Unfeasible Love Hagar Shipleys Struggle with Love

In The Stone Angel, Hagar Shipley, age ninety, tells the story of her life, and in doing so tries to come to terms with how her personal attributes deprived her of joy throughout her life. Raised with the stern virtues of her pioneer ancestors, bestowed upon her through her father, Hagar becomes a tragic hero through a life of uncompromising pride -- a pride which sustained her during a stormy marriage and which overpowered her …

…would spread their arms and weep them down to their sides, and when they rose there would be the outline of an angel, with spread wings." (Pg. 81) She feels like the angel, a monument symbolic to her pride: a towering figure over others; a clear elite to the "lesser breads". This is truly ironic since Hagar is not higher than anyone else; but simply a lower class woman, working with nothing but her introvert pride.