The Stone Angel: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Inside the greasy and dilapidated cannery, Hagar makes a bed out of some discarded old fishnets and eats some of her provisions as dinner. She finds a pile of scallop shells and dead junebugs, and uses the objects as “jewels” to adorn her hair. She tries to ignore her swollen feet and painful stomach by remembering the events of the day, but finds that before the walk through the forest she can remember nothing.

A seagull flaps about the room, and its presence “scares and disgusts” Hagar. She flings a small wooden fish box at it, hoping to scare it away, but the box strikes the bird and bloodies its wing. Hagar is unsure if she should kill the squawking bird out of mercy, and as she languishes in indecision, she wishes Marvin were with her—he’d know what to do. She wonders where the two of them are, and whether they’ve taken advantage of her absence and sold the house.

As night descends, Hagar hears some dogs barking in the distance. As they get closer and closer, Hagar grows afraid—but just as they arrive underneath the window, right outside, Hagar hears the sound of scuffle, and their steps retreat. Hagar wants to move, but finds that she is shaking and sweating so badly she can’t stand. At the sound of the door opening, Hagar becomes outright terrified—she knows a person has entered the cannery.

The figure inside the cannery lights a match—it is a man. Hagar, believing the man to be a vagrant, offers him her purse, but he is just as frightened as she is. Hagar realizes the man must be off-put by the junebug carcasses and shells in her hair, and she apologizes for her appearance. The man asks what an old lady is doing all alone, and asks if Hagar’s all right. Hagar suddenly believes that Marvin and Doris have sent the man to bring her back, and she tells him that she refuses to go with him—she “won’t be lugged around like a sack of potatoes.”

The man begs Hagar to calm down, and insists he doesn’t know her and hasn’t been sent to fetch her. He introduces himself as Murray F. Lees, and says he’s nothing but a life insurance salesman out on a walk. Hagar introduces herself, and Murray sits down beside her. Though she doesn’t quite trust him, she’s grateful for the company. He tells her that on his walk he noticed a pack of dogs fighting over a wounded bird—Hagar admits she was the one who downed it.

Murray shares his cigarettes and wine with Hagar, and she is grateful to have something to drink. Hagar thanks Murray for his kindness, and the two begin talking about their lives, sharing details here and there. As Murray tells Hagar about his job and his past, she finds herself slightly bored, but comforted by his voice and warmed by the wine. Murray tells Hagar about his religious upbringing and his worrywart mother who, despite her frail appearance, was tough as a morning glory—a flower which resists being weeded out.

Murray also tells Hagar about his wife and son, and their participation in increasingly strange religious sects which foretold that the end of the world was coming soon. Murray and Hagar both keep drinking, and Murray reveals his frustration with doctrine that tells its adherents they’re “[in] for it” but declines to tell them when the end will come. Murray reveals that one day he left church in a huff, fed up with their “malarkey,” and returned home to find that his and his wife’s house had caught fire—with their son inside.

 Murray and Hagar commiserate over the fact that they have both lost children, and then after sharing some more wine and soda biscuits, cozy up side-by-side. Hagar shivers with the cold, but insists to Murray that she’s perfectly warm enough. Hagar slips back into memory, and into the story of her own loss.

One afternoon, back in Manawaka, John came into the house to tell Hagar that Arlene had decided to go East for a year to work. Arlene told John she was determined to stop living off of her parents, and wanted to work for a year in hopes of beginning to pay them back. Hagar quietly said she admired Arlene’s resolve, but John was concerned that Arlene would meet “some well-fixed guy in Toronto.” He also pointed out that Hagar didn’t seemed surprised by the news, and asked if she had been “expecting it.” Hagar pretended to be confused by John’s accusation, and John told Hagar that he was planning on bringing Arlene back to the house every night during the two weeks she had remaining in Manawaka. John confessed that he hoped to impregnate Arlene soon, so that she’d be forced to stay behind.

Hagar broke down, begging John to see that all she’d ever wanted was his happiness, and never wanted to see him make a mistake or “take on responsibilities beyond [his] means.” John chastised Hagar for failing, all these years, to see that Marvin was always “[her] boy,” not him.

Every night for several nights, John took the truck into town. One night, Hagar decided not to wait up for him, but found that when she went to bed she couldn’t sleep. She soon heard some thumping at the door, and when she went downstairs to answer it, found Henry Pearl standing there. He told Hagar to come along into town—something had happened to John. On the drive in, Henry told Hagar that John was in the hospital. John had taken on a bet in the middle of a local dance—that he could drive his truck across the trestle bridge. Apparently, though no train was due, an unscheduled freight came down the tracks towards John, and John steered the truck off of the bridge. Arlene had been in the car, and had been killed instantly. John, however, was still alive—for the time being.

At the hospital, Hagar sat with John, whose scant superficial injuries were nothing compared to the internal ones he’d suffered. John apologized for acting “like a kid,” and begged Hagar to ask someone to give him something for his pain. In the middle of his agony, John expired. To this day, Hagar does not remember her last words to her son.

As one of the nurses walked Hagar out, she urged Hagar to let herself cry—but Hagar shoved the nurse away, determined not to cry in front of a stranger. That night, back at the house, though, Hagar found that her tears wouldn’t come even at her own bidding—Hagar felt she’d “transformed to stone.” At John’s funeral, days later, Hagar did not go out to the cemetery to see the burial—she did not want to see her family’s plot, or the stone angel watching over them all.

Hagar visited Lottie and Telford, but the visit was short, awkward, and painful for all of them. Over the next few weeks she packed up the Shipley place, and sent anything of value to Marvin. Hagar returned to Mr. Oatley’s and got back to work. When he, too, died in just a year, he left her ten thousand dollars in his will, with which she bought herself a house.

Hagar snaps back to reality, realizing that she is, at last, crying. Murray comments upon how sad her story is, and Hagar is shocked to realize she’s been telling the whole thing aloud. Murray urges Hagar to let all of her feelings out. Hagar laments that John’s death was senseless and pointless—for years, she’s felt enormous anger over what happened. Murray says that though anger won’t do Hagar any good, it’s hard not to feel “empty.” Murray knows his wife will soon start to worry about him, but is overcome with the need for a nap. The confused Hagar begs Murray not to tell her son, Marvin, where she is. Murray promises, and Hagar believes him. They “slip into sleep” side by side, overcome by the cold.

Hagar wakes up in the middle of the night feeling cold, ill, and nauseous. Her heart is pounding and she can barely breathe. She vomits onto the floor, and then hears a man’s voice beside her lamenting that she has had too much to drink. Hagar believes that the person beside her is John, though it’s still Murray sitting with her. Murray, concerned, says that Hagar needs a doctor, but she insists she’s fine. Hagar begins apologizing to “John” for being cold to him, and for telling him he couldn’t bring Arlene to the house. Hagar waits for “John’s” response—Murray tells her that he forgives her for “everything,” and urges her to get some sleep.