Analysis of the Character Hagar in Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel

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An Analysis of the Character Hagar in Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel

The main character in the novel The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence, is a character who possesses incredible depth. Hagar is an old women who has never lost her spirit and free will. Hagar is still being faced with obstacles which she must fight to overcome. Since Hagar is a character who is not perfect, the audience is capable of relating to her. The tragic hero through his struggle and the recognition of his own shortcomings reveal man's essential or potential nobility, and we are ennobled, uplifted by the spectacle.

Hagar Shipley can be considered a tragic hero because through her struggles she managed to retain her spirit and free will, which she exhibited throughout the novel. Even as a young child Hagar believed that showing emotion was a sign of weakness. She once said " I wouldn't let him see me cry, I was so enraged " ( p. 9 ) after her dad smacked her hand. When asked to hold her dying brother, her inability to show fear prevented her from portraying her deceased mother. Her reason was, " I can't. I'm not a bit like her" ( p. 25 ). Unable to communicate with a member of her own family shows another weakness, "Later in the train, I cried, thinking of him, but, of course, he never knew that, and I'd been the last to tell him" ( p. 42 ). Influenced by her father's lack of communication, Hagar's solution to a difficult situation is to ignore it or hide from her problems instead of dealing with them in a mature and open fashion. In an attempt to ignore her failing health, she runs away from Marvin and Doris. " So I merely sit on the bed and look out the window until the dark comes and the trees have gone and the sea itself has been swallowed ...

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... was capable of relating to her. " I would have wished it. This knowing comes upon me so shatteringly, and with such a bitterness as I have never felt before. I must have always, always have wanted that- simply to rejoice. How is it I never could? I know, I know. How long have I known? Or have I always known, in some far crevice of my heart, some cave too deeply buried, too concealed?" ( p. 292 ). The audience is capable of relating to what Hagar has said because the feelings she has expressed in this quotation are feelings many individuals experience. Hagar's life story is proof that a life of strength and stubbornness was not a life that was fulfilling or satisfying. The tragedy being that an individual often only realizes his/ her mistakes when it is already too late.

Works Cited

Laurence, Margaret. The Stone Angel. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1964

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