Anger and disappointment can be a source of many things. Hagar's anger and disappointment can be seen from her guilt and her criminal ways. Through Hagar's guilt she feels anger for what she did and disappointment for what could have been.
In the first paragraph of the book when she is telling about the stone angel on her mother's grave she states, 'I wonder if she stands there yet, in memory of her who relinquished her feeble ghost as I gained my stubborn one...'. (p. 3) Hagar's stubborn personality is the stem of most of her anger and crimes. One of Hagar's first crimes was when her brother, Daniel, was dying. Hagar was unable to grant him the comfort Matt gave. Hagar would not put her mother's shawl on because she felt that she was not like her at all. Hagar feels anger at her mother for Daniel's illness, 'But all I could think of was that meek woman I'd never seen, the woman Dan was said to resemble so much and from whom he'd inherited a frailty I could not help but detest, however much a part of me wanted to sympathize.
Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness, painting by K...
Mount Doris
Doris_2410To play at being her - it was beyond me.' (p. 25) Hagar's father sent her to school out east to learn how to become a proper lady. After coming back from college to become a proper lady, Hagar wanted to teach school but her father wouldn't allow it. Hagar, instead, kept her father's accounts and played hostess. Hagar meets Bram Shipley three years later and decides to marry him. Her father does not approve of the marriage, but Hagar marries Bram in a spirit of willful pride. Hagar's father does not speak to her ever again. When entering the marriage with Bram, she expected that...