17;t ever been free and that she has caused herself and others immeasurable pain and suffering. There is also the fact that Hagar doesn’t accept any help from anybody, because she is far to proud for that. Now, she feels as though pride has held her back from feeling joy throughout her entire life. Hagar’s last act of pride in life is her refusal to allow her nurse to help her drink from her glass of water by holding it up for her. Even at the end of her life, Hagar is too proud to accept help or admit that she needs it. Therefore, she dies alone, unhappy and unfulfilled but her pride was well alive. He life’s struggle fought until the very end. Hagar is a character who possesses incredible depth. She’s an old women who has never lost her spirit and free will. She is still being faced with obstacles which she must fight to overcome. Even as a young child, she believed that showing any sings of emotion was weak. Never losing her spirit or freewill, Hagar finds herself faced with different obstacles. Overcoming her fear of self-expression, her disappointment in Marvin and her world of appearances are all elements that Hagar finally understands at the end of her life. She learns what it means to be human. So, in the last days of her life, she comes to terms with her true emotions. Hagar had never realized that her whole life had been consumed with meaningful superficial details, only to serve her world of appearances. Throughout her life, she had never realized what she had become or what she was about, until she was on her deathbed. To conclude this analysis of the quest of Hagar Shipley’s life in The Stone Angel, I would like to express my amazement and intrigue toward Laurence’s creation of a character that is, fairly to say, very complex. For Hagar to realize the most important elements of her life near the end of it makes the novel rich, interesting and tragic. The tragedy here be...
