The Stone Angel
Compassion is the key to morality, and those who possess this quality are people of a caring and genuine nature. Margaret Laurence's character, Hagar Shipley, is someone to whom compassion is foreign. She lives a life obsessed with her public image and appearances, an obsession that leaves her bereft of true humanity. In The Stone Angel, Hagar Shipley lives a life blinded by her pride, ignorant of real emotions and feelings; it is only through penance and atonement is she able to find inner peace and personal salvation. Accomplish The stone angel is the central image in the novel, and one that represents the main character as being "doubly blind" (3). Hagar allowed her pride in herself, her social position and her family to control her self-image, making her cold to the needs of the heart. As a child Hagar will not subject herself to anything below the standard that she set for herself. This is the sole reason for her refusal to pretend to be her dead mother in order save her brother Dan, "[t]o play at being her...was beyond me." (25). Hagar is unable to give the comforting love of which Dan was in desperate need. She is unable to reduce herself to acting as something she is not, to show compassion or tender emotion is impo
Hagar asks herself, "[h]ave I grown so weak I must rejoice at being captured. She comprehends the nature of her ways and is able to gain a sense of self, which is necessary for her to make a clean break from the Earth. It is unfortunate that at this point she is not completely able to accomplish this task. Her sin of taking his business matters into her hands cost her her favourite son. The acceptance of her weakness, a sign of her humanity, leads her to feelings of remorse. Hagar suddenly recognizes the error of her ways, she knew she was being unreasonable and attempted to cease. Hagar is able to rejoice after her salvation is achieved through the acceptance of her sins and the redemption of her emotions. The final and most significant episode occurs shortly after this initial stride. Hagar becomes publicly ashamed of Bram after he proclaims in church, "won't this saintly bastard ever shut his trap?" (89). "We come to understand as well as the social forces-familial, patriarchal, and puritanical-which have led her to this distortion and that very pride which we deplore in its outer workings, as well as for Hagar's sake, is revealed to us as a means of survival. Hagar regrets that she did not have more sympathy to the people in her life. Hagar's proud strength renders her unable to express the emotions she does feel and incapable of dealing with strong emotions in others. She is strong in her ways of "proper appearances-restraint and inhibition and self-control, pride and fear and stubborn refusal to enjoy. At John's funeral Hagar presents herself as rigid so as to deny others of the satisfaction of knowing her tender emotions.
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Acceptance Essays
