Date of Award
1989
Publication Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing
Supervisor
L.K. MacKendrick
Supervisor
P. Stevens
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Abstract
Margaret Laurence orders the world around her through the telling of story, and she shows us, in The Stone Angel, A Bird in the House and The Diviners, strong women ordering the world around them. The thesis analyzes the tales Laurence tells through Hagar Shipley, Vanessa MacLeod, and Morag Gunn respectively, examining the freedom gathered in these tellings. Christian symbols It also considers the complementary Judeo-and names and allusions through which their captivities and freedoms are eventually seen.
Each of the main characters face discrimination as woman, but each is transformed from slave to free woman, and this development of the female character takes place over takes place within the course of these three books, as it them. Laurence begins with the patriarchal stories, the stories of Abraham and Hagar and Sarah, Moses and Aaron, Jacob, and Joshua, but ends on a distinctly female note: the Morag of The Diviners is, finally, Sarah, and possibly Abraham, and her daughter Pique, Isaac. Pique inherits her mother's world and her mother's spirit, and she will be her mother's voice; Pique will Abraham's future, and the people on into the future.
Recommended Citation
Markham, Marion Elizabeth, "Margaret Lawrence: Setting Her House in Order" (1989). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 8670.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/8670