Pride is her fuel, and she intends to use the very last drop to sustain her independence. So was it when she refused to comfort her dying brother Dan when she was a child, so was it when she despised her remaining brother Matthew’s meek acceptance of death when he too later died, so is it now as she rebels against her son Marvin’s decision to send her to a nursing home. Fiercely independent, she has always sought her own way, and heeded only the bidding of her own will. Throughout her life, she has been raging against most anyone who wants to have a say in her life, first her father, then her husband, and ultimately, The Giver of that very Light.īorn the daughter of Jason Currie, a storeowner of Scottish descent and one of the founding fathers of Manawaka, Manitoba, Hagar takes after her father in her tenacity and brimming family pride. Readers soon find Hagar Shipley, the 90 year-old protagonist, doesn’t just rage against the dying of the light. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. The epigraph containing Dylan Thomas’ famous lines sets the atmosphere of this classic Canadian novel by Margaret Laurence: Now that the movie adaptation has just been released, I dust off my old copy and re-read it, wondering how much of the book I actually could appreciate when I first read it as a teenager. In Canada, if you miss it in Grade 12, you’re bound to read it in your university literature class. To read my review of the movie The Stone Angel (2007), Click Here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |