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Self-Inflicted Isolation and Loneliness I never realized until this moment how cut off I am. (Laurence, 1988, 294) In the novel The Stone Angel, author Margaret Laurence portrays a lonely old woman by the name of Hagar. Over the course of the novel, Hagar reflects back on the memories that have created the story of her life. Hagar is a deeply lonely woman, and much of that loneliness is self-inflicted. This mental isolation is caused by her stubbornness, her pride, and the blindness that she has towards any opinion other than her own. Hagar Currie-Shipley is a very stubborn woman at the age of ninety. She is very set in her ways, and does not appreciate being told what to do.
The reader is introduced to this stubbornness when Hagar is brought to Silver threads nursing home to view the location. Upon this discovery, Hagar attempts to run away, only to find herself lost in a forest. However, this stubbornness is not a new characteristic of Hagar's, for she has been this way since early childhood. I wouldnt let him see me cry, I was so enraged. He used a foot ruler, and when I jerked my smarting palms back, he made me hold them out again. He looked at my dry eyes in fury, as though hed failed unless he drew water from them.
He struck and struck, and then all at once he threw the ruler down and put his arms around me You take after me, he said, as though that made everything clear. Youve got backbone, Ill give you that. (Laurence, 1988, 9 - 10) This passage shows Hagar's ability to hide her true emotions, which is a tool that she uses a lot later on in life. She later talks of making love to her husband, Bram, stating that even when she did enjoy it, He never knew. I never let him know. I never spoke aloud, and I made certain the trembling was all inner. (Laurence, 1988, 81) Also, early on in life, when her brother Dan was dying of pneumonia, she could not bring herself to perform his final wish. He cried for his dead mother, and Matt had asked Hagar to wear an old shawl, to act as their mother, and hold Dan, but Hagar could not bear the thought of portraying someone as weak as her mother.
Her heart seems to be made of stone, much like the stone angel that her father had imported from Italy for her mothers grave. Hagar kept all of her emotions bottled up inside. After Bram died, she did not allow herself to cry. It was only after the death of her favorite son, John, that she finally realized that she was transformed to stone. (Laurence, 1988, 243) Finally realizing that she is all alone in the world, only because she has chosen to be, she runs away, obviously finding that to be an escape from her problems, and seeks a life of her own, where she can be independent in Shadow Point.
And here am I, the same Hagar, in a different establishment once more, and waiting again. I try a little to pray, as ones meant to do at evening, thinking perhaps the knack of it will come to me here. But it works no better than it ever did. I cant change whats happened to me in my life, or make whats not occurred take place. But I cant say I like it, or accept it or believe its for the best. I dont and never shall, not even if Im damned for it.
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 by the night. (Laurence, 1988, 160) A major emotion that is shown in The Stone Angel is pride. Much of Hagar's loneliness is a result of her pride and the fact that she thinks that she is socially above everyone else, regardless of what happens to her. This pride is inherited from her father, who is very proud of his social standing, and flaunts it. He brings over the Stone Angel from Italy more to show his power than to remember his dead wife, as it was the first one in the area.
She hates the thought of being seen naked by Doris, her daughter-in-law, and also the thought of having Doris helping her change. What a disgrace to be seen crying by that fat Doris. (Laurence, 1988, 6) Actually, she hates the thought of being seen crying by anyone. Even at her sons funeral she never sheds a tear. In the hospital, immediately after Johns death, a nurse lets Hagar lean on her shoulder. She put a well-meaning arm around me. Cry.
Let yourself. Its the best thing. But I shoved her arm away. I straightened my spine, and it was the hardest thing Ive ever had to do in my entire life, to stand straight then. I wouldnt cry in front of strangers, whatever it cost me. (Laurence, 1988, 242) Hagar never wants to be viewed as weak, and takes all measures necessary to make sure of that.
Getting back to the fact that she could never pretend to be her mother for her dying brother in his deathbed, which was also out of her pride. She realizes that she could never pretend to be such a meek woman, to play the role of such a person. Her relationship with Lottie Dreiser-Simmons also displays her excessive pride. Even though Lottie is visibly better off than Hagar, she is only viewed as the low-class girl that Hagar knew while they were growing up. When John announces that he and Arlene, Lottie's daughter, are in love, Hagar cannot believe that her son could be going out with someone of such low social standing.
It almost seems as though she is jealous that Lottie now has money, where Hagar is now the one scraping for every last penny. Hagar always tries to look good for Lottie, and she seems to be in constant competition with her. The Simmons plot is just across the way. I said, and Lottie comes here every Sunday to put flowers on Telfords mothers grave, I know for a fact.
Do you think Id have her poking her nose in here and telling everyone? (Laurence, 1988, 179 - 180) No matter what, Hagar seems to stress the fact that she doesnt try to impress anyone, when it is obvious that she does. She strives to be perfect for Lottie. When she meets Murray F. Lees in her hideout, she tells him that his wife is unfortunate Fancy spending your life worrying what other people were thinking. She must have had a rather weak character. (Laurence, 1988, 227) This seems to be quite contradicting. This is another way that Hagar relates to the Stone Angel, in the way that her fathers pride is what brought the Stone Angel to be in the first place, and that Hagar has inherited this trait.
Hagar Shipley is also blind, not in the literal form of the word, but blind in a way that prevents her from acknowledging other peoples views and opinions. She sees things for face value. This is another way that she and the Stone Angel are related. The angel was created without eyes, which Hagar always thought to be strange.
Summer and winter she viewed the town with sight-less eyes. She was doubly blind, not only stone but un endowed with even a pretense of sight. Whoever carved her had left the eyeballs blank. It seemed strange to me that she should stand above the town, harking us all to heaven without knowing who we were at all. (Laurence, 1988, 3) Take for example her children, Marvin and John.
When Marvin was born, Hagar felt nothing for him, and thought that she would surely die in childbirth so it did not matter. It almost seems as though she is disappointed that she survived. Contrary to this, when she gives birth to John, she feels an instant attachment to him, thinking that he is the last chance for the Currie family, even though he is a Shipley. For their whole lives Hagar makes it known that she favors John, while Marvin does so much for her and tries to be everything that she could ever want. John treats her horribly and does not care what she thinks in the slightest. After Bram dies and John wants to marry Arlene against Hagar's will, Hagar and Lottie plot to separate the two and to send Arlene to Toronto.
When John tells Hagar about the move Hagar pretends to know nothing about it. John informs her that she always bet on the wrong horse, John said gently. Marv was your boy, but you never saw that, did you? (Laurence, 1988, 237) it really opens Hagar's eyes. She realizes that she has been wrong in her favoritism, although she will not admit it until later on after John is dead.
When she is lying in her hospital bed many years later, she lets this realization be known, telling Marvin Youve not been cranky, Marvin. Youve been good to me, always. A better son than John. (Laurence, 1988, 305) Sometimes these realizations come too late. The self-inflicted isolation that Hagar feels is a result of her stubbornness, pride, and blindness towards other views.
Her past has shaped her to become the bitter, stolid, rigid old woman that she is in the novel, also greatly contributing to her mental isolation. This isolation is a result of the personal decisions and actions that she has made throughout the course of the novel. Every last one of them has gone and left me. I never left them. It was the other way around, I swear it. (Laurence, 1988, 164)
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Research essay sample on Stone Angel Social Standing
