Use of Biblical Imagery in Margaret Laurences The Stone Angel :: Stone Angel Essays

Use of Biblical Imagery in Margaret Laurences The St hotshot AngelIn the novel The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence introduces a computer address who seems to evolve her life around biblical imagery. Hagar Shipley, a ninety year-old woman, does not accept things easily, like life. Hagar is recognize as a biblical imagery because of her name. Hagar is introduced and recognized in the Old Testament as the Egyptian hand-maiden of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. By reason Sarah was unable to provide offsprings for Abraham. Since Sarah could not concieve, she gave her servant, Hagar, to her husband, so she can produce replacement under Abrahams name. And Sarah said unto Abraham, Behold now, the Lord that restained me from bearing I pray thee, go in unto my maid it may be that i may beat children by her. And Abraham hearkened unto the voice of Sarah... And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceieved, her mistress was aespised in her eyes. (Genesis 16, 2-4) Symbolically, Hargar Shipley became a house keeper in her younger years. Hagar has always felt that she was to name care, nurture, serve others, it bacame her natural positon. Hagar saw herself as the chatelaine, or possibly an outcast when she was married to Bram. The Shipley house was square and frame, two-storied, the furniture shoddy and second-hand, the kitchen reeking and stale, for no one had scoured properly there since Clara died. Yet seeing it, I wasnt troubled in the slightest, still thinking of myself as a chatelaine. I wonder who I imagined would do the work? I thought of Polacks and Galicians from the mountains, half-breeds from the river valley of the Wachawa, or the daughters and spinster aunts of the poor, forgetting that Brams own daughters had hired out whenever they could be spared, until they married very young and gained a permanent employment. (p. 50-51) Hagar is feeling like a prisoner in her own habitat, that she is not free in spirit I was alone, never anything else, and never free, for I car ried my chains wihin me, and they spread out from me and shackled all I touched (pp. 292). The imagery that Hagar is enslaved like the prisoners in the early eras, B.C.-A.C., she became a slave of her own emotions which is strugggling indoors her. Also noted, Hagar also was seen and explained as a creature of wilderness. Like the pharaohs daugheter, she left the security of her father and went to explore the wilderness.