Margaret Laurence's much admired Manawaka fiction - The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, The Fire-Dwellers, A Bird in the House, and The Diviners – has achieved remarkable recognition for its compassionate portrayal of the attempt to find meaning and peace in ordinary life. In Writing Grief, Christian Riegel argues that the protagonists in these books achieve resolution through acts of mourning, placing this fiction within the larger tradition of writing that explores the nuances and strategies of mourning.Riegel's analysis alludes to sociological and literary antecedants of the study of mourning, including the tradition of elegy, from Derrida and Lacan to Freud, van Gennep, and Milton. The "work" of mourning is necessary to move from a state of emotional paralysis to one of acceptance and active engagement. Laurence's characters "perform the work of mourning . . . returning over and over again to the key issues relating to loss," and, as Riegel's close examination of the texts suggests, are changed thereafter fundamentally and significantly.As an important study of one aspect of Laurence's oeuvre, Writing Grief not only illustrates how Laurence's own preoccupations with mourning are figured, but also how different ways of working through grief result in renewed potential for consolation and connection, and "a renewed definition of self."
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 813/.54
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 22
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9780887553974 0887556736
- LCCN
- PR9199.3.L33
- LCCN Item number
- Z793 2003eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaBVAU
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (192 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00601195 (OCoLC)243614311 (CaOOCEL)413011
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaBVAU
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- CONTENTS 8
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 10
- INTRODUCTION: Mourning, Work, and Liminality in the Manawaka Fiction 14
- CHAPTER ONE: Speaking the Heart's Truth: Hagar's Work of Mourning 32
- CHAPTER TWO: Transgressing the Taboos: Rachel's Work of Mourning 56
- CHAPTER THREE: The Crisis of Word and Meaning: The Work of Mourning and the Loss of Consolation 80
- CHAPTER FOUR: "Rest Beyond the River": Mourning in A Bird in the House 102
- CHAPTER FIVE: The Diviners and the Work of Mourning 120
- AFTERWORD: Laurence and the Elegiac Tradition 150
- ENDNOTES 162
- BIBLIOGRAPHY 184
- INDEX 196
- A 196
- B 196
- C 196
- D 196
- E 197
- F 197
- G 198
- H 198
- I 198
- J 198
- K 198
- L 199
- M 200
- N 201
- O 201
- P 201
- R 202
- S 202
- T 203
- U 203
- V 203
- W 203
