The Stone Angel Quotes

“The Stone Angel” by Margaret Laurence Pivotal Moment Essay There are many critical moments in a novel, but only a few of those moments intend to change a character and or the plot line of the novel. These moments are known as pivotal moments and they have the potential to shape the outline of a certain section of or even the entire text in a book. In the novel “The Stone Angel “by Margaret Laurence, there are substantial important moments but very few of these moments can be seen as pivotal moments. The plot line of the novel attempts to describe the life experience of a ninety year old woman, Hagar Shipley. Her father owns a very successful family business and so Hagar has a good life growing up. Hagar Shipley is a character who is a

Her husband Brampton is part of this excruciating problem as he is a very lazy man. It says in the text, “‘Let somebody else cash in,’ Bram said easily. ‘I got enough to buy what I want’” (pg.83). That quote tells the reader how Brampton is a very self centered man who cares about no one but himself. It also lets the reader infer the fact that since he is very self centered, he does not care that much about his family. Furthermore, it means that Hagar now has to do peculiar jobs that would have been unimaginable to her only a few years ago. Her marriage to Brampton Shipley ensures that she will have to be a hardworking woman, or else her family will suffer from the horrendous consequences. One of these peculiar jobs that Hagar has to do now is to become a housekeeper, cleaning rich people`s homes. It says in the text, “‘I’ll have to get a job. I could be someone’s housekeeper.’”(pg.141). In this quote, Hagar realizes that she can no longer sustain living her life that way she does with John currently. Consequently, she decides to become a maid, an unfathomable job for her only a few years ago. Instead, she sees the job as a way to sustain herself and her two sons, Marvin and John. All of this is due to her marrying Brampton Shipley, else she would have been enjoying the riches of life as a storekeeper. Her now having to do a job that is typically done by people i in the lower class exhibits her as a tragic hero who ruined herself with an error by judgement by marrying Brampton Shipley. In the book, Hagar is exposed to the pink collar jobs women in her time period had to do such as housekeeping and she is no longer naïve to the fact that the world is perfect as she had thought it was in her early years. To conclude, Hagar marrying Brampton Shipley is a pivotal moment in “The Stone Angel” by Margaret Laurence as she is changed in the fact that she