The Power Of Emotions In Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel

The Power of Emotions in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel: Hagar’s Emotional Development

Some people decide to hide their true feelings on the inside and refuse to allow others to see them express emotions. People can later notice that hiding emotions can have a negative impacts on them. The character Hagar in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel, is someone who keeps her feelings to herself; not allowing others to see how she truly feels or responds in emotional situations. For most of Hagar’s life she holds her feelings to herself, even at times such as the death of her loved ones. She does this because she believes that her pride is more important than showing emotions. Later in life, Hagar realizes that she needs to show her emotions

When Hagar is taken to the hospital for several days her son, Marvin, visited her on several occasions. When he visited on his own, without his wife, Doris, Hagar begins to show some concern for her daughter-in-law’s well being when she asks, “what’s wrong with Doris?”(264). Hagar and Doris did not have a positive relationship with each other, although Doris still attempted to do all that she could to help her mother-in-law in her old age. When Hagar begins to show some compassion for Doris it is a large step for her. Hagar is beginning to learn to care for others more as well as share her emotions. Hagar also begins to show some concern for others, as well as express her emotions towards a situation, when she finds out that her son John has been seeing Arlene. Hagar does not approve of her son seeing Arlene because after a party she brought him home and Hagar believed this would, “...to make it completely impossible for [her] to ever hold [her] head up again in [their] town” (199). Hagar does not care much for Arlene although later she begins to worry for their future together. Arlene explains to Hagar that she believes that John and herself will get married one day. This worries Hagar because, “[they] haven’t got a nickel between [them]” (201) and this may cause for them to not be able to

The transition of her emotional development from being someone that does not show her emotions to someone that freely allows others to see her emotions, was significant in The Stone Angel as it was something that helped define the protagonist, Hagar. If Hagar had appeared softer and more emotional, all the relationships in the book would have been deeper and more developed. Since Hagar kept everyone at arms length, the story shows the difference between a persons real personality and the public personality they chose to