A Comparison Between the Bible and The Stone Angel Essay

In addition to the similarities between the two Hagars, John and Marvin, Hagar’s sons, parallel Jacob and Esau, direct descendants of Abram and Sarah. In Hagar’s eyes, John is her Jacob. Hagar protects and favours John the same way that Rebekah favours Jacob. In the Bible, Isaac, a blind man, plans to bestow his final blessings upon Esau, his eldest son. Rebekah, having overheard Isaac’s intentions, instructs Jacob to take Esau’s place and to receive his brother’s blessings. As such, Jacob is blessed by Isaac and flees into the wilderness – upon his mother’s instruction – out of fear of Esau. Similarly, John flees from his family and into his own wilderness, Manawaka. In Manawaka John tends to his dying father, Bram, and receives Bram’s blessing before his death. Marvin never receives Bram’s blessing, even though they were close when Marvin was a child. John, in essence, takes Marvin’s place. More important, however, in this comparison is the relationship each boy shares with Hagar. Hagar, having always been inclined to love John more, wants John to be her Jacob and to want and to receive her blessing. She says, â€Å"I wish he could have looked like Jacob then, wrestling with the angel and besting it† (Laurence 179), as John struggles to lift the stone angel tombstone for Hagar. John dies before Hagar receives a chance to bestow her blessings upon him. It is only in dying that Hagar realizes, through Marvin’s kindness, that Marvin is her Jacob. He is the son that loves and cares for her more than anything else. Hagar states, â€Å"Now it seems to me he (Marvin) is truly Jacob, gripping with all his strength, and bargaining. I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And I see I am thus strangely cast, and perhaps have been so from the beginning and can only release myself by releasing him† (Laurence 304). He will not let Hagar go â€Å"gentle into that good night†(Thomas, prologue). Marvin finally receives Hagar’s blessings, the blessings that John had, for so long, undeservingly taken.