The Stone Angel

by

Margaret Laurence

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Stone Angel makes teaching easy.

Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father Character Analysis

Hagar’s father. A Scottish immigrant from a prominent but not particularly wealthy family of proud, strong Highlanders, Jason Currie originally rose to prominence in Manawaka as the founder and proprietor of the town’s first general store. A strict and sometimes abusive man, Jason Currie demands total control over his children’s lives and behaviors—ultimately leading to Hagar’s rogue defiance of his wishes for her. After Hagar chooses to marry Bram against her father’s orders, Jason disowns Hagar and cuts her out of his sizable will, instead leaving all of his hard-earned money to the town of Manawaka itself. A hardscrabble widower who gives everything for his children only watch them leave him, one by one, through illness and defiance, Jason’s life foreshadows Hagar’s own. Though she took a vastly different path than her father and did everything she could to distance herself from him both physically and emotionally, their lives ultimately took remarkably similar paths.

Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father Quotes in The Stone Angel

The The Stone Angel quotes below are all either spoken by Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father or refer to Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory and the Past Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Above the town, on the hill brow, the stone angel used to stand. I wonder if she stands there yet, in memory of her who relinquished her feeble ghost as I gained my stubborn one, my mother’s angel that my father bought in pride to mark her bones and proclaim his dynasty, as he fancied, forever and a day.

Summer and winter she viewed the town with sightless eyes. She was doubly blind, not only stone but unendowed with even a pretense of sight. Whoever carved her had left the eyeballs blank. It seemed strange to me that she should stand above the town, harking us all to heaven without knowing who we were at all. But I was too young then to know her purpose, although my father often told me she had been brought from Italy at a terrible expense and was pure white marble. I think now she must have been carved in that distant sun by stone masons who were the cynical descendants of Bernini, gouging out her like by the score, gauging with admirable accuracy the needs of fledgling pharaohs in an uncouth land.

Related Characters: Hagar Shipley (speaker), Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father
Related Symbols: The Stone Angel
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
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Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father Quotes in The Stone Angel

The The Stone Angel quotes below are all either spoken by Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father or refer to Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory and the Past Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Above the town, on the hill brow, the stone angel used to stand. I wonder if she stands there yet, in memory of her who relinquished her feeble ghost as I gained my stubborn one, my mother’s angel that my father bought in pride to mark her bones and proclaim his dynasty, as he fancied, forever and a day.

Summer and winter she viewed the town with sightless eyes. She was doubly blind, not only stone but unendowed with even a pretense of sight. Whoever carved her had left the eyeballs blank. It seemed strange to me that she should stand above the town, harking us all to heaven without knowing who we were at all. But I was too young then to know her purpose, although my father often told me she had been brought from Italy at a terrible expense and was pure white marble. I think now she must have been carved in that distant sun by stone masons who were the cynical descendants of Bernini, gouging out her like by the score, gauging with admirable accuracy the needs of fledgling pharaohs in an uncouth land.

Related Characters: Hagar Shipley (speaker), Jason Currie / Hagar’s Father
Related Symbols: The Stone Angel
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis: