The Stone Angel

by

Margaret Laurence

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Lottie Drieser Character Analysis

One of Hagar’s childhood friends. Lottie, teased as a young girl and called “No-Name” because her father abandoned her and her mother, eventually rises in Manawaka society to become the wife of the wealthy Telford Simmons. Lottie tries to warn Hagar not to take up with Bram, but Hagar ignores her advice. Later on, the two women reconnect when their children embark upon an affair—together, Lottie and Hagar conspire to stop Arlene and John from marrying, fearing that their children’s youthful foolishness will result in their eventual misery, though their plan backfires in ways that neither of them could have ever foreseen.

Lottie Drieser Quotes in The Stone Angel

The The Stone Angel quotes below are all either spoken by Lottie Drieser or refer to Lottie Drieser. 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

We saw a huge and staggering heap of eggs, jarred and broken by some wagoner and cast here, unsaleable. July was hot that day— I can feel yet its insistence upon my neck and my wringing palms. We saw, with a kind of horror that could not be avoided, however much one looked away or scurried on, that some of the eggs had been fertile and had hatched in the sun. The chicks, feeble, foodless, bloodied and mutilated, prisoned by the weight of broken shells all around them, were trying to crawl like little worms, their half-mouths opened uselessly among the garbage. I could only gawk and retch, I and the others, all except one. […]

[Lottie] looked at the chicks. I didn’t know whether she made herself look, or whether she was curious.

“We can’t leave them like this.”

“But Lottie—” that was Charlotte Tappen, who had an exceptionally weak stomach, even though her father was a doctor. “What can we do? I can’t look, or I’ll throw up.”

“Hagar—” Lottie began. “I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole,” I said. “All right,” Lottie said furiously. “Don’t, then.” She took a stick and crushed the eggshell skulls, and some of them she stepped on with the heels of her black patent-leather shoes.

It was the only thing to do, a thing I couldn’t have done. And yet it troubled me so much that I could not.

Related Characters: Hagar Shipley (speaker), Charlotte Tappen (speaker), Lottie Drieser (speaker)
Page Number: 27-28
Explanation and Analysis:
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Lottie Drieser Quotes in The Stone Angel

The The Stone Angel quotes below are all either spoken by Lottie Drieser or refer to Lottie Drieser. 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

We saw a huge and staggering heap of eggs, jarred and broken by some wagoner and cast here, unsaleable. July was hot that day— I can feel yet its insistence upon my neck and my wringing palms. We saw, with a kind of horror that could not be avoided, however much one looked away or scurried on, that some of the eggs had been fertile and had hatched in the sun. The chicks, feeble, foodless, bloodied and mutilated, prisoned by the weight of broken shells all around them, were trying to crawl like little worms, their half-mouths opened uselessly among the garbage. I could only gawk and retch, I and the others, all except one. […]

[Lottie] looked at the chicks. I didn’t know whether she made herself look, or whether she was curious.

“We can’t leave them like this.”

“But Lottie—” that was Charlotte Tappen, who had an exceptionally weak stomach, even though her father was a doctor. “What can we do? I can’t look, or I’ll throw up.”

“Hagar—” Lottie began. “I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole,” I said. “All right,” Lottie said furiously. “Don’t, then.” She took a stick and crushed the eggshell skulls, and some of them she stepped on with the heels of her black patent-leather shoes.

It was the only thing to do, a thing I couldn’t have done. And yet it troubled me so much that I could not.

Related Characters: Hagar Shipley (speaker), Charlotte Tappen (speaker), Lottie Drieser (speaker)
Page Number: 27-28
Explanation and Analysis: