, for I was tall and sturdy and dark and would absorb liked to be the opposite (Laurence,. 27). Comparing herself to Lottie Hagar suddenly came to realization that she was weaker than decoct and shy girl she disdained. This accident became one of the turning points in the sightly of Hagars per passwordality and shaped out all her further life. An accident in t he Manawak dump made Hagar obsessed with pride and desire to handgrip a good appearance in front of people by any mean. Pride became sense of life and she was ready to sacrifice everything to this ideal. She did not make any exceptions, until now for her dearest people.Being hangdog to become weak, she even refuses to pretend being her mother when her dying brother asks her closely this. She refuses to do so because she believes her mother was a weak per male child and Hagar is afraid even to pretend being weak. Pride does not let Hagar to accept the choice of her son to marry Lotties daughter. She sees their relations as a joke of God if people had told me forty years ago my son would fall for No-Name Lottie Driesers daughter, Id have laughed in their characters (Laurence, 204). She boldly takes Gods challenges and decides to destroy their relationships. For this purposes she even turns to Lotties process. Hagar is stubborn and self-assured enough to make the decisions for o ther people and their future.She does not take feelings of other people seriously and even happiness of her own son does not count in comparison to her own ambitions. She does not hesitate even for a minute when making a decision to destroy crappers and Arlenes relationship. Hagar burys her own youth when she did not listen to anybody and espouse the man she had fallen in love with. I saw them with a covey of young, like Jesss had been, clustered like fish spawn, children with run noses and drooping, handed-down pants four sizes too large. I couldnt face the thought. (Laurence, 211) She is absolutely sure in her right and power to decide the destinies of other people and such attitude finally results in a tragedy. Pride and aesthetic feeling become main reasons, which define all Hagars behavior.Obsession with the importance of appearance becomes a reason, which destructs Hagars life. This concern about appearance prevented her from enjoying physical love with the husband. Inner rules and restrictions did not let her to forget about morals and appearance even for a minute. Doing her best to keep up a good appearance she does not even cry on the funerals of her beloved son.Death is another important theme of the novel. All Hagars life becomes a constant battle with death. Since early years she denies death and destructions and since these very early sentences they follow her step by step. flavor an approach of death, Hagar tries to escape this reality and looks for the mean to deceive death. In the ascendant she turns to memories and recollects the pictures from her past. Childhood memories, marriage and children, all these memories help Hagar to create her own reality where there is no place for death. She target not even stomach thoughts about death.In her reflections she states Hard to imagine a world and I not in it. Will everything stop when I do? mistaken old baggage, who do you think you are? Hagar. Theres no one else like me in this world (Lau rence, 255). such a plaza reflects selfish attitude and pride. Hagar can not believe that the world can exist without her. When Hagar realizes that she can not escape from reality any more than aggression and desire to change something replaces all other feelings. Hagar rejects help of other people and tries to fight down death. She can hardly control her feelings and anger becomes a mean to express her protest against the existing order of the world. The realization become difficult because death is that phenomenon, which Hagar tried to escape by any means since early childhood.From the very moment when Lottie killed chicks Hagar did not want to confess even to herself that death was a natural part of the world. She rejects any kind of help and perceives Marvins attempt to put her in the nursing home as a humiliation. Only after long period of inner fight Hagar finally comes in terms with the reality. Acceptance of the world roughly her becomes bran-new experience for Hagar. She finally comes to hard realizations that her will and proud can not control everything in the world and there are things she has to perceive as they are, not attempting to improve them. Ability to see different attitudes of the problem also becomes new experience for Hagar. As she states, how you see a thing it depends which side of the fence youre on (Laurence, p. 224)May be for the first time in her life Hagar realizes that there are other people around her and these people also have feelings, thoughts and emotions. Such simple conclusion becomes a very serious breakthrough for this strong and proud woman who used to control everything and everybody during all her life. Hagar finally starts counting with the will of other people. She does several mercy deeds, which are done not because of some aesthetic abide by or in the attempt to make a good appearance. Hagar helps ill girl who can not get up. Later she talks to her son and tells him she loves him more than John, who died in the car accident. These put throughs require enormous amount of Hagars inner force. Simple acts of mercy are so new to her that she can not perceive them as something normal, like most of the people do. This sack becomes the greatest accomplishment for Hagar.She lies to Marvin in the name of love. This lie is very vividly apposed to her proud refusal to lie for the sake of her dying brother many years ago. All these changes become a vivid indicator of big transformation, which happens to Hagar during the last days of her life. She finally realizes that there are things, which are more important than pride and good appearance, which have determined all her previous life. Such things as compassion, friendship and love for the first time uncover their original meaning for Hagar. The author uses the death to show the change in the linear perspective of the main character and to let the reader follow the person who leaves this world.From the other side new realization does not ch ange her proud and freelancer nature. Hagar is still afraid and feels lonely, but she does not fight her destiny and the all in all world any more. She makes her final decision to leave the world being proud and independent, like she has spent her whole life. In the last moving-picture show Hagar, dying, rejects the help of the nurse to help her drink some water. She does it herself and this usual action which we do several times a day becomes an exploit for dying woman and proves her independence and power of her spirit.Margaret Laurence has chosen a difficult thing for her novel. She depicted the last days of the old woman left unsocial in her world, surrounded by the memories of the past and lonely in her freewill isolation. The author describes different stages Hagar passed before her death and analyses her emotional conditions during these stages. But we get through death several times during the novel. We see in the memories of Hagar who lost intimately all her dear pe ople but didnt think about the death like about something which could happen to her. The death is described without embellishments and exaggerations. But ordinary and routine descriptions help to get better understanding of the death and, finally, of life.Works Cited1. Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel, New Canadian Library, Toronto, 1968.