The Game Of "Stone" And "Angel"

The Stone Angel, written by Canadian writer Margaret Laurence, is the first novel of her world-famous Manawaka Cycle. The novel tells a ninety-year-old lady, Hagar Shipley’s recollections of her whole life, during which the pride in her character leads to her life-long loneliness and hard quest.The thesis mainly applies structuralist approaches, mainly the binary opposition and the deep structure, to interpret The Stone Angel. Based on Hagar’s upbringing environment and her entangled story with three generations, the binary opposition between female and male is analyzed. Due to the irreconcilable opposition between female and male, Hagar’s expectations for a decent life and innocent love become the opposites to the reality in the end. Through further exploration of the deep structure in terms of form in The Stone Angel, a narrative pattern is found. In addition, Lottie in the story turns out to be the key figure in the pattern repeatedly, and the inner conflict of Hagar can be seen from the binary opposition between Hagar and Lottie. From the analysis of the deep structure in terms of meaning, it is shown that Hagar’s pride and independence contribute much to her life decisions, which embodies the opposition of change and invariance. Actually Hagar’s pride directly derives from her father’s values, which represent tradition, as opposed to the other side of the binary opposition, the reality.A structuralist interpretation of The Stone Angel is worthwhile as not many have ever attempted to interpret it using structuralist literary criticism. Furthermore, through analyzing the game between Hagar’s "stone" character and "angel" nature, more general meanings behind the text will be investigated. From Hagar’s story, it is hoped to shed light to the readers:the road to gaining happiness lies in the realization of the inner harmony under the balance of tradition and reality.