Hagar's Hymns: Echo and Allusion in Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel.

In Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel, hymns define one context in which Hagar lives, and one voice that she might claim as her own. However, because singing unites many voices into a single voice, when Hagar challenges the words of hymns or connects with only a few of the hymn's words, hymns introduce paradox and ambiguity into her quest, and blur her supposed epiphany when the minister sings 'All People that on Earth Do Dwell.' Although hymns may assist a character to transcend self and be subsumed into a spiritual community, hymns may also be part of a process of discovering the sound of an individual voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]