The Stone Diaries

“Life is an endless recruiting of witnesses. It seems we need to be observed in our postures of extravagance or shame, we need attention paid to us.” 

This passage highlights the importance of perspective, point of view, and autobiography. The novel seems to argue that autobiography is powerful because we need to share our experience with other “witnesses,” and only then does our life have meaning. The novel includes various points of view for one event because have experienced the same thing but are left with different impressions. The important thing is that we pay attention.

“She saw that her old life was behind her, as cleanly cut off as though she had taken a knife to it (that note for her husband tucked under her handkerchief press, a single scratched word, goodbye). Ahead waited chance and opportunity of her own making.” 

When Clarentine leaves Magnus, she gives up her old life and who she was for the 23 years they were together. The violent imagery of the knife is meant to shock, just as Magnus was left shocked with her leaving. Whereas before she felt trapped in the fate that had been set out for her in her marriage, she now feels the power of her own free will.

“The long days of isolation, of silence, the torment of boredom—all these pressed down on me, on young Daisy Goodwill and emptied her out. Her autobiography, if such a thing were imaginable, would be, if such a thing were ever to be written, an assemblage of dark voids and unbridgeable gaps.” 

This passage illustrates the novel’s frequent narrative jumps between first and third person. Daisy is so entranced with writing her own story that she sometimes flips between the two, and this technique shows both the intimacy and the distance that autobiographies can create. They are meant to make others familiar with one’s story, but the writing process can become alienating. The use of the word “imaginable” is ironic because some of her story is indeed imagined and exaggerated. 

“When we think of the past we tend to assume that people were simpler in their functions, and shaped by forces that were primary and irreducible. We take for granted that our forebears were imbued with a deeper purity of purpose than we possess nowadays, and a more singular set of mind […].” 

The novel is deeply concerned with romanticizing the past and letting the past inform the present and future. This passage highlights the belief that in the past people were purpose-driven and uninfluenced by extraneous forces. This belief stems from the fact that when we look at the past, we only see decisions and effects as straightforward and forget all that went into making those choices; our limited view of the past makes us feel inferior in the present.

“There are chapters in every life which are seldom read, and certainly not aloud.” 

This quote alludes to the importance of narrative and the autobiography. Life, here, becomes a novel to be read, a metaphor that highlights the idea that life is a mix of reality and fiction. Much like the writing process, life is also about revising, reflecting, and having other people witness your story—or not.

“The unfairness of this—that a single dramatic episode can shave the fine thistles from a woman’s life. But then the world is bewitched by the possibility of sudden reversal, of blood, of the urgent need to reframe simple arrangements.” 

The flower arrangement metaphor in this passage is significant as it emphasizes the overall garden and flora symbol of the novel. Daisy is lamenting the public scrutiny of her widowhood. She is now simply known for the tragedy of Harold’s death. Like a trimmed flower, she has been reduced to a single event. She decides to make her own arrangement and creatively redesign her life to overcome this reduction.

“Something was lacking in the overall design. At any rate, she was not ‘seized with rapture’ as the travel booklet had promised.” 

When Daisy travels to Canada, she visits Niagara Falls and is disappointed when the actual scene is not as impressive as the travel pamphlet has made it out to be. Just like life is a blend of reality and fiction, the reality of Niagara Falls is different than the written booklet claims. A narrative becomes a “promise” that the audience expects to be kept, although, as we see in The Stone Diaries, we should not trust Daisy to be a reliable conveyer of reality. The word “design” also alludes to the authorial aspect of narrative: It was put together by someone. Niagara does not just exist, then, but is made real by the people who witness it.

“Well, a childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction.”

This statement foreshadows Victoria’s choice of study and her research into plant fossils in Scotland later in the novel. Fossils are also reminiscent of the stone symbol that runs throughout the novel. Fossils are instances of life carved into stone, evidence to become meaningful in the future for whoever discovers them. Daisy believes that life, especially childhood, leaves behind no such evidence and therefore must be mostly fictionalized and imagined, as she does frequently and as her children probably will as well.

“Memory could be poked with a stick, savored in the mouth like a popsicle, you could never get enough of it.” 

The imagery of the passage is meant to signal the cherishing of memory, which is an important concern of the novel; the whole narrative is Daisy’s memories, which she “savors.” However, she also “pokes” her memory, changing and reanimating it to fit her story. Because memory is insatiable, it could go on and be reworked indefinitely, which makes it dangerous and powerful.

“Tonight Mrs. Flett is even touched by a filament of sensation linking her to her dead mother, Mercy Stone Goodwill; this moment to be sure is brief and lightly drawn, no more than an impression of breadth or gesture or tint of light which has no assigned place in memory, and which, curiously, suddenly, reverses itself to reveal a flash of distortion—the notion that Mrs. Flett has given birth to her mother, and not the other way around.” 

This is one of the only moments in which Daisy feels any connection to her mother, whom she never met. She is reflecting on her marriage and her sex life with Barker when she identifies as Mercy’s mother and not her daughter. The role reversal mimics the brief connection she had with her mother on the day of her birth. In one moment, they were joined together in life, and in the next, Daisy was left alone. Similarly, in this moment, Daisy can feel her mother, but in the next that connection dies.

“I really honestly think this column could be sort of fulfilling, if you know what I mean, since you’ve never really done anything before, not counting the usual Betty Crocker stuff.” 

This passage is from Alice’s letter to Daisy and reveals how Alice sees her mother as a simple homemaker. After at first resenting her mother for replacing Barker on his botany column, Alice realizes that her mother is not so one-dimensional and deserves to feel empowered through a career. The conflation of career and motherhood is significant because it is what Daisy practices during her marriage, thinking of motherhood and homemaking as a sort of job she has to do.

“O dear mrs green, my dear mrs thumb / how I love you for / your goodness your greenness your thumb-readiness…” 

We never read Daisy’s columns, but we read several adoring letters from her readers. Daisy has become a well-known figure in her community, and her readers seem to give her life meaning. The language in this letter is possessive, indicating that Daisy is no longer her own person; she belongs to the public. This is what it means to be an author, as Daisy learns later through writing an autobiography: Your story is yours until you share it with witnesses and open yourself up to new points of view.

We never read Daisy’s columns, but we read several adoring letters from her readers. Daisy has become a well-known figure in her community, and her readers seem to give her life meaning. The language in this letter is possessive, indicating that Daisy is no longer her own person; she belongs to the public. This is what it means to be an author, as Daisy learns later through writing an autobiography: Your story is yours until you share it with witnesses and open yourself up to new points of view.

In Alice’s monologue for the theory of Daisy’s depression, we learn more about Alice’s self-ideology. She believes a person can change if they want to. Freewill becomes a “storm” filled with many choices and pathways to change. This realization is addictive and makes Alice fragile like glass because it gives her more freedom, but with that freedom comes the ability to change negatively.

“In a sense I see her as one of life’s fortunates, a woman born with a voice that lacks a tragic register. Someone who’s learned to dig a hole in her own life story.” 

Here, Daisy separates herself into two people; she highlights her roles as both protagonist and narrator. She steps outside of herself to attempt to offer an outside perspective. However, this moment also highlights one’s inability to truly do so. As objective as we wish to be about reflecting on our own life, we still infuse our reflections with subjectivity. At this point of sorrow in her life, she simultaneously “digs” herself deeper into her own story as an author, while attempting to escape her depression as the protagonist.

“There are bits of your body you carry around all your life but never really own.” 

Cuyler’s dying moments are filled with reflections about his life, but this particular thought about his body stands out because it is reminiscent of Mercy’s final moments and Daisy’s decline. When Mercy dies, she is hyperaware of her body as it goes into labor, just as Daisy is when she collapses of a heart attack in her garden. All three feel their body but do not recognize the parts of it that are failing. Here, Cuyler disowns and feels disconnected from parts of himself in a moment when he is beginning to feel disconnected from his mind and memory as well.

“Unyieldingness is the reputation he left behind. Narrowness. Stone.” 

In addition to alluding to the stone symbol, this quote about Magnus Flett is significant because it shows the legacy that he leaves behind, at least for some characters. To Clarentine and Barker, especially, he was a stoic, unfeeling man made of stone. However, to Daisy and the audience, he is a romantic man who has suffered many tragedies. She identifies with him but is also aware of the story that precedes him, a story that sometimes one cannot escape.

“She believes, though, what she sees in front of her. She believes the evidence of her eyes, her ears, her intuition, that mythical female organ.” 

Daisy visits Magnus, and although, at first, she is afraid of shattering the romantic view she has of him, she later finds peace and comfort in hearing him say her name and finally meeting him. Magnus has become a real person to her, someone she can see, touch, and feel. Just like intuition, here, is transformed into something real and tangible, so is Magnus.

“Never mind, it means nothing; it’s only Mrs. Flett going through the motions of being Mrs. Flett.” 

As Daisy’s body and mind start to fail, she relies heavily on her practiced behaviors. Her manners and idiosyncrasies become tools for her to hang on to who she used to be in the face of change and imminent death. Notably, she is “Mrs. Flett” here and not Daisy because she is robotically playing out the role of the polite housewife; Daisy is another person, a separate role she has to play.

“Mrs. Flett, who attended Sunday School as a child and later church, has never been able to shake the notion that these activities are a kind of children’s slide show, wholesome and uplifting, but not to be taken seriously […].” 

We rarely get to read about Daisy’s spirituality or her adherence to religion, but as she nears death and she must speak to Reverend Rick, she expresses her view that organized religion and the practices that it calls for are not meaningful and just for show. She believes in performing religious activities for the performances themselves and not because they hold any deeper meaning. Shields is playing on the idea of symbolism. The novel is filled with symbols that obviously hold deeper meaning, so the fact that Daisy is presumably the “author” of this autobiography and does not believe in religious symbolism is ironic.

“When we say a thing or an event is real, never mind how suspect it sounds, we honor it. But when a thing is made up—regardless of how true and just it seems—we turn up our noses. That’s the age we live in. The documentary age. As if we can never, never get enough facts.” 

This passage most clearly highlights the novel’s concern with reality and fiction. This tongue-in-cheek accusation of an audience’s preference for facts over fiction is meant as a reference to the “fake realness” of the novel. The novel includes a family tree and old photographs, which are usually taken to be documented facts, and flaunts them in a work of fiction. 

“Which is that the moment of death occurs while we’re still alive. Life marches right up to the wall of that final darkness, one extreme butting against another.” 

As Daisy is in her final years of life, Alice realizes that death and life are more intimately connected and always overlap. The diction, here, is reminiscent of a “death march” that instead goes in the other direction: toward life. This overlap comforts Alice because it means that Daisy is not entirely gone yet and that death is not as scary as it seems. If it occurs during the final moments of life, it is a part of life.

“I’m still here, inside the (powdery, splintery) bones, ankles, the sockets of my eyes, shoulder, hip, teeth, I’m still here, oh, oh.” 

Daisy is attempting to regain some of the control she has lost in the face of death. As she imagines her own death, and as death separates body from mind, she uses language to reestablish the connection between her mind and body. She declares her presence in what almost sounds like a song, as if she is testing her body and voice by making small sounds at the end. She is exercising her final moments of power.

“Stone is how she finally sees herself, her living cells replaced by the insentience of mineral deposition.” 

In the culmination of the stone symbolism throughout the novel, Daisy imagines herself as a slab of stone in death. This is ironic because in dehumanizing herself into dead stone, she is actually reclaiming her life and taking control of her own death. As we see in The Stone Diaries, stone is a powerful representation of life. The cold, unfeeling rock is transformed into a living character in the novel. Here, it dies along with Daisy, but both are given new forms of life.