Flower Imagery in "The Stone Angel"

Margaret Laurence uses flower imagery in her novel "The Stone Angel" to represent Hagar's way of life. There are two types of flowers, wild and civilized. These two types of flowers are associated with the educated, controlled way of life and the material way of life. In summer the cemetery was rich and thick as syrup with the funeral-parlor perfume of the planted peonies, dark crimson and wallpaper pink, the pompous blossoms hanging leadenly, too …

…we used to weave into the wreaths for the dead" (p. 33). In her old age, Hagar realizes that her life was bleak. She did not let anything about herself go free. She wanted to be well known as an educated, independent woman who needed no help from anyone, yet she fails in the end having to depend on her own son, Marivn, and his wife. Her flowers deteriorate just the same as Hagar grows old.