Feminist Flashes in the Select Works of Margaret Laurence

Abstract

Margaret Laurence (1926–1987) is one of the most significant Canadian women writers of the twentieth century. Her fiction explores women's experiences of identity, freedom, marriage, motherhood, sexuality, social expectations, and self-realization. Her major Manawaka novels—The Stone Angel (1964), A Jest of God (1966), The Fire-Dwellers (1969), and The Diviners (1974)—place women at the centre of the narrative and examine their struggles within patriarchal social structures. Laurence's women are not merely passive victims of oppression; they are complex individuals who resist social expectations and search for an independent sense of self. Through Hagar Shipley, Rachel Cameron, Stacey MacAindra, and Morag Gunn, Laurence presents different forms of women's struggle for freedom and identity. This article examines major feminist concerns in Laurence's fiction, particularly patriarchy, female identity, marriage, motherhood, sexuality, social dependence, and self-realization.