Chapter Questions
Chapter 1
1. Hagar reveals much about her father when she says “my mother’s angel that my
father bought in pride to mark her bones and proclaim his dynasty, as he fancied,
forever and a day”. This reveals that he might not care that much about others,
only cares about himself. She tells that she is a strong and independent woman.
2. In the cemetery the flowers and plants seem to be invading. There is a struggle to
keep the graves neat and civilized. “They were though-rooted, these wild and
gaudy flowers, and although they were held back at the cemetery’s edge, torn out
by loving relatives determined to keep the plots clear and clearly civilized.
3. When Hagar’s father said “smart as a whip, she is, that one. If only she’d been
___”. He means he wishes she was a boy so she could carry on his name and take
over his dynasty. He stops what he is saying because his sons are listening and he
doesn’t want them to hear him praise Hagar.
4. Hagar thinks that if they had of lived in Scotland they would have been wealthy,
lived in a castle, and everyone there are gentlemen compared to the “bald headed
prairie stretching out west of us with nothing to speak of except couch grass or
clans of chittering gophers or the gray-green poplar bluffs”.
5. An explanation of the meeting between Jason Currie and Lottie Dreiser’s mother
could be that they were both lonely and Jason commented after her death. At first
he felt bad for her, and then he said that she isn’t much of a loss. Then he was
worried that he might have caught the illness that she died from.
6. Matt planned to set up on his own, or study law down east, or boy a ship and go
into the tea trade. Instead he bought a fighting cock. He realized that his dream
was unattainable and in an act of frustration he wasted all the money he had
saved. He later killed the rooster with his fair hands as though he was killing his
dream.
7. Hagar didn’t think very highly of her bother Dan. Hagar believes in strong, hard
working individuals and Dan is not one of those people. Matt asked Hagar to put
on her dead mother’s plaid shawl and hold Dan for a while, but she couldn’t see
someone in her family die without a fight, so she didn’t do it.
8. Marvin
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In Hagar’s opinion Marvin is not the better son, she thinks that he can’t make
decisions and that he is not very smart. She doesn’t have any respect for him and
always complains about him and his wife.
-
In an onlooker’s point of view, Marvin is hard working, and thinks about other
people before himself. He deserves to get more respect then he does from Hagar.
Doris
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In Hagar’s opinion Doris is fat, and has no taste in clothes. She blames Doris for a
lot of the things that go wrong. The only good thing that Hagar thinks about Doris
is that she is a good cook.
-
In an onlooker’s point of view Doris is very kind to Hagar, and deserves more
respect than what she is getting.
9. I feel sympathetic towards Marvin. All his life he has looked for his mother’s
approval and he never gets it. Hagar always loved John more and she dislikes his
own wife.
Chapter 2
1. Hagar describes Doris’ minister, Mr. Troy as “the little minister straight from the
book, bashful and youngly anxious.
2. When Hagar refers to herself as “Pharaoh’s daughter”, she is referring to her
father’s dynasty. Her father is a well known and well respected man, therefore she
sees herself in the same way.
3. The “Square brick palace” goes alone with the Egyptian theme. In her opinion her
father is the “Pharaoh” of Manawaka and his house is the town’s “palace”.
Referring to the angel as “his monument” is saying that the angel is for him and
not her mother, who is the “brood mare”. She thinks her father feels that her
mother was only there to give him children and wasn’t good for anything else.
4. We can see that Jason intended for Hagar to be another “monument” to his
greatness because he sent her to school to become smarter and more lady-like, so
she could be shown off as his host when she came back from school.
5. Bram was a big, tough man. He was very lazy, yet very physical in other areas of
his life. He wasn’t very smart, and didn’t have any manners. Hagar married him
because she was attracted to how up front he was and out of spite for her father.
6. The people in Hagar’s family stopped talking to her and either her father or her
brother went to her wedding. The only person that went for her was Auntie Doll.
7. Bram gives Hagar a “cut-glass decanter with a silver top” to try and give her
something that is of her class. Hagar doesn’t have a response to the gift, she just
puts it down. When she does it, Bram feels put down, and like she doesn’t care
about him.
8. Bram and Hagar differ in their approach to the physical side of their relationship
in how open Bram is. He knows what’s going on and has had 2 kids. Hagar has no
idea what is supposed to happen.
Chapter 3
1. The doctor calls Hagar a young lady, and Hagar gets mad. She thinks that she
should get more respect than that, and feels like she is being put down by
someone younger than she is. This reaction is very much like Hagar from what we
know about her character so far.
2. When Hagar says that the house is Marvin and Doris’ it shows that she knows the
house isn’t always going to be hers and that she will be gone soon. Hagar’s
growing vulnerability is very clear in this line because she is admitting to herself
that it really is their house.
3. We see that Hagar is biased against Marvin from birth when she admits that she
didn’t feel like Marvin was her son when she gave birth to him, she always felt
like he was Bram’s son.
4. When it says “If I had the wings of an angel/ Or even the wings of a crow/ I
would fly to the top of T. Eaton’s/ And spit on the people below” it can be seen as
a metaphor for Hagar because it sounds like something she would say, or even do.
Hagar has always thought that she was better than everyone else because of her
father, so it’s like Hagar is on top of the building and looking down at everyone
else.
5. If Bram had reached out to Hagar the night that Soldier died, then maybe their
relationship would have gotten better because Hagar would have seen that Bram
needed her and that he cared about her. Or it could have gotten worse if Hagar
had seen Bram being weak and lost respect for him.
Chapter 4
1. Hagar could not express her feelings to Marvin when he was leaving for war
because she didn’t want to show weakness. She has never been able to reach out
to anyone, especially not men in her life, and this is showing how she fails again.
2. Bram thought it was necessary to apologize to Hagar after sex because he felt that
it was only for him and that she didn’t want to do it. Their feelings about the
physical side of their relationship are alike because neither of them talk about it,
they are different because Hagar isn’t experienced and doesn’t really like it, and
Bram is much more experienced than she is.
3. Hagar is so fussy about the way John speaks because she doesn’t want him to be
like his dad and brother. Hagar wants him to be more like her family.
4. When Marvin is a kid he tries to please his mother more than once. One example
is when he is filling the wood box and asks Hagar if it’s too full, without even
looking she just says it’s fine. As an adult he still tries to please her, he sticks
around and takes care of her when she gets old, even though he is also getting old.
5. When Hagar walked out of the store with Bram she was making the statement that
she is embarrassed of him and doesn’t want to be seen with him anymore.
Chapter 5
1. Hagar shows her inability to express her feelings to her family when she doesn’t
do what Matt asked her to do when Dan was dying. He asked her to help Dan by
wearing their mother’s shawl and comforting him, she just said no, she didn’t tell
him why she wouldn’t do it. Another example is when she finds out Matt was
going to send her their mother’s shawl as a wedding present but doesn’t, she
wants to go talk to him and ask him why he didn’t send it, but she doesn’t go. The
last example is when Marvin is leaving for war and she doesn’t tell him how she
feels because she doesn’t want to show weakness.
2. Hagar becoming a housekeeper is ironic because she always thought she was
better than everyone and now she is lower class and has to work for other people,
also because she always said she would never be like her Auntie Doll, who was
her housekeeper when she was younger.
3. John’s new friends are a lot like Hagar’s friends that she had when she was
younger because they are “high class” and have money. John would probably
associate with people like this because he wants to impress his mom by having
friends who are better than they are.
4. Hagar’s relationship with John begins to regress when she begins to realize that
he is a lot like his father. He goes to live with Bram and starts to drink all the time
like Bram did. She realizes that he isn’t as much like the Curries as she hoped he
would be.
5. Hagar confronts Bram instead of leaving in the night because she is actually
hoping that he will tell her to stay, but all he says is to take some hard boiled eggs
for the trip. If Bram had told her to stay then maybe she would have and their
relationship might have worked out better.
Chapter 6
1. When Hagar is alone in the fish cannery she gets scared and wishes she had
someone strong beside her and starts to miss Bram, which shows that she
really did appreciate Bram but because of her stubborn attitude couldn’t tell
him.
2. Since John started living with his father he has started to drink and go out to
dances and speak like his dad. His relationship with his father has gotten a lot
better, and we can see that because he stays and takes care of Bram when he is
dying.
3. The irony in what Hagar says is that she had always said that John was a
Currie, but after trading the plaid pin for a knife, and then trading the knife for
cigarettes, Hagar says the Currie family motto and John has no idea what she
is talking about, which shows Hagar that John doesn’t care about the Currie
history at all.
4. Hagar goes home to Bram when she finds out he is sick because she is his
wife and she actually does care about him. Also she wants to see what he is
like now.
5. John has always tried to please Bram because when he was younger Bram
didn’t give him any attention. Marvin has always tried to please Hagar
because she didn’t give him any attention or showed that she loved him when
he was younger. Also when Bram is sick the one who goes to help him is
John, and when Hagar is sick Marvin goes to stay with her and helps her.
6. Hagar probably didn’t believe John that “some drunk” knocked over the angel
because he didn’t seem to care that it was knocked over. It was most likely
John that knocked it over because he was probably trying to get back at Hagar
for something.
7. John said that the Curries and Shipleys were “only different sides of the same
coin” because both families were founding families of Manawaka.
8. The current state of the stone angel is symbolic of how Hagar is now. Both are
very worn out and aged.
9. Hagar buried Bram on the Currie family plot as one last try to spite her father.
10. The irony in Hagar being mistaken for Bram’s first wife Clara is that it shows
how much Clara meant to him. Bram was never really happy with Hagar the
way he was with Clara, and in the last few days before he dies he imagines
Clara being there with him instead of Hagar.
Chapter 7
1. Hagar was defensive when she hears Jess call John “Johnnie” because it
makes his name sound weaker than it is. Another reason she didn’t like it is
because she was giving him a nick name as though he was hers.
2. When Hagar says “Take warning my girl. You’ll be sorry” when she is
looking at the little girl and boy at the beach. She sees that the little girl is
being mean to the boy and wants to warn her that if she isn’t nice then the boy
won’t like her and will leave.
3. John learned to be so open with his feelings from his dad. Also he probably
saw how unhappy his mother was and most of it was because she couldn’t tell
people how she felt.
4. John turns out to be a lot like his father. He starts drinking and talking like
Bram. He is rude and says what’s on his mind.
5. Hagar can be compared to the ancient mariner because both of them were
surrounded by water that they couldn’t drink. And also both were in a way
being tortured by their conscience.
6. When Hagar says “They crate me up in the car and deliver me like a parcel of
old clothes to that place” she is talking about how if she goes back to Marvin
and Doris then they will just take her to the nursing home and leave her there
like she doesn’t mean anything to them.
7. Hagar still remembers the incident with the baby chicks because it was
important to her because she realized that she wasn’t able to help other people
or things. Lottie doesn’t remember because it didn’t matter to her.
8. John goes to visit Jess instead of Hagar when he wants to talk about Bram
because Hagar would have been mean about it and only talked about how
Bram was a failure, Jess would remember him being happy and talk about the
good things about Bram.
9. Hagar and John’s argument is reminiscent of the argument she had years ago
with her father because both of the arguments were about people that they
wanted to be with and the parent thinking they weren’t good enough. This
reveals that Hagar still thinks she is better than other people even though she
is now poor.
10. In Hagar’s point of view John and Arlene’s relationship is child-like and they
don’t know what responsibility is.
Chapter 8
1. John says “Marv was your boy but you never saw that”. He says this to Hagar
because he’s trying to show her that he is not the son she wanted him to be and
that Marvin has always been the son that was more like her.
2. When Hagar couldn’t kill the seagull to help it, it is another example of how she
isn’t able to help people or things that need help. She doesn’t like weakness so she
won’t help ease their pain.
3. Hagar says “I’d had so many things to say to him, so many things to put to rights”
after John dies. I think she wanted to tell him that loved him and that she was
proud of him.
4. Murray F. Lees is brought into the novel so that we can learn more about Hagar’s
character and see her connect with someone and we learn how John really died.
5. Hagar’s viewpoint on John hasn’t changed much since he’s died. She still thinks
he’s the better son and that his death was a waste. The only way it has changed is
because she is more willing to say he had a few flaws.
6. I don’t think that Marvin will ever be able to please his mother because we know
that she is stubborn and she won’t change her mind about who is “her” son.
7. When Hagar first encounters Murray Lees she is scared because she doesn’t know
who is there, then she gets mad because she thinks that he is there because Marvin
and Doris sent him, finally she relates to and they talk.
8. “A bird in the house means a death in the house” is a saying that can be used after
the seagull is in the fish cannery with Hagar. It is foreshadowing her death which
will come soon.
9. When Hagar says “He might have been killed or saved. Who’s to know” she
means that if John had gone to war he might have died with a good reason, or he
might have lived and then come back and not died the way he did.
Chapter 9
1. Hagar lets Mrs. Jardine believe that John is her husband because she was saying
his name in her sleep and was embarrassed. Also she probably didn’t want to tell
her the long story about Bram and how John died.
2. When Hagar reaches out and touches Murray’s wrist she says sorry and forgives
him for getting Marvin and Doris, and because they both lost a son. Murray is the
only man that Hagar has been able to relate with because she isn’t scared of what
he thinks of her.
3. When Hagar goes to the hospital she doesn’t have any independence anymore.
She isn’t allowed to get out of bed and she can’t go to the bathroom by herself.
4. It would be unfair for Doris to die before Hagar because Doris has spent so much
time taking care of Hagar that she hasn’t had the chance to enjoy the past few
years of her life.
5. It is out of character for Hagar to pardon Murray Lees because she doesn’t
normally connect with people that way and she doesn’t forgive people that easily.
6. Hagar’s character does go through some changes while in the hospital when she
makes friends with Elva and she has fun with Sandra.
Chapter 10
1. Marvin calls his mother a “holy terror” because she’s tough and doesn’t take
anything from anyone and he loves her, but she drives them crazy.
2. Hagar is angry when Marvin finally gets her a private room because she had made
friends and wanted to stay there with them, and because she thinks that every
room is getting smaller until it’s one made for just her.
3. Sandra Wong’s character is meant to function the same as Murray Lees, she is
introduced so that we can see a different side of Hagar and learn something new
about her.
4. When Hagar is on vacation with Marvin and Doris she wants to get away from the
Shipley place quickly because she sees what the other people have done with it
and realizes how much of a failure Bram was.
5. Doris’ motives for bringing Mr. Troy to see Hagar are selfish because she is
trying to push her religion onto Hagar and forcing her to talk to him.
6. I think that Marvin does accept what Hagar says about him being the better son
because he had to leave the room because it was too emotional. And because she
says that she thinks he believes her.
7. Hagar realizes that her biggest fear has been what everyone else thinks of her. She
has never been able to just have fun because she is scared she will be looked
down on.
8. Hagar does not “go gentle into that good night” because she is still fighting in her
last minutes alive. She is fighting with the nurse and wants to drink the water
herself.