Writing Grief: Margaret Laurence and the Work of Mourning

Synopsis

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."

Copyright:

2003

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

192 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780887559686

Related ISBNs:

9780887556739, 9780887553974

Publisher:

University of Manitoba Press

Date of Addition:

05/14/22

Copyrighted By:

Christian Riegel

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.