The Landscape as a Place of Entrapment and Liberation in Margaret Laurence's Manawaka Cycle

STUDENÁ, Pavlína. The Landscape as a Place of Entrapment and Liberation in Margaret Laurence's Manawaka Cycle. In 9th Triennial International Conference of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies (CEACS) : Canadian Landscapes/Paysages canadiens, 27-29th October 2022, Eötvös Loránd University & Károli Gáspár University, Budapest, Hungary. 2022.

Basic information

• Original name: The Landscape as a Place of Entrapment and Liberation in Margaret Laurence's Manawaka Cycle
• Authors: STUDENÁ, Pavlína.
• Edition: 9th Triennial International Conference of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies (CEACS) : Canadian Landscapes/Paysages canadiens, 27-29th October 2022, Eötvös Loránd University & Károli Gáspár University, Budapest, Hungary. 2022.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60206 Specific literatures
• Country of publisher: Hungary
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: Margaret Laurence; Canadian landscape; Manawaka; Prairie literature; imaginary landscape; identity
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

In her Manawaka cycle, Margaret Laurence created a vivid literary landscape, a microcosm of Canadian Prairie society in its unity and diversity. Through a comparative analysis of The Stone Angel (1964), A Bird in the House (1970), and The Diviners (1974), the paper explores how Laurence, by interweaving the region’s mythological past into the protagonists’ journeys towards independence and dignity, draws a parallel between the quest for personal and national identity. The paper builds on the work of Laura K. Davis and argues further that Laurence not only participated in establishing Canadian national narratives but that she also played a crucial role in shaping them by telling the stories of Pioneers and settlers alongside those of the Métis as representatives of the marginalized Aboriginal population and bearers of their cultural heritage. Laurence challenges the Pioneer myths of conquering the landscape and sees the landscape as a means of transformation, a place where her heroines come “not to hide but to seek“ and repeatedly venture into their unconscious psychic landscapes to explore their inner Selves and search for their autonomous identities. Although the Prairie fiction of the 1960s and 1970s was dominated by a regionalist perspective, the paper demonstrates that with gender, class, and ethnicity in the spotlight, this perception of the region has shifted from the notions of physical landscape towards the individual people inhabiting that particular region and their inner landscapes.

Links

• MUNI/A/1478/2021, interní kód MU: Name: Paradigms, strategies and developments - Anglophone literary and cultural studies II

Investor: Masaryk University