Gender Roles In Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel

The Stone Angel is a regarded as the masterpiece among five novels written by the Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence as a series in the 60’s. The story is plotted as a stream of consciousness of the heroine Hagar Shipley, a 90 years old woman who recalls her painful life since she was six and who finally finds freedom through self realization and acceptance of her femininity. Many philosophical, social and religious studies are made to understand and define Hagar’s flaw and to analyze the means she resorts to in order to free herself from pain. Although most readers of The Stone Angel have argued that Hagar’s pride, courage and rebellious nature against gender roles have brought her to misery, yet a closer examination shows that her misery

Many theories and studies have been dedicated to analyze and understand Laurence’s characters. However, this review will focus on the social and cultural gender aspects that contribute in the formation of the female heroine’s character (Hagar) who suffocates under the pressure of patriarchal society. This work has attracted the attention of many critics especially feminists. In an attempt to apply a feminist study on Hagar’s character, her flaw and the cause of submission and misery, Constance Rooke finds that there “a realistic tale of woman’s pride” (26) as there is a Christian context which helps measure the significance of pride in the novel. Rooke’s study traditionally explains that “Pride” is what leads to Hagar’s downfall: “Hagar’s pride is something like Eve’s and that is seen by the author as reprehensible, the cause of her fall from the garden” (26), as she signifies, Hagar inherits her father’s pride “…she has chosen instead to mirror her father’s pride” (27). What has Rooke noted is true, however, she hasn’t explained that reasons that lie beneath Hagar’s inheritance of her father’s pride which I pertain to cultural and social instructions of gender role and the instinct of survival. Nonetheless, Rooke has implied some hints about the effect of gender inequality and its effect on the development of Hagar’s flaw, where she notes that Hagar’s pride has encouraged male virtues and weakened her femininity (29), yet there is no sufficient explanation for this point. Furthermore, Rooke has pointed to the importance of the loss of the mother figure and its effect on the formation of character and gender identity, mentioning that Hagar’s loss of femininity is associated with the lack of mother figure, likewise she has stated that “as the