DOCSLIB.ORG

CRITICAL APPROACHES to the FICTION of MARGARET LAURENCE Also Edited by Colin Nicholson

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
CRITICAL APPROACHES to the FICTION of MARGARET LAURENCE Also Edited by Colin Nicholson CRITICAL APPROACHES TO THE FICTION OF MARGARET LAURENCE Also edited by Colin Nicholson TROPIC CRUCIBLE: Self and Theory in Language and Literature (co-editor) ALEXANDER POPE: Essays for the Tercentenary Margaret Laurence (1926-87) (Courtesy of Trent University, Ontario) Critical Approaches to the Fiction of Margaret Laurence Edited by COLIN NICHOLSON Senior Lecturer, Department of English Literature University of Edinburgh M MACMILLAN Editorial matter and selection, chapter 12 ©Colin Nicholson 1990; Chapter 1 ©Clara Thomas 1990; Chapter 2 ©David Richards 1990; Chapter 3 ©Shirley Chew 1990; Chapter 4 ©Simone Vauthier 1990; Chapter 5 ©Michael A. Peterman 1990; Chapter 6 ©Elizabeth Waterston 1990; Chapter 7 ©Coral Ann Howells 1990; Chapter 8 ©Nancy Bailey 1990; Chapter 9 ©Peter Easingwood 1990; Chapter 10 © Lynette Hunter 1990; Chapter 11 ©John Thieme 1990; Chapter 13 ©Gayle Greene 1990; Chapter 14 ©Barbara Godard 1990; Chapter 15 ©Greta M. K. Coger 1990. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 978-0-333-46069-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1990. Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Typeset by Wessex Typesetters (Division of The Eastern Press Ltd) Frome, Somerset British Ubrary Cataloguing in Publication Data Critical Approaches to the fiction of Margaret Laurence 1. Fiction in English. Canadian writers. Laurence, Margaret, 1926-1987 I. Nicholson, C. E. (Colin Edward), 1944- 813'.54 ISBN 978-1-349-10094-1 ISBN 978-1-349-10092-7 ( eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-10092-7 Contents Margaret Laurence frontispiece Preface vii Acknowledgements XV Notes on the Contributors xvi 1 'Planted firmly in some soil': Margaret Laurence and the Canadian Tradition in Fiction Clara Thomas 1 2 'Leave the Dead some room to dance!': Margaret Laurence and Africa David Richards 16 3 'Some truer image': A Reading of The Stone Angel Shirley Chew 35 4 Images in Stones, Images in Words: Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel Simone Vauth.ier 46 5 'All that happens, one must try to understand': The Kindredness of Tillie Olsen's Tell Me a Riddle and Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel Michael A. Peterman 71 6 Double is Trouble: Twins in A Jest of God Elizabeth Waterston 83 7 Weaving Fabrications: Women's Narratives in A Jest of God and The Fire-Dwellers Coral Ann Howells 93 v vi Contents 8 Identity in The Fire-Dwellers Nancy Bailey 107 9 The Realism of Laurence's Semi-Autobiographical Fiction Peter Easingwood 119 10 Consolation and Articulation in Margaret Laurence's The Diviners Lynette Hunter 133 11 Acknowledging Myths: The Image of Europe in Margaret Laurence's The Diviners and Jack Hodgins's The Invention of the World John Thieme 152 12 'There and not there': Aspects of Scotland in Laurence's Writing Colin Nicholson 162 13 Margaret Laurence's The Diviners: The Uses of the Past Gayle Greene 177 14 Caliban's Revolt: The Discourse of the (M)Other Barbara Godard 208 15 Margaret Laurence's Manawaka: A Canadian Yoknapatawpha Greta M. K. Coger 228 Index 247 Preface When I first began asking people whether they would like to contribute to a collection of essays exploring some of the issues raised in her fiction, Margaret Laurence was alive. On the one occasion that I was able to meet her, in 1983, it was through the good offices of Malcolm Ross, then Visiting Professor in Literature at Edinburgh University's Centre of Canadian Studies, and Adele Wiseman in Toronto. Canada Council footed the bill, while their counterparts in London, Canada House's Academic Relations department, came up with the label 'Faculty Enrichment Award Scheme'. At a large dinner-party in her house Adele Wiseman enabled me to put together an unusual three-week long seminar on current writing in Toronto talking to several of its producers. Adele also suggested that I should visit Laurence at Lakefield, and gave me telephone contact. I spent an afternoon and evening at Lakefield and for supper we were joined by the Scottish writers Andrew Greig and Kathleen Jamie. Andrew had brought his guitar, and I seem to remember that by the end of the evening we were all singing Scottish songs with more enthusiasm than ability. But earlier in the day Margaret Laurence had asked how could I most usefully spend my time with her. At that time I had read only one of her novels and told her so. Well then, after a moment's pause, would I like to see her collection of photographs. And so for more than an hour she talked me through a photographic record of moments in her life. It remains a vivid memory and something for which I have had considerable cause to be grateful when subsequently reading her work. A distinctive interweaving of her life and her life of writing is after all one of the attributes of Laurence's fiction. But it is impossible to read that fiction without being impressed by the scale of the achievement. By giving imaginative shape to contours and definitions of Canadian sensibility, Laurence has added to the ways in which we can understand ourselves and each other. So this collection was first conceived as a token in celebration of the many different kinds of recognition which her writing inspires. It would have been pleasant to give her a copy. Time was against us in that. But the impetus of compassionate human personality which informs her work makes it difficult for us not to think of vii viii Preface her as still being present, and of these essays as a continuation of relationships in other ways. At any rate, it is in that spirit of constructive engagement that this collection is offered. In order to set an appropriate context of Canadian practice and precedent, Clara Thomas, one of Laurence's most widely read critics, considers ways in which the novelist developed and exten­ ded elements recognisable as a Canadian tradition in fiction. The illustrative topoi which Thomas selects include the climatic geography of the Canadian West, Scots-Canadian themes, the small town, the recognition of home, the registration of domestic speech, and the clear voice of women writing. And in this last respect, Thomas suggests for it a cross-gender representativeness. The historical coincidence of a maturing Canadian sense of purpose and place with a more widely articulate feminist awareness lends strength and credibility to Laurence's representative aspect. Then, much of the novelist's own status as paradigm stems, in Thomas's words, 'from our myth of the golden west and its demolition'. In similar vein, Thomas brings into focus the ethnic lineage in fiction to which Laurence is an adherent, and which she inventively restructures. Scotch myths and small-town ambience are here contextualised and connected with the ways in which Laurence exploited them for narrative purposes. But what then seems to be immediately called for is fuller consideration of the impact of expatriation upon her work. Laurence was uniquely placed to respond in distinctive ways to her experiences in Africa, and those experiences have in tum been seen as formative in the emergence of her own novelistic skills. Her encounter with colonialism was, itself, contextualised by her developing sense of Canada's historical situation and record. She could bring into play a different perspec­ tive. These are the areas of her work which David Richards explores, placing some of Laurence's sentimental attachments in other analytical frameworks, opening up some of their ambiguities and looking, too, at the positive interaction between Laurence and Africa. Chinua Achebe publicly acknowledges a sense of indebtedness, and Richards offers a comparative scheme which sets Achebe' s and Laurence's work in ways which suggest that for their literary relationships the river flowed both ways. Shirley Chew's essay on the first novel in the Manawaka cycle, The Stone Angel (1964), concerns itself with the archaeology of Preface ix memory. Hagar Shipley's backward glance over main-travelled roads is often cantankerous or troubled in other ways. Chew discerns an opposition between a search and a yearning for stasis on Hagar's part and narrative strategies which undermine coherence and deny serenity. Within these tensions, Laurence's character-studies group around the angel in various ways. Then, in a French reading of this novel as the play of signifier around signified, Simone Vauthier analyses ways in which the figure of the stone angel reads, and is read by, its contexts. As motif, the recurrent image enshrines considerable meaning. Laurence was to call her next novel A Jest of God (1966) and the novel which followed that features Stacey Cameron/MacAindra who can archly remonstrate with god-spoken words of her own imagining. Little surprise, then, that The Stone Angel should subject celestial represen­ tation to various human resonances and to prairie wind and weather. To read The Stone Angel is to encounter an icon of movement from sightlessness to fall, to partial restoration. The stone figure plies within and across an intriguing field of signifiers; a movement in which both petrified and angelic attributes are displayed. Hagar and the stone angel become, in precise ways, intertexts of each other.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-15962-4 — The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature Edited by Eva-Marie Kröller Frontmatter More Information The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature This fully revised second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature offers a comprehensive introduction to major writers, genres, and topics. For this edition several chapters have been completely re-written to relect major developments in Canadian literature since 2004. Surveys of ic- tion, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writ- ing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence of urban writing. Areas of research that have expanded since the irst edition include environmental concerns and questions of sexuality which are freshly explored across several different chapters. A substantial chapter on franco- phone writing is included. Authors such as Margaret Atwood, noted for her experiments in multiple literary genres, are given full consideration, as is the work of authors who have achieved major recognition, such as Alice Munro, recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. Eva-Marie Kröller edited the Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature (irst edn., 2004) and, with Coral Ann Howells, the Cambridge History of Canadian Literature (2009). She has published widely on travel writing and cultural semiotics, and won a Killam Research Prize as well as the Distin- guished Editor Award of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for her work as editor of the journal Canadian
    [Show full text]
  • MS ATWOOD, Margaret Papers Coll
    MS ATWOOD, Margaret Papers Coll. 00127L Gift of Margaret Atwood, 2017 Extent: 36 boxes and items (11 metres) Includes extensive family and personal correspondence, 1940s to the present; The Handmaid’s Tale TV series media; Alias Grace TV series media; The Heart Goes Last dead matter; appearances; print; juvenilia including papier mache puppets made in high school; Maternal Aunt Joyce Barkhouse (author of Pit Pony and Anna’s Pet), fan mail; professional correspondence and other material Arrangement note: correspondence was organized in various packets and has been kept in original order, rather than alphabetical or chronological order Restriction note: Puppets are restricted due to their fragility (Boxes 26-29). Box 1 Family correspondence, 1970s-1980s: 95 folders Parents (Carl and Margaret Eleanor Atwood) Aunt Kae Cogswell Aunt Ada Folder 1 Mother to Peggy and Jim ALS and envelope January 2, 1969 [sic] 1970 Folder 2 Mother to Peggy and Jim ALS and envelope March 30, 1970 Folder 3 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS and envelope April 21, 1970 Folder 4 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS and ALS, envelope April 29, 1970 Folder 5 Mother to Peggy and Jim ALS August 20, 1970 Folder 6 Mother to Peggy and Jim ALS September 6, 1970 Folder 7 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS, ANS and envelope September 17, 1970 1 MS ATWOOD, Margaret Papers Coll. 00127L Folder 8 Mother to Peggy ALS September 19, 1970 Folder 9 Dad to Peggy ALS September 26, 1970 Folder 10 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS (stamps) and envelope October 14, 1970 Folder 11 Mother to Peggy and Jim ALS November 10, 1970 Folder 12 Mother to Peggy ALS November 15, 1970 Folder 13 Mother to Peggy and Jim ALS December 20, 1970 Folder 14 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS and envelope December 27, 1970 Folder 15 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS and envelope January 8, 1971 Folder 16 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS and envelope January 15, 1971 Folder 17 Mother to Peggy and Jim TLS January 20, 1971 TLS and envelope January 27, 1971 Folder 18 Mother to Peggy ALS and envelope November 25, 1973 2 MS ATWOOD, Margaret Papers Coll.
    [Show full text]
  • Astudy of Margaret Laurence's the Stone Angel
    © 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) SEARCH FOR SELF-HOOD; ASTUDY OF MARGARET LAURENCE’S THE STONE ANGEL AND THE DIVINERS ABIDA BEGUM M.Phil Research scholar (Andhra University) INDIRA COLONY, NEAR JAMA MASJID, GAJUWAKA, VISAKHAPATNAM, ANDHRA PRADESH. ABSTRACT Canadian Literature (Widely Abbreviated as Can Lit) is Literature originating from Canada .Canadian writers have produced a wide Variety of Genres .The First Writers of English in Canada were visitors- explores Travellers and British Officers –Who Recorded their Impressions of British North America in Charts ,Diaries ,Journals and Letters .These Foundational Documents of Journey and Settlements Presage The Documentary Tradition in Canadian Literature in Which Geography ,History and Arduous Voyages of Exploration and Discovery Represent The Quest for Myth of Origins and for a Personal and National Identity Since Before European Contact and The Confederation of Canada, Indigenous People in North America have Occupied the Land and Maintained a Rich and Diverse History of Culture , Identity ,Language , Art and Literature .Indigenous Literature is a Problematic Term as Every Cultural Group has its Own Distinct Oral Tradition ,Language and Cultural Practices . After the Colonization of Canada the Dominant European Cultures were Originally English, French and Gaelic .By the Implementation of Policy of Multiculturalism With in Billingual Frame Work in 1971,Canadian Critics and Academics Gradually began to Recognize that there Existed a more Diverse Population of Readers and Writers .The Country’s Literature has been strongly Influenced by International Immigration, Particularly in Recent Decades Since 1980’s Canada Ethnic and Cultural Diversity has been Openly Reflected in its Literature, With Many of its Most Prominent Writers Focusing on Ethnic Minority , Identity, Duality and Culture Differences Margaret Laurence was one of the Outstanding Writers of Canadian Literature .The Stone Angel and The Diviners were the Manawaka Novels of Margaret Laurence .
    [Show full text]
  • Creative Displacement and Corporeal Defiance
    CREATIVE DISPLACEMENT AND CORPOREAL DEFIANCE: FEMTNIST CANADIAN MODERNISM iN MARGARET LAURENCE'S MANAWAKA NOVELS A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirernents for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon BY Debra Lym Dudek September 2000 O Copyright Debra Lynn Dudek, 200 1. Al1 rights reserved. National Library Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue WeUingtm Onawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON K1AW Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thése sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/fïlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in tbïs thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fknit Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this thesis in partial fùlfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree 6om the University of Saskatchewan, 1 agree that the Libraries of this University may rnake it fieely available for inspection. 1 fùrther agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any rnanner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done.
    [Show full text]
  • Survival: a Story in Margaret Laurence's the Stone Angel
    Survival: A Story in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel A project Submitted to Madurai Kamaraj University as part of the Award of the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH By S.UMA MAHESWARI B8T15956 Under the guidance & supervision of Mr. J. ROBERT, MA.,B.Ed.,M.Phil., Asst.Professor,Department of English Department of English Mary Matha College of Arts and Science Periyakulam April – 2020 2 CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the project work entitled, “Survival: A Story in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel is a research work done by S. UMA MAHESWARI(Reg. No. B8T15956) under the guidance and supervision of Mr. J. ROBERT Assistant Professor, Department of English, Mary Matha College of Arts and Science, Periyakulam, and submitted to Madurai Kamaraj University as part of the Degree of Master of Arts in English. Mr. J. ROBERT Dr. G.J.SATHIASEELAN Asst. Professor, Head of the Department, Department of English, Department of English, Mary Matha College of Arts and Science, Mary Matha College of Arts and Science, Periyakulam. Periyakulam. 3 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the project work entitled, Survival: A Story in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel, is the result of the study carried out by me for M.A. Degree in English under the Guidance and Supervision of Mr. J. ROBERT, Asst. Professor, Department of English, Mary Matha College of Arts and Science, Periyakulam. This project had not been previously submitted for any degree or Diploma and has not formed part of any Paper or Lecture. Date : Place : PERIYAKULAM Name : S.UMA MAHESWARI Register No : B8T15956 Signature of the Candidate 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I express my sincere thanks to Rev.
    [Show full text]
  • The Language of the Incontinent Body in Margaret Laurence's the Stone
    Technologies of Identity: The Language of the Incontinent Body in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel DONNA PALMATEER PENNEE N AN ESSAY ENTITLED “Identity, Genealogy, History” Nikolas Rose explains the Foucauldian sense of “technology” that is signalled I in this paper: Technology, here, refers to any assembly structured by a practical rationality governed by a more or less conscious goal. Human tech- nologies are hybrid assemblages of knowledges, instruments, persons, systems of judgement, buildings and spaces, underpinned at the pro- grammatic level by certain presuppositions about, and objectives for, human beings.… Perhaps the insistence upon an analytic of human technologies is one of the most distinctive features of the approach, … an analysis which does not start from the view that the technologizing of human conduct is malign, but rather examines the ways in which human beings have been simultaneously capacitated and governed by their organization within a technological field. (132; emphasis added) Rose’s terms help to clarify something of what is meant by the “produc- tivity” of “power,” and, while “not start[ing] from the view that the technologizing of human conduct is malign” can permit a more complex view of the historical field than is usually available through cause-effect lenses, I want nevertheless to address the malignancy of technologies of the self. This hurtfulness of history is represented in the literal and figu- rative workings of the incontinent body in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel, a novel that displays the armature of a self simultaneously capaci- tated and governed by the force fields of negative difference.
    [Show full text]
  • Clara Thomas Fonds Inventory #432
    page 1 SERIES FILE LIST - S00018 Clara Thomas fonds Inventory #432 Call #: File: Title: Date(s): Note: 1995-002/008 (1) Clara Thomas on York University 1978, 1981 1995-002/008 (2) Honorary Degree (York). [includes 13 colour June 1986 photos] 1995-002/008 (3) Honorary Degree (Trent). [includes 4 colour May 1991 photos] 1995-002/008 (4) Honorary Degree (Brock). [includes 18 colour June 1992 photos] 1995-002/008 (5) PhD Parchment - Royal Society 1982 1995-002/008 (6) Thomas, Clara (Birthday Cards) 1995-002/008 (7) Thomas, Clara (Christmas Cards) 1995-002/008 (8) Thomas, Clara (Illness & Operation) 1988 1995-002/008 (9) Thomas, Morley 1995-002/008 (10) Northrop, Frye - England 1965 1995-002/008 (11) Anne Welwood. "Judith's Fish" 1977 1995-002/008 (12) Notes on Strathroy, Ont. 1 of 3 1995-002/008 (13) Notes on Strathroy, Ont. 2 of 3 1995-002/008 (14) Notes on Strathroy, Ont. 3 of 3 1995-002/008 (15) Strathroy - C. Thomas, Personal 1995-002/008 (16) WW I, II letters from Vernon Sullivan, Vernon McCandless, and Alfred Brandon Conron. Typescript copies. 1995-002/009 (1) Western Extension, 1956-1957. [University of Western Ontario - Extension Dept.] 1995-002/009 (2) Re: William Arthur Deacon 1982 1995-002/009 (3) C. Thomas - Royal Society 1983 1995-002/009 (4) Thomas, Clara (Retirement). [includes 3 1984 colour photos] 1995-002/009 (5) Northern Telecom Award 1989 1995-002/009 (6) Photos [67 photos: b&w, col.) 1995-002/009 (7) Photos [21 photos: b&w, col.) 1995-002/009 (8) Yearly Log 1971-1987 1995-002/009 (9) Northrop Frye Newsletter 1988-1994 1995-002/009 (10) C.
    [Show full text]
  • Canadian Books for Schools: a Centennial Listing. INSTITUTION Alberta Teachers Association, Edmonton., PUB DATE Feb 68 NOTE 68P
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 044 397 TE 000 626 AUTHOR Snow, Kathleen M., Ed. TITLE Canadian Books for Schools: A Centennial Listing. INSTITUTION Alberta Teachers Association, Edmonton., PUB DATE Feb 68 NOTE 68p. AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers of English, 508 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820 (Stock No. 42457R, $1.50) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$0.50 HC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS *Annotated Bibliographies, Art, *Childrens Books, Cultural Background, *Cultural Education, Drama, Elementary Education, Folklore Books, History, *Literature, Mathematics, Poetry, Sciences, Secondary Education, Social Studies; I_ENTIFIERS *Canada ABSTRACT This annotated bibliography, prepared by the English Council and School Library Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association, lists approximately 320 works -- including novels, biographies, plays, nofiction and historical books, children's books, and books of short stories--written by Canadian authors abou'. Canada. For each entry, the information provided includes grade level (pre-K to High School), subject relevance (Art, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science, or English), Dewey classification number, and price. (3M) U.S. 01104491 OF MIK MVO & WEIF/11 OFFI(fOf IDU01)01 IIIIS DIXUSIIII P KR 191000(11 flICtlf AS IMMO 11011SME 111S011 01 010410111101 0141111116 It.P0I, ItS Of filfW 01 MIMS SIAM 00 NO SECISS11111 11111S1111 OffICIII U110, Of IDOCA11011 OS 10111101 01 POSKI. re\ CanadianBooks for Schools A CentennialListing of Published by The English Counciland School library Council The Alberta Teacher? Association,Edmonton, Alberta February, 1968 Como deep by John Snow INTRODUCTION in the effort to bring children and books together, the teacher of English and the librarian are partners.This partnership Is reflected In this listing of Canadian books for schools, the production of which has been a joint effort of the English Council and the School Library Council of The Alberta Teachers' Association.
    [Show full text]
  • Abortion in Canadian Literature
    Citation for the following article: Jeff Koloze, “Abortion in Canadian Literature: Comparisons with American Literature and Canada’s Unique Contributions,” Proceedings of the Nineteenth University Faculty for Life Conference at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis MN (2009), ed. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. (Washington, D.C.: University Faculty for Life, 2013), pp. 207-225. Abortion in Canadian Literature: Comparisons with American Literature and Canada’s Unique Contributions Jeff Koloze A BSTRACT: After reviewing the scholarship on abortion in twentieth- century Canadian fiction written in English, the essay discusses various abortion scenes in major Canadian works by comparing and contrasting them with major works from the United States. The essay then discusses post-abortion syndrome and illustrates passages in Canadian fiction on abortion where numerous characters display features of that syndrome. OCATING CANADIAN NOVELS concerned with abortion often approximates an archaeological dig since compilations of literary Lcriticism frequently obscure, minimize, or lack references to abortion. Margaret Atwood’s Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature1 has much to say about babies being an inappropriate solution for a plot’s denouement, calling this technique the “Baby Ex Machina,”2 1 Margaret Atwood, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (Toronto ON: McClelland & Stewart, 1972). 2 Atwood, Survival, p. 247. The “Baby Ex Machina” denouement is well- established in Canadian fiction. Frederick Philip Grove’s 1925 Settlers of the Marsh (Toronto ON: Penguin Canada,2006) ends with two instances of children bringing closure to an otherwise disastrous plot: Bobby, a young man befriended by Niels, the main character, and encouraged to do well, has five children; Ellen, the love of Niels’s life, realizes at novel’s end that she needs to be a mother (pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Form in Margaret Laurence's the Stone Angel
    "FORM IN MARGARET LAURENCE’S 7 ANGEL" By H. O. OCfflDO University of NAIROBI Library 0472362 3 A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Masters of Arts in Literature presented at the University of Nairobi. f»IVERSITY OF *mtafricamcouict§SI l September 1996 TABLE OF CONTENTS Fable of C o n ten ts..........................................................................................I Declaration....................................................................................................II Dedication ......................................................................................................... Ill Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... IV -i *., A bstract............................................................................................................ V introduction . 0 ............................................................................................. VII Chapter I - The Life and Works of Margaret L au ren ce..........................1 Chapter II - F o rm ....................................................................................... 19 Chapter III - Form in The Stone A n g el...................................................36 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 109 Bibliography .......................................................................................... 120 DECLARATION This thesis is my original work and has not been presented
    [Show full text]
  • Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Margaret Laurence's African Writings
    Wendy Roy Anti-imperialism and Feminism in Margaret Laurence's African Writings Ivl argaret Laurence's anti-imperialist and feminist impulses have common origins. As she indicates in her 1978 essay "Ivory Tower or Grassroots?: The Novelist as Socio-Political Being," both stem from her upbringing in the United Church of Canada and her involvement with the "old Left" of North Winnipeg during and just after her college years, when she worked for the communist newspaper The Westerner. Laurence links her "feelings of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti- authoritarianism" to her "growing awareness of the dilemma and power- lessness of women," concluding that the situation of "peoples with colonial mentalities, w,as not unlike that of women in our society"(24, 23). Her own feminism and her connection of anti-imperialism with women's issues began before the feminist movement of the 1960s and was rooted not only in her political and religious beliefs but also in the women's suffrage move- ment of the early twentieth century. In "Books that Mattered to Me," Laurence cites Nellie McClung as a direct influence (241); as Randi Warne points out, McClung's feminism and social activism, including her work on suffrage and temperance and her battle to have women recognized as "persons" under the law, were also intimately connected to the practice of her religion.1 Western Canadian feminism of the type advocated by McClung and the socialism of the Winnipeg old Left are at the roots of the feminism and anti- imperialism evident in Laurence's five books about Africa. Despite these common origins, however, Laurence's feminist principles are sometimes at odds in her African books with her anti-imperialist beliefs.
    [Show full text]
  • Libraries and Cultural Resources
    LIBRARIES AND CULTURAL RESOURCES Archives and Special Collections Suite 520, Taylor Family Digital Library 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4 www.asc.ucalgary.ca Malcolm Ross fonds. ACU SPC F0027 https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/malcolm-ross-fonds An additional finding aid in another format may exist for this fonds or collection. Inquire in Archives and Special Collections. MALCOLM ROSS fonds MsC 18 The Malcolm Ross Fonds MsC 18 CORRESPONDENCE .......................................................................................................................... 2 Correspondence from Canadian writers, and Canadian and American academics .................. 20 CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO NEW CANADIAN LIBRARY SERIES, MCCLELLAND AND STEWART ....................................................................................................................................................... 24 PUBLISHED WORK BY MALCOLM ROSS ......................................................................................... 50 ABOUT MALCOLM ROSS ................................................................................................................ 50 ABOUT NEW CANADIAN LIBRARY SERIES ...................................................................................... 52 Page 2 MALCOLM ROSS fonds MsC 18 FILE TITLE DATE BOX/FILE Biographical material about M. Ross [197- (?)] 1.1 - typescript (photocopy) and typescript CORRESPONDENCE Academic letters and documents 1934-April 5, 1962 1.2 - arranged chronologically: • E.E. Stoll
    [Show full text]