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Carmela Coccimiglio 229 “[I]t’s my nature”: A Comparison of Hagar Shipley’s Pride in The Stone Angel Novel and Film Carmela Coccimiglio Since its publication in 1964, Margaret Laurence’s novel The Stone Angel continues to occupy a secure place within the body of Canadian literature.1 One attestation of this fact is its appearance on numerous “best of” lists such as the Literary Review of Canada’s 2006 list of the top one hundred books written in this country in the past 460 years (“460”).2 Further, although it was not ultimately victorious, the novel was a finalist in CBC’s Canada Reads debate in 2002. It was perhaps an inevitability that the life of Hagar Shipley, the “Queen of all the characters” in Canadian literature, would eventually be brought to the screen (Rooke, “Hagar’s” 25). As the 2009 Canadian Literature Symposium poster indicated, Laurence’s 1966 novel A Jest of God is one of the first modern works of Canadian literature to be translated into a film (as Rachel, Rachel [Paul Newman, 1968]). In the same year that Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan confirmed that “Literature on Screen has finally arrived” (“Literature” 1), The Stone Angel, directed by Kari Skogland, was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. It might not be too bold to declare that Canadian literature on screen had arrived. After its Canada-wide release beginning in May 2008, however, Skogland’s film failed to capture a level of appreciation on par with that which continues to be granted to its source text. Much of the praise for The Stone Angel film centred on the performances of its actresses. Film critics such as Eddie Cockrell (Rev.), Stephen Farber (“Bottom”), and Katherine Monk (qtd. in “People”) praise Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn’s portrayal of the old Hagar Shipley, and Christine Horne has a notable presence as the young Hagar, according to Philip Marchand (“The Stone”) and Kevin Williamson (“Stone”). Opinions of the film’s content are less favourable. Alison Gillmor’s assessment characterizes the film as unfaithful to Laurence’s novel. She writes that “[v]iewers who have read the novel will probably be frustrated by its truncated treatment and by changes to certain crucial sequences” (n. pag.). For Gillmor, then, Hagar Shipley’s Pride 230 Skogland’s film fails to be a faithful adaptation of its source material. As a number of film theorists argue, the notion of fidelity as associated with the analysis of adaptations is not particularly useful. One reason for the failure of fidelity studies is that there is a fundamental difference between a film and its source material due to the changing of mediums (Stam 55). Alternatives to the fidelity angle such as “intertextuality” (McFarlane 26) and “hypertextuality ” (Stam 66) demonstrate that an adaptation is involved in an “ongoing dialogical process” rather than existing as a fixed, closed text (Stam 64). Despite the usefulness of these alternative terms, I agree with Robert Stam’s assertion that “the notion of the fidelity of an adaptation to its source novel does contain its grain of truth” (54). In other words, if an adaptation does not convey the most important aspects of its source material, then it has, in a sense, been “unfaithful” to it (54). In comparing Laurence’s novel to its film version by examining the theme of pride, I will argue that the film’s depiction of Hagar’s long-standing flaw and her grappling with it near the end of her life are not fully developed in the film, leading to an unclear understanding of her motives and an ending that reinforces rather than softens her pride. Evidence of Hagar’s steadfast pride can be traced back to her childhood in both texts, although it is more strongly evident in Laurence’s novel. Her earliest memories in the novel revolve around pride through display and an aversion to emotional weakness. The object from which both texts take their name is a symbol of the pride that Hagar shares with her father, who purchased the stone angel to mark his wife’s grave. Jason Currie purchased the expensive Italian stone, as Hagar explains in both texts, “in pride” to serve as not only a grave marker but also, and more importantly, a symbol of his social status in Manawaka, Manitoba (Laurence, Stone 3). Laurence builds up instances of Hagar’s inherited pride through numerous memories. Her first recollection is of strutting “like a pint-sized peacock” in a...

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