Litlove are you planning to read ahead! Just kidding… Chapter 8. Glad to hear you are enjoying the book.
There is a sentence where Hagar mentions wanting to cry and not being able to. I found that so powerful and sad. It’s obvious she has strong feelings yet has never learned how to express anything other than anger or pride. It’s sad that she was never taught or encouraged to show her emotions and so as an adult she feels it’s too late.

Litlove--He dies in chapter 8--towards the end of the chapter.  Hagar seemed pretty distant from her own father--to me anyway.  He was proud that she was so smart (smarter than her brothers), but being a girl it was an attitude of an education would be wasted on her.  Her mother died in childbirth, so she didn’t have that relationship, though she did have an aunt.  I think Marvin was about ten years older than John and he seemed to be much closer to Bram--he helped him considerably on the farm.  When he went to fight in WWI I don’t think she could even bring herself to touch him (though in her mind she thought about it)--it was more of a --you’d better get going your going to miss your train scenario.  She certainly had higher expectations for John and was willing to work hard and give up what she could for him, but since it was the depression she never could afford to send him to college.  She even gave him (I could be forgetting details) a pocket knife (I’m thinking it was a pocket knife anyway) to John rather than Marvin.  It was something her father gave her (again hopefully I’m getting details right) and it had the family motto on it.  In the end he gave it away and traded it for something else.

I think you would really have enjoyed this book--there’s so much to it!

Danielle

Oops--Iliana and I are on the same wavelength!

It’s interesting—I didn’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for Doris, unlike the rest of you.  I think I bought into Hagar’s point of view a little too much here—I was quick to believe Hagar’s interpretation of Doris and not to see beyond it.  Funny how persuasive Hagar can be!  Thinking about it now, I do see how Doris deserves sympathy, but as I read, I tended to see her emotions toward Hagar as fake.

I like the way Laurence didn’t even try to explain why Hagar married Bram—she leaves it a mystery, which made perfect sense to me.  People so often do mysterious things like marry exactly the wrong person.  The only bit of explanation she gives is to say that each of them married the other precisely for the quality they would soon come to hate—Bram for Hagar’s refinement and Hagar for Bram’s flouting of convention.  No wonder this marriage didn’t work ... I did find Laurence’s treatment of Hagar’s sexuality very interesting, the way she enjoyed sex with Bram but could never admit it.  Once again, her pride and her strong sense of boundaries get in her way.

Oh yes, I agree with you Dorothy. I didn’t buy that Doris was doing everything for Hagar just out of the goodness of her heart. But still she’s the one that did anything as Marvin just left Hagar up to her and this is her mother-in-law!

If Hagar had been a sweet and easy-going lady I don’t think I would feel as bad for Doris but having to take care of an elderly person and one who is so difficult, well, that is just overwhelming. I know I’m probably reacting this way too because I’ve seen quite a bit of this from a personal level so I’m bringing in my own history to this too.

I believe it was a plaid pin with the family motto that Hagar gave to John—which he gave away in exchange for a pocket knife, which he subsequently forgot about. Poor Hagar.

I think that Hagar’s mothering was one of extremes. She gave callous indifference to Marvin because he was a Shipley, to her, not of higher class, Scottish Highlander, Currie stock; and to Johnny was an oppressive, tyrannical attitude in which she gave no thought to his own character and tried to pour all of what James Currie gave to her—obstinate pride, arrogance, concern for tradition, ambition—into him. I think Johnny felt stifled. I can’t forget this scene when she’s packing up their things to leave Bram and move to BC for a better life. John is 12 years old here.

“Are we going to live with Marvin at the coast?” John asked.

“No. We’ll find a place of our own. I’ll have to get a job. I could be someone’s housekeeper...Like Auntie Doll...Well, I’ll not be like her, really. She was all alone. I’ll have a man in the house.”

“Who?” he asked, his voice rising. “Who?”

I put an arm around his shoulder. “You. You’ll be a help, I know. We’ll manage.”

He gave me the same look he’d given Bram that time the honeyed knife was thrust into his mouth. His face was still as stagnant water, and his eyes, those live bright eyes and watchful as bird’s, were shrouded against my glance.”

She writes the moment off as simple nervousness about living somewhere new!

Like Dorothy, I was really only indignant for Doris in relation to how all the care for Hagar was hoisted on her while Mavis sat about complaining. I never thought she was being entirely sincere in her relations with Hagar. Hagar doesn’t fault her for this much, either, said Doris would be an “imbecile” if she got any pleasure from it.

Thanks Imani, I knew there was a pocket knife in there somewhere--I just couldn’t remember what exactly Hagar had (and didn’t have a chance to look it up). 

I felt bad for Doris--she was left with taking care of her MIL, but at the same time I felt bad for Hagar, as Doris seemed like she certainly didn’t enjoy it (though can you blame her the way Hagar acted towards her).  I think neither liked each other much, and they were sort of stuck with each other. 

I also felt bad for Hagar when her grandson came to visit and she realized that she really knew nothing of his actual life, nor was she likely to--and he didn’t knbow anything about her life as a young woman.  Of course that’s only natural I supppose--it’s only now that my grandparents have passed away that I wonder so much about what their lives were like.  It’s too bad I didn’t ask when I had the chance, though most of them passed away when I was far to young to understand.  And how sad to think that your granddaughter’s wedding is being postponed until you die.

Danielle

I felt bad for Hagar’s children. The way she wrote Marvin off because he was like Bram, or so she thought, and focused all her attention on John. The scene when Hagar called the house of John’s friend only to find out that there was no boy there named Dave (it was Dave, wasn’t it?) was so sad. That John had to lie about having friends is telling. Hagar doesn’t seem to have any friends either.

I see Hagar as sort of repeating the mistakes of her father. He pushed Hagar into carrying all the family’s pride and aristocratic name to the neglect of his boys. Hagar puts it all on John, but he refuses it. Now, she is obsessed with her granddaughter Tina, who she seems to see as the one who will make the family proud.

All of the stories about betraying friends and fake friends and about not fitting in and being isolated are pretty excruciating, aren’t they?  The family in its various manifestations that Hagar is a part of has always been so isolated from others, and each person within that family is isolated too.  All the instances of failed communication make any moment of connection seem startling and almost miraculous.

At one point in my life I was a single parent caring for an aging parent. I love my mother dearly, but I felt like I was caught between a rock and a hard place. And at times this place was so small, so tight, I could barely catch a breath.

Not only was I lucky enough to have had a better relationship than Hagar, Marvin and Doris - I was a LOT younger. I can’t imagine having to care for my Mom at the age which Marvin and Doris appear to be in the book.

Margaret Laurence does an excellent job in letting us in on the details of this heart-wrenching situation. We get to see each side of the equation in a way where you feel sorry for everyone, but in different way. Not one of them handled it perfectly; they just did the best that they could with what they had available to them.

Hagar never made things easy for herself, nor for those around her. She hated pity and refused to ever think herself weak or frail. But here she was, 90 years old and growing more and more dependent upon others. Yet here were two people, willing to take her on - doing the right thing even though they received little in return for their efforts.

I can’t speak for Doris, but as for Marvin, he must have loved Hagar - or at least some small part of him did. And that is why he tried the best he could to take care of her. He was still that child standing in the doorway, watching his mother, waiting for a word, or words, which confirmed what he suspected. Doris loved Marvin and went along with him even though she didn’t want to, she knew that Marvin hoped in some small way that Hagar would finally say what he always hoped she would. That he was loved, and his efforts appreciated. In the end, Hagar finally offered him what he wanted, words which told him that she did appreciate him, “You’ve not been cranky, Marvin. You’ve been good to me, always. A better son than John.”

Hagar had so many issues, and it was Marvin and Doris who had to bear the brunt of it until the end. As much as I may not agree with some of their behavior, I cannot begrudge them for at least trying. My hat is off to the two of them, as well as to Margaret Laurence for developing these characters to the extent that is has caused me to realize that I have no call to beat myself up for any of the decisions I made when faced with the same. It could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse.

Hello All. I’m joining the discussion late and, reading back through it, I see that between you, you’ve already said most of the things that I said in my post. So much for offering up any new insight! This was my second read of The Stone Angel and, once again, I found it to be a marvellous, difficult, complicated read.

I didn’t identify as thoroughly with Hagar as I did the first time through so that I was able to give more thought to the circumstances of other characters such as Doris. But I was still very much captivated by Hagar’s voice, so that while I could appreciate intellectually how difficult life must have been for Doris, my heart remained with Hagar.

I’ve been thinking about the question of why Hagar married Bram. On one level, I think it was a rebellion against her father and the idea of spending her life acting the hostess for his dinner parties. But I think that there was more going on there. A couple of people have noted her difficulty in expressing affection generally, and physically affection in particular, even toward her sons. Bram is the one person that she did feel a strong physical connection to, right from the beginning:

“As we went spinning like tumbleweed in a Viennese waltz, diguised and hidden by the whirling crowd, quite suddenly he pulled me to him and pressed his outheld groin against my thigh. Not by accident. There was no mistaking it. No one had ever dared in this way before. Outraged, I pushed at his shoulders, and he grinned. I, mortified beyond words, couldn’t look at him except dartingly. But when he asked me for another dance, I danced with him.”

She also mentions remembering seeing him in the store before and that he was always laughing. He seems to represent a lack of inhibition that she wishes for herself and, perhaps on some level, believes that he could provoke in her. That in his company, she could break out of the armour she’s entrapped herself in. In the end, though, he’s not quite what she thought he was, and she’s not able to break free of her self-imposed chains. Even so, though, despite all the very good reasons for ultimately leaving him, till the very end she hangs on to the fact that he was the one person who called her by her name, as if he was the only person who reflected back to her a version of herself that she wanted to preserve. That’s a very powerful connection.

This is probably a stupid question, but is the cut off sentence at the end of the book meant to imply that Hagar died? I assume it does but I found it rather unsatisfactory. Fighting with Doris for a cup and then dead. I suppose it shows she kept fighting until the very end. I sort of wished there had been something more conclusive.

I’m so glad you asked that Stefanie--I was wondering myself, but then I thought I must have missed something (and didn’t want to admit to it).  I got that same impression that that was it.

Danielle

Dorothy W. - 02 March 2008 07:40 PM

All the instances of failed communication make any moment of connection seem startling and almost miraculous.

And makes it all more tragic since those moments are fleeting and never provoke any fundamental change.

Stef and Danielle I do think that the break off at the end meant that she had died. It worked pretty well for me because I remember one moment in the book (maybe during her time at the hospital?) where she wonders what it is like to die, how one experiences it, even though she knows that she can’t find out because, well, she’ll be dead. So I found the surprise of it, the abrupt interruption of her conscious, the way it seemed to rush at her and cut her off, to be a realistic portrayal and also in keeping with her character. Hagar is just not the sort to have any kind of prescient awareness that she’s about to go. =P

Imani - 05 March 2008 02:57 PM

Hagar is just not the sort to have any kind of prescient awareness that she’s about to go. =P

You’re right Imani. I guess I just hoped that even with her late epiphany she would at least try to change a little. Hagar has got to be one of the most frustrating characters I have ever met and still managed to enjoy.