Cantankerous, cranky and often befuddled at 90, Hagar isnt ready to give up her independence and go into an old-age home. Vivid, evocative, moving, The Stone Angel celebrates the triumph of the spirit, and reveals Margaret Laurence at the height of her powers as a writer of extraordinary craft and profound insight into the workings of the human heart. The Stone Angel is the story of Hagar Shipley. The titular angel can be seen as a representation of Hagar, her stony rigidity, and her tendency to suppress her emotions as a way to have power over others. We meet Hagar as a young girl growing up in a black prairie town as the wife of a virile but unsuccessful farmer with whom her marriage was stormy as a mother who dominates her younger son and, finally, as an old woman isolated by an uncompromising pride and by the stern virtues she has inherited from her pioneer ancestors. When she discovers that her son Marvin and her daughter-in-law plan to put her into a nursing home, she runs away into the woods. Hagar Shipley is stubborn, querulous, self-reliant, and, at ninety, with her life nearly behind her, she makes a bold last step towards freedom and independence.Īs her story unfolds, we are drawn into her past. This special fortieth-anniversary edition of Margaret Laurence’s most celebrated novel will introduce readers again to one of the most memorable characters in Canadian fiction. The film adaptation of Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel, starring acclaimed actresses Ellen Burstyn and Ellen Page, and introducing Christine Horne, opens in theatres May 9, 2008.
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