The Character Of Hagar: Character Analysis Of Manawakan Values

With hatred in her mind she often remembers Manawaka with its uglier aspects like the dump: “Here were craters and cartons, tea chests with torn tin strippings, the unrecognizable effluvia of our lives, burned and blackened by the fire that seasonally cauterized the festering place” (26). She identifies herself with wild and passionate nature as well as refutes the town proprieties.
Hagar’s duality and ambivalence towards Manawakan values is revealed as she simultaneously seems to flout as well as continue those. It gives way to the development of her complexity as a character that remains with Hagar throughout her life and affects her relationship with others. She finds herself unable to express herself to either of her brothers. She wanted

Her ancestral pride takes her beyond the ordinary and gives her personal growth and individuality. She seems to equate her pride with strength of character when she says: “I prided myself on keeping my pride intact, like some maidenhead” (81). She realises her duality and the fact that only the exterior self is not real. When she sees herself in public mirror she is scared and says, “Only the eyes were mine, staring as though to pierce the lying glass and get beneath to some truer image, infinitely distant” (133). Hagar learns to reconcile the two opposing warring forces lying in her and demonstrates personal growth. She acknowledges that she has put on the mask of Manawakan facade and it certainly has cost her something very important in her life and it is explicitly shown by Laurence through Hagar’s flashback

The sea is linked with the apocalyptic vision of hell and Frank Pesando has termed it as “sinister”. The place was full of overgrown wild plants, the chill sea was full of “sly-eyed serpents”, monster whales and the “phosphorescent creatures dead to the day time” but Hagar took it in purgatorial terms (224-25). She seeks her identification with the creatures there – fish scaled and writhing and clams with fluted shells pried open and it manifests the way to her redemption through suffering. In D.G. Jones’ view Hagar visits these for her reclamation. Enduring extreme cold and sickness with a bout of hallucination she feels being forgiven by John. She does redeem herself and forgives Mr. Lee and shows kindness and humility for all after this instance of purgation. Hagar must attempt to integrate her fragmented self into her whole individuality and acknowledge the role of her background in structuring