Comparative Essay- Stone Angel and Macbeth

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Comparative Essay- Stone Angel and Macbeth In the face of adversity, a character uses many strategies to ensure their survival. In a world full of harsh realities and betrayal, you need to ensure that you stay safe and survive. This can be emotional survival, or literal survival. In the case of Hagar Shipley, she needed to stay alive emotionally, but in the case of Macbeth, he needed to literally stay alive. Both characters have defence mechanisms to ensure their safety. The following essay will outline both characters defence mechanisms. And how it aided them in their survival. Hagar Shipley was an independent soul. She was very critical of people around her, and found it very difficult to connect with anyone. This was because she found it so difficult to show how she felt. Her inability to show she emotions lead people around her to believe she didn’t care. For example: When her son John passed away, Hagar didn’t cry. This made everyone in town think that she simply didn’t feel any remorse for her son’s death. When she actually did feel sorrow, loss, and remorse, she just didn’t want to show it. The question here is: Why doesn’t Hagar want anyone to know how she really feels? The answer is that this is her way of protecting herself. She made an emotional wall in fear of getting hurt. This all started when she was a child. Growing up, Hagar didn’t have a female influence in her life. This immediately had an effect on how Hagar would live. She only had the male influence in her life; this is where her emotional detachment began. For example: When Hagar was in the store with her father and her father got mad at her. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t because she didn’t want her father to see how she really felt. She didn’t want him to think any less of her. And if she acted as she felt, he would think much less of her. When Hagar’s son, Marvin, goes
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