The Past and Self-knowledge in Margaret Laurence [microform]

Résumé du livre

Criticism of Margaret Laurence's fiction has pointed to her concern with the past as a restrictive power and as a source of alienation and isolation from whose stranglehold her characters struggle to free themselves. However, the argument of this thesis is that Laurence also sees the past as a means to self-knowledge and inner freedom. While she is critical of the ancestors, she also acknowledges that their values, traditions, and perceptions are largely the basis of individual identity. Indeed, the richness of Laurence's characterizations is strongly linked to her efforts to imply, if not always state, the past forces which have shaped her characters. The ancestors can never he denied altogether, and it is therefore necessary that the individual find some means of living, with humanity and dignity, within the context of the past. Such means must encompass understanding and asserting oneself against the limitations imposed by background while at the same time accepting that one can not escape the past completely. For Laurence, inner freedom and self-knowledge imply not escape from but understanding and acceptance of the past. This thesis traces Laurence's conception of the interaction between past and present through an analysis of The Tomorrow-Tamer and Other Stories, This Side Jordan, The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, The Fire-Dwellers, A Bird in the Houses, and The Diviners. In doth the African works and the earlier novels of the Manawaka cycle, I consider Laurence's perception of the past as a source of misunderstanding, fear, and isolation, hut I also contend that Laurence views the past itself, if properly confronted, as a means to selfunderstanding. In A Bird in the House and The Diviners, I explore the relationship between past and present primarily in terms of artistic perception and the writer's incorporation of past experience within her art. For Vanessa MacLeod and Morag Gunn, the past becomes a source of artistic expression; the artistic expression in turn becomes a means of coming to terms with the past. Much the same may be said of Laurence's own work. The Manawaka cycle in particular allows Laurence to explore her cultural background as a means to self-understanding. These works also offer the Canadian reader insight into the nature of the Canadian experience and thereby provide him a means of understanding himself as a Canadian.