Margaret Laurence

In the second semester of the class English 1201 Representative Literary Works, I read a short story called “The Loons” by Margaret Laurence. Published in a collection of stories, entitled A Bird in The House, published in 1970, “The Loons” is one of Laurence’s most controversial and talked about stories she has written. While Laurence claimed that her writing was influenced by her anger at the treatment of the Métis people by Canadian society, many still call the short story, and specifically…

Margaret Laurence’s “The Loons”, and in Emma Lee Warrior’s “Compatriots”, similarly display the many adversities of the Native civilization throughout Canadian history. Struggling to find their place in this world, the Natives are forced to integrate to the dominant culture. Although they battle to find who they truly are, the Natives remained determined to dictate how they should find their identity. In both short stories, the protagonists, Piquette and Lucy face many hardships towards their…

shown within Margaret Laurence’s “Where the World Began”, in which she is able to proudly describe many of the reasons why her town in the Canadian prairies are where her roots begin, despite her town being labelled as undesirable to the untrained eye. Through a variety of literary elements and well-described thoughts, Laurence’s essay is able to greatly influence me by evoking strong personal connections and feelings, connections between the way that I view my hometown with the way Laurence…

adapt with the city. Margaret Laurence’s essay, “Where The World Began,” and Brian Maracle’s essay, “Out of Touch and Loving It,” are essays that are similar to each other. In both these essays, they both talk about going home and how different their lifestyle is than the urban society. First of all, moving away from one place to another is always a difficult process. However, coming back to that same place after many years, one can understand the sense of belonging. In Margaret Laurence’s…

she is sometimes regretful but rarely remorseful. Asking forgiveness from neither God nor those around her, she must still wrestle with her own nature. On the first reading, the novel appears to be a story of an old woman consumed with pride. Margaret Laurence cites patriarchal society as a kind of instigating culprit for it and she argues that both men and women alike have been injured by the forces which lead to Hagar’s uncompromising pride which is raging towards freedom in the end.…

our lives. It appears to allow us the freedom to choose what our worlds are made of. However, once we begin to apply it to the shaping influences in our lives, it becomes a danger to our capacity for personal growth. In A Bird in the House, Margaret Laurence explores the necessity of willfully accepting and embracing the legacies of the dead in our lives. Through the use of tone and symbolism, we are able to observe the resultant growth that accompanies this acceptance. The narrator…

Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners has over the years caught the attention of the public as being extremely immoral. In fact, in the eighties, the novel was on the verge of being banned from all schools in Ontario for being “degrading, dehumanizing”, according to one parent. It is undeniable that this novel does contain severely immoral acts like adultery, cheating, and un-marital sex – all acts that are diametrically opposed to the teachings of religion. In the eyes of parents, it is therefore…

In contrast to Sime, Margaret Laurence’s, “To Set Our House in Order” (which is part of a story cycle titled “A Bird in the House”) explores prairie realism just as Ross does. With that said, all three short stories explore different effects the environment has upon its characters…

Strength is often misinterpreted as showing no emotion. In Margaret Laurence’s novel The Stone Angel, The protagonist, Hagar Currie/Shipley is strongly influenced by her father, Jason Currie. Jason taught Hagar to be tough and tenacious. Hagar shields her weakness with her inability to help her peers. Hagar unsuccessfully plays the roles of a maiden, wife, and mother in her life. As a maiden in a patriarchal society, Hagar does not conform and refuses to offer sympathy to her family. During her…

In the last year of high school, students of Ontario should only be educated on Canadian literature within English courses. Even though other writers from all cultures provide excellent teaching tools to assist with the provinces educational curriculum, the focus should be related to Canadian literature and it’s writers. As a matter of fact, the direr need for students to become accustomed with the literacy of Canada is greatly important. In all honesty, three reasons are; requiring to…