Margaret Laurence

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Margaret Laurence

(born July 18, 1926, Neepawa, Man., Can. — died Jan. 5, 1987, Lakefield, Ont.) Canadian writer. She lived in Africa with her engineer husband in the 1950s; her experiences there provided material for her early works. She is best known for depicting the lives of women struggling for self-realization in the male-dominated world of western Canada. Her works include the novels The Stone Angel (1964), A Jest of God (1966), and The Fire-Dwellers (1969) and the stories collected in A Bird in the House (1970) and The Diviners (1974). In the 1970s she turned to writing children's books.

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The Canadian writer Margaret Laurence (1926-1987) was the author of many novels and stories about Africa and Canada. The five Manawaka novels feature strongly etched heroines and won international acclaim.

Margaret Laurence (Jean Margaret Wemyss) was born in 1926 in Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada. Her father's family had been Scottish settlers in the district; her mother's, Irish. She was educated in Neepawa and at United College in Winnipeg, which she attended from 1944 to 1947. After graduation she worked as a reporter on the Winnipeg Citizen, a labor daily. In 1948 she married Jack Laurence, a civil engineering graduate from the University of Manitoba. In 1949 the Laurences went to England and in 1950 to Africa, where Jack Laurence was in charge of a dam-building project in Somaliland (now Somalia). In 1952 they moved to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where they lived until 1957. Their daughter, Jocelyn, was born during a leave in England in 1952; their son, David, in Ghana in 1955. The Laurences returned to Vancouver, Canada, in 1957. In 1962 Margaret Laurence moved with her children to England, where she lived until moving back to Canada permanently in 1974. The Laurences were divorced in 1969. After 1974 Margaret Laurence lived in Lakefield, Ontario, a small town near the city of Peterborough. Much of her last novel, The Diviners, was written at a cottage on the Otonabee River, near her home in Lakefield.

First Successes

Margaret Laurence started writing when she was young. Her first novel, called Pillars of the Nation, was written at the age of 12 for a contest sponsored by the Manitoba Free Press. A story about pioneer settlers of the West, its town was already called Manawaka. It won honorable mention. Throughout high school and college discerning teachers such as Mildred Musgrove and Malcolm Ross recognized in her a fiction writer's talent, but it was not until her African experiences that the talent blossomed.

Intrigued by the extensive oral literature of the Somali people, she searched out and translated examples of the folk tales, love poems, and formal, highly-developed gabei, gathering them together in a book called A Tree for Poverty, published in 1954. In Ghana she began to write the short stories later collected and published as The Tomorrow-Tamer (London, 1963; New York, 1964). Her first novel, This Side Jordan (1960), is set in Ghana, and The Prophet's Camel Bell (1963), published in the United States as New Wind in a Dry Land (1964), is a retrospective account of her experiences in Somaliland. There she came to a dawning awareness that the themes of freedom, individual dignity, and survival are universal in all literature, applicable to her own Canadian past and present as well as to the desert people of Somalia. She wrote of African people with tact and empathy, so much so that she was repeatedly praised by Chinua Achebe, the senior Nigerian novelist, for her portrayals of Africans and their dilemmas.

The Manawaka Cycle

Five works set in the Canadian prairie town of Manawaka constitute the major body of Laurence's fiction: The Stone Angel (1964), A Jest of God (1966), The Fire-Dwellers (1969), A Bird in the House (1970), and The Diviners (1974). In them, through the voices of five memorable women, she created a multi-faceted Canadian experience through four generations. In The Stone Angel Hagar Shipley tells her story of pride and pain and of learning the meaning of love just before it is too late. Rachel Cameron of A Jest of God is a spinster school-teacher, trapped in Manawaka by the demands of her mother and, even more, by her own fears and self-distrust. Through the crucial events of one summer she comes to a degree of self-knowledge and a limited freedom. Her sister, Stacey MacAindra of The Fire-Dwellers, lives in Vancouver with her husband and four children. She is battered from all sides by an urban environment that seems monstrously threatening and by the multiple demands on her as wife, mother, and friend. But Stacey is strong, a doer and an activator. In the weeks before her 40th birthday she lives through a series of shocks that brings her an increased acceptance of herself and of the irreversible process of life.

The collection of short stories A Bird in the House centers on the young Vanessa MacLeod, her initiation into the mysteries of love and loss, and her gradual acceptance and understanding of Grandfather Connor. As a child she feared and resented him and his tyranny; maturity brings her respect for his strengths and pity for his self-imposed isolation.

The Divinersis the story of Morag Gunn of Manawaka, a writer of novels. On one level the story unfolds the process of Morag's life from the death of her parents when she was young to the novel's present when she is 47, struggling to understand her own life and caught up in a tormenting concern for her daughter, Pique. In its deepest and broadest meaning The Diviners is the story of a profoundly religious pilgrimage, the affirmation of faith and the finding of grace.

Other Works and Awards

In 1968 Margaret Laurence published Long Drums and Cannons, a study of contemporary Nigerian novelists and playwrights, and in 1976, Heart of a Stranger, a collection of personal, often autobiographical essays. She also wrote four children's books: Jason's Quest (1970), The Olden Days Coat (1979), Six Darn Cows (1979), and A Christmas Story (1980).

Margaret Laurence was a beloved and respected Canadian. She was awarded the Order of Canada, the Molson Prize, and honorary degrees by many universities. The Manawaka novels have been translated into many languages.

Margaret Laurence
Born	July 18, 1926(1926-07-18) Neepawa, Manitoba
Died	January 5, 1987 (aged 60) Lakefield, Ontario
Occupation	novelist, essayist, academic, Chancellor
Genres	Canadian Literature Children's literature
Literary movement	CanLit Feminism
Notable work(s)	The Stone Angel The Diviners

Influences Susanna Moodie, Dorothy Livesay, Martha Ostenso, W. O. Mitchell, Hugh MacLennan,

Influenced Adele Wiseman, Marian Engel, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Carol Shields

Early years

Born in Neepawa, Manitoba, Laurence was the daughter of solicitor Robert Wemyss and Verna Jean Simpson. Following the death of her mother when Laurence was four, Margaret Simpson, a maternal aunt, came to take care of the family. A year later, Simpson married her father and in 1933 they had a son, Robert. In 1935, Robert Wemyss Sr. died of pneumonia.

Education

In 1944, Laurence attended Winnipeg's United College (now the University of Winnipeg) on scholarship, pursuing an honours English degree. She wrote for the student newspaper and became involved with the "Old Left" socialist reform group. She graduated in 1947. Soon afterwards, she was hired as a reporter for The Winnipeg Citizen, where she wrote book reviews, covered labour issues, and hosted a daily radio column.

Personal life

Following her graduation from United College, she married John Fergus Laurence, an engineer. His job took them to England (1949), the then-British protectorate of British Somaliland (1950–1952), as well as the British colony of the Gold Coast (1952–1957). Laurence developed an admiration for Africa and of its various populations, which found expression in her writing.

In 1952, Laurence gave birth to daughter Jocelyn during a leave in England. Son David was born in 1955 in the Gold Coast. The family left the Gold Coast just before it gained independence as Ghana in 1957, moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, where they stayed for five years.

In 1962, she separated from her husband and moved to London, England for a year. She then moved to Elm Cottage (Penn, Buckinghamshire) where she lived for more than ten years, although she visited Canada often. Her divorce became final in 1969. That year, she became writer in residence at the University of Toronto. A few years later, she moved to Lakefield, Ontario. She also bought a cabin on the Otonabee River near Peterborough, where she wrote The Diviners (1974) during the summers of 1971 to 1973. Laurence served as Chancellor of Trent University in Peterborough from 1981 to 1983.

In 1986, Laurence was diagnosed with lung cancer late in the disease's development. According to the James King biography, The Life of Margaret Laurence, the prognosis was grave, and as the cancer had spread to other organs, there was no treatment offered beyond palliative care. Laurence decided the best course of action was to spare herself and her family further suffering. She committed suicide at her home at 8 Regent St., Lakefield, on January 5, 1987. She was buried in her hometown in the Neepawa Cemetery, Neepawa, Manitoba. Laurence's house in Neepawa has been turned into a museum. Her literary papers are housed in the Clara Thomas Archives at York University.

Literary career

One of Canada's most esteemed and beloved authors by the end of her literary career,^[1] Laurence began writing short stories shortly after her marriage, as did her husband. Each published fiction in literary periodicals while living in Africa, but Margaret continued to write and expand her range. Her early novels were influenced by her experience as a minority in Africa. They show a strong sense of Christian symbolism and ethical concern for being a white person in a colonial state.

It was after her return to Canada that she wrote The Stone Angel, the book for which she is best known. Set in a fictional prairie small town, the novel is narrated retrospectively by Hagar Shipley, a ninety-four year old woman living in her eldest son’s home in Vancouver. Published in 1964, the novel is of the literary form that looks at the entire life of a person, and Laurence produced a novel from a Canadian experience. After finishing school, the narrator moves from Toronto to Manitoba, and marries a rough-mannered homesteader, Bram Shipley, against the wishes of her father, who then disinherits her — disinheritance a recurring theme in much of Laurence's fiction. The couple struggles through the economic hardship and climatic challenges of Canadian frontier existence, and Hagar, unhappy in the relationship, leaves Bram, moving with her son John to Vancouver where she works as a domestic for many years, betraying her social class and upbringing. The novel is required reading in many North American school systems and colleges.^[2]

Laurence was published by Canadian publishing company McClelland and Stewart, and she became one of the key figures in the emerging Canadian literature tradition. Her published works after The Stone Angel express the changing role of women's lives in the 1970s. Although on the surface, her later works like the The Diviners depict very different roles for women than her earlier novels do, it is safe to say that Laurence throughout her career was faithfully dedicated to presenting a female perspective on contemporary life, depicting the choices — and consequences of those choices — women must make to find meaning and purpose in life.

In later life, Laurence was troubled when a fundamentalist Christian group succeeded in briefly removing The Diviners as course material from Lakefield High School, her local secondary school.

The Stone Angel, a feature-length film based on Laurence's novel, written and directed by Kari Skogland and starring Ellen Burstyn premiered in Fall 2007.

Awards and recognition

In 1967, Laurence won the Governor General's Award for her novel A Jest of God (1966). In 1972 Laurence was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

The Stone Angel was one of the selected books in the 2002 edition of Canada Reads, championed by Leon Rooke.

The University of Winnipeg named a Women's Studies Centre, and an annual speaker series, in Laurence's honour.

At York University in Toronto, one of the undergraduate residence buildings (Bethune Residence) named a floor after her.

Bibliography

A Tree for Poverty (1954) — anthology of Somali poetry and folk stories
This Side Jordan (1960)
The Tomorrow-Tamer (1963) — collection of ten short stories set in West Africa
The Prophet's Camel Bell (1963) — non-fiction account of Laurence's life in British Somaliland
The Stone Angel (1964) was set in the fictional town of Manawaka, Manitoba (based on Neepawa, Manitoba, where Laurence grew up). ISBN 0-226-46936-0
A Jest of God (1966) was also set in Manawaka. It won the Governor General's Award in 1967. The book was made into the 1968 movie Rachel, Rachel, starring Joanne Woodward.
Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists 1952-1966 (1968)
The Fire-Dwellers (1969)
A Bird in the House (1970) — collection of short stories
Jason's Quest (1970) — children's book
The Diviners (1974)
Heart of a Stranger (1976) — essays
Six Darn Cows (1979) — children's book
The Olden Days Coat (1980) — children's book
A Christmas Birthday Story (1982) — children's book
Dance on the Earth: A Memoir (1989)

Notes

References

King, James. The Life of Margaret Laurence. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 1998. ISBN 0-676-97129-6.
Powers, Lyall. Alien Heart: The Life and Work of Margaret Laurence. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-87013-714-X.
New, W. H., ed. Margaret Laurence: the Writer and Her Critics (1977)
Thomas, Clara. Margaret Laurence (1969)
Thomas, Clara. The Manawaka World of Margaret Laurence (1975)
Woodcock, George, ed. A Place To Stand On: Essays By and About Margaret Laurence (1983)

External links

Margaret Laurence's entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia
Biography (York University)
CBC Digital Archives: Margaret Laurence: Canada's Divine Writer
University of Winnipeg's Margaret Laurence Women's Studies Centre
Margaret Laurence at the Internet Movie Database
Margaret Laurence Home, Neepawa

Academic offices
Preceded by William Morton	Chancellor of Trent University 1981–1983	Succeeded by John Josiah Robinette

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