Tragic Faw In The Stone Angel

She is an unmarried orphan and described as beautiful and intelligent, however she is very vengeful and seeks for power. In addition to that, she is a liar, manipulative and selfish.

not at all impressed with it and does not understand why she is not considered beautiful like

To this the knight retorted with Biblical stories that state a man without a wife is bent on ruin. These stories cites the creation of Eve for Adam as proof that a wife is man's support, as well as examples of humble and devoted wives. January, wished to have a young wife of no older than thirty, for a young wife would be more pliable, but Placebo warned him that it takes great courage for such an aged man to take a young wife. He warned him of the misery that can come from taking a wife, for she could be shrewish or a drunkard, facts that a husband will not learn until well into the marriage. Despite the common opinion that Placebo has a wonderful wife, he knows what faults she has. They argue about the merits of marriage, with Placebo predicting that January will not please his wife for more than three years, but Placebo eventually assents to January's plan. January finally decided to take a young and pretty wife, foolishly believing that nobody would find fault with his choice. He spoke to Placebo and his friends about his choice, praising his intended wife. January, however, worries that a man who finds perfect happiness on earth as he would with his wife would never find a similar happiness in heaven, for one must choose between one perfect happiness and another. Justinus countered by stating that it is more likely that married men will get to heaven than single men. He muses that marriage might be January's purgatory.

we see her love for her daughters and her love for herself. Through this we see how her sacrifice

and set of values. She dies with pride and no regret for she died because she acted doing what

After an extended period of mourning, her father asked her why she would not remove her veil, for surely "the woman...led you into wickedness. How long will you mourn her, who deserves no mourning?" to which the girl replied, "It is my own...sin that I mourn." From then on she slunk about in rags and with ashes covering her face, forgotten by most everyone, and always sitting by the hearth, refusing to wash up, for she was "glad to be humble before God and men."

At the beginning of the novel Milkman visits Pilate's household on a regular basis. Seeing it a refuge from his exceedingly dull life, he involves himself in the lives of his relatives; especially in that of Hagar. Throughout his adolescence, Hagar brushes off Milkman's lascivious glances and displays of affection; however, as he matures, Hagar takes interest in Milkman and falls in love with him as she fulfills his sexual desires. Once Milkman's lust for Hagar abates, he chooses to unceremoniously dump her and seek others within his own social group to fill the void (or rather, for him to fill her void). Hagar, abashed, searches for Milkman's reasons for the sudden, unexpected change, but when she sees him with another woman her fury unleashes and initiates a colossal cascade of emotion that results in Hagar's monthly attempts to kill Milkman. Feeling that she deserves Milkman's love and attention more so than other women, Hagar rationalizes her actions with a very simple attitude: Milkman will either love me and include me in his life, or have no one at all. Hagar's need for Milkman's death soon vanishes, she cannot bring herself to murder the one she loves; however, this does not impede her from seeking other paths to Milkman's heart. Although Hagar's raging emotions result in

This carelessness is also shown when when Reba pawns her ring for a shopping spree for Hagar .And thus, inadvertently Reba and Pilate inadvertently kill Hagar with their love; because she is soaked in a storm after her impromptu shopping trip and develops a fever that “dried her eyes up as well as her mouth” and then she dies. Hagar’s negative motivations are directly related with her relationship with her mother and grandmother. If they hadn’t enabled her behavior, allowed her to face some rejection, and stopped trying to appease her constantly then the story would be have ended completely differently. This shows the complexity of Hagar’s relationship as Pilate and Reba continuously try to make sure that she is loved but their continuous babying is what helped lead her to her downfall. They continue to shower her with love until she is in her casket and “Pilate trumpeted for the sky itself to hear, “And she was loved! (517)”. Finally, while Pilate’s trio is closely knit to the extreme Milkman’s relationship with his siblings is the exact

She expresses herself in ways that are more destructive. Violence is the outlet Hagar sees in expressing herself. Her “graveyard love” for Milkman initially mutes her voice (148). His goodbye letter “sent Hagar spinning into a bright blue place where the air was thin and it was silent all the time, and where people spoke in whispers or did not make sounds at all, and where everything was frozen except for an occasional burst of fire inside her chest” (116). Hagar is hardly aware of her own emotions and finds it impossible for her to tell Milkman how she feels because she has no identity. Instead, Hagar turns to physical violence. She was a “doormat wom[a]n” that “wanted to kill for love, die for love” (336). When she tries to kill Milkman, she finds herself “paralyzed” by her obsessive love for him (150). Like Ryna, her love left her. When Milkman left and “dreamt of flying, Hagar was dying” (363). Hagar’s extreme obsession ultimately turns self-destructive and assists to the cause of her death. She spends her last hours in a frantic search for clothes and cosmetics that will make Milkman love her again. She dies convinced that “he loves silky hair . . . penny-colored hair . . . and lemon-colored skin . . . and gray-blue eyes” unlike her own (346). To Hagar, her African-American race and body are worthless if they do not attract Milkman; she was trying to create “this ideal of beauty” that she could never have (Pereira). Hagar’s dependence on Milkman and

As Hagar’s love for Milkman grows more and more obsessive, Morrison reveals the bitter consequences of life as a woman seeking intimacy in a strictly patriarchal world. In the beginning of the novel, Hagar is associated primarily with her female relatives, Reba and Pilate. Even then, well-fed Hagar declares, “Some of my days were hungry

The society was still not satisfied with this punishment and chose to pass their negativity on to their offspring. "Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast…as the figure, the body, the reality of sin" (83). The mothers of the children in the community would point her out and tell their children not to be like her. They would use her as an example of the consequences of being an individual and going against society's rules. "Children too young to comprehend wherefore this women so be shut out from the sphere of human charities… coming forth along the pathway that lead town ward; and, discerning the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a strange, contagious fear" (85). The fact that the community went to so much trouble to never let her forget what she had done, and the fact that she accepts societies condemnation, says she does not run away from her problems. As much as the community tries to totally ostracize her from everything, both physically and mentally she still sticks with it and that shows how she willingly accepts the consequences of her past decisions.

It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his

Margaret Laurence's story of The Stone Angel is about the life Hagar Currie an emotionless, stubborn and proud woman. Margaret Laurence uses this stone angel, originally bought by Hagar's father, to embody the qualities of Hagar. These virtues are often identical to those one assumes are possessed by the stone angel and are paralleled many times by Laurence. Throughout the novel, Hagar relives her life through her memories.

In the same fashion that the law binds the Biblical Hagar to Abram and Sarah, Hagar Shipley is bound by - as D. Blewett points out - the Currie code of values, the Shipley freedom, and the Manawakan elitist attitude, in addition to her own pride (Blewett 36). Hagar Shipley is a modernised version of the Biblical Hagar, in that, people can no longer be bound as slaves in western culture but are, quite often, bound by personal or social restraints, like Hagar is. Hagar's freedom is limited by the conflicting influences - internal versus external - in her own life. The Currie virtue keeps Hagar from expressing any outward form of emotion, which, ultimately, limits or ruins the majority of her relationships, including her marriage to Brampton Shipley. Initially attracted to the Shipley casualness and freedom, because it is the exact opposite to the Currie conformity, Hagar marries Bram, a poor farmer and social

Thanks to the characters described by Adichie, there are important questions to be raised concerning love and marriage: If today’s man or woman wants to get married, for what reason will he or she walk down that aisle? Is it just a means to an end? Is it the mere fulfilment of societal demands?