34 pages • 1 hour read
Carol ShieldsThe Stone Diaries
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Reality Versus Fiction
Because Daisy is both the protagonist and the omniscient narrator, we quickly learn that her accounts of events are sometimes exaggerated and often unreliable. This means that the world of the novel always oscillates between reality—the “truth” of the narrative—and the subjective fiction of her storytelling. Daisy herself, sometimes in the first person and sometimes in the third, often acknowledges herself as an unreliable narrator: “The recounting of life is a cheat, of course; I admit the truth of this; even our own stories are obscenely distorted” (28).
Later, she writes, “Maybe now is the time to tell you that Daisy Goodwill has a little trouble with getting things straight; with the truth, that is,” and she also notes that “she imposes the voice of the future on the events of the past, causing all manner of distortion” (148). The idea of real versus imagined persists through to the final moments of Daisy’s life: As her mind and memory fail, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to distinguish reality and fiction, and she dreams different versions of her own reality as she faces death.
This distortion, and the novel as a whole, is playing on the genre of autobiography. The nature of the genre typically entails telling the truth about one’s own life and the way things occurred. However, throughout the novel, which is presumably Daisy’s autobiography, we see letters and monologues from other characters, varying and contradicting points of view, and each character’s inner thoughts, which someone writing a typical autobiography could not know. Thus, the juxtaposition of reality and fiction in The Stone Diaries is a rewriting of the autobiography genre itself
The Domestic Woman
The various female characters in The Stone Diaries all display some degree of the domestic gender stereotype that was especially relevant during the time the novel takes place. On the extreme side of the domestic spectrum are Mrs. Hoad, Daisy’s first husband’s mother, who believes a woman’s life is defined by her ability to please her husband. Her monologue on the eve of the marriage instructs Daisy on how to care for Harold, his preferences and dislikes, and how to keep herself looking young. Also towards this end is Beans, Daisy’s friend who believes in the traditional marriage-with-kids ideal, “is always going on about making other people happy” and is disillusioned when her husband cheats (131).
Somewhat in the middle of the domestic spectrum is Daisy. She believes in her role as a wife, both in her first marriage, in which she thinks she can change Harold, and in her second, in which she is a homemaker who gets dressed up for Barker when he arrives home from work and reads magazine articles on how to please him sexually. Her role as a mother is equally important, even extending to mothering Beverly and Victoria, who are not part of her immediate family. After Barker dies and her are children grown, she starts writing professionally and becomes more of her own woman, beginning to step out of the gender roles assigned to her.
Also in the middle is Alice, who, although independent, outspoken, and “mean,” decides to change herself: “I was not a kind person, but I believed I could learn” (234), she says, because “Women, I learned, needed to be bloody, but they didn’t need to be mean” (235). She is of a different time than her mother and, in many ways, is more progressive, but at times, she plays into the demure and domestic stereotype of women.
On the opposite end is Fraidy, who has never dreamed of marriage and children or the traditional family, although she does eventually marry. She unabashedly takes many lovers and keeps a record of them. She also lives on her own, supports herself, and judges the women around her for their subscription to the domestic ideal.
The Power of Language
In The Stone Diaries, there is a deep concern with how language is tied to identity. In Chapter 3, Cuyler has developed a “silver tongue” with a passion for giving speeches: “Call it a dispensation of nature—a genetic burst that places a lyre in the throat, a bezel on the tongue” (84). He has become known for his use of language, which began on the train ride from Indiana with Daisy, in which he felt he had to fill the awkward silence as they got to each other. What starts out as a nervous strategy becomes uniquely tied to who he is.
Equal to the power of saying things is the power of not saying them. Magnus regrets not having been more outspoken with his feelings for Clarentine before she left and pretends that he can still talk to her after she dies. Whereas he was at first known for his reticence, Magnus later is known for his perfect recital of Jane Eyre. Barker, too, experiences the regret of not expressing his love for Daisy before it was too late, and he does so in the written form of language in his last letter.
Written language is also tied to identity. When Daisy is convalescing, her hospital bracelet simply says “Goodwill” instead of “Flett,” a distinction that Daisy “cherishes” because seeing her maiden name written on the bracelet reminds her of who she used to be before her marriage, her young perspective of the world, and her strained relationship to religion and her soul. Behind the name is “the small primal piece of herself that came unshaped in the world” (322). Similarly, after her book written under the name “Flett” flops, Alice changes her name to “Goodwill” because “Flett was a dust mote, a speck on the wall, standing for nothing, while Goodwill rang rhythmically on the ear and sent out agreeable metaphoric waves” (325). Thus, names become the literal embodiment of the deep connection between language and identity.
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By Carol Shields
