"I am rampant with memory": female old age and confessional exercise in The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence

Abstract

This article aims at examining aspects concerning female old age and reminiscent practices undertaken through a confessional exercise in the novel The Stone Angel ([1964]1988), by the Canadian writer Margaret Laurence. The narrative presents the life story of Hagar Shipley, a ninety-year-old woman who undertakes systematic exercises to recall her own experiences. In recollecting events from childhood to old age, the narrator-protagonist adopts a confessional tone, laying herself bare to the reader. In order to discuss the character’s recollective process, which is interspersed with aspects related to the narrative’s present, the study turns to the critical analysis developed by Brenda Beckman-Long (1997). Throughout the study of the protagonist’s characterization and of her relationship with her surroundings, the research also engages in a dialogue with theoretical propositions by Ecléa Bosi (1994) and Norberto Bobbio (1994) relating to reminiscent practices undertook by old people. The article also turns to Simone de Beauvoir’s ([1970]2018) study on the experience of old age, to Jean Améry’s (1994) reflection on the melancholy experienced by old people, to Julia Kristeva’s ([1988]1994) perspective on the subject who, not necessarily having moved to a different geographical space, perceives himself/herself as a foreigner, and to the discussion proposed by Marcela Kafková (2016) about the transition from third to fourth age.