Objections to Objectification of Woman as Revealed in ‘The Stone Angel’

Abstract

Margaret Laurence’s characterization of woman protagonists in all her novels is extraordinary because she clearly portrays the escalation of the characters against the domination of the patriarchy. The Stone Angels is an outstanding novel of Laurence that reveals the life of a woman protagonist Hagar who never compromise with others for her survival and hence her uncompromising attitude has resisted domination. Laurence knows that the creation of such stubborn character could not win the sympathy of her readers but still she wants to make her readers realize that women can resist the domination by any possible ways. She has insisted that women are not just an object to be used by the men because they do have equal abilities. Hence, the paper identifies the feministic notions of the protagonist Hagar in dealing with the events around her. It also studies
how Hagar handles objectification. In fact, she has never allowed anyone to overrule her because of her excessive pride. However, pride is the root cause for all the troubles of her life. Further, the paper analyses whether the vicious quality could be a positive force while challenging the patriarchy and whether pride could be a positive element in women self-empowerment.