Margaret Laurence   Related Websites               image source

•   Major characters in their power relations:

 

Whites	Africans
the head mistress Hilda Poovey. Mrs. Clare Mackie David Mackie	Kwaale's father  the owner of the oil palm plantation Dr. Quansah.
Ms. Violet Nedden	Ruth Ayesha as a stolen slave Yindo as an internal migrant to work
	Ref. Ethnic groups in Ghana:  "In 1960 roughly 100 linguistic and cultural groups were recorded in Ghana. . . . The major ethnic groups in Ghana include the Akan, Ewe, Mole-Dagbane, Guan, and Ga-Adangbe.  " (source)

• How do the characters above differ from each other in their cultural identity and social position?
• How is Ms. Nedden related to her students?  Is she a good teacher?  How about Ms. Poovey?
• Ruth: Does she completely reject the native culture?  Or is she rejected by it?  What is the major turning point in her life, the festival or her conflict with Kwaale afterwards?
• Why does Ms. Nedden emphasize her limpness so much?  What are the symbolic meanings of the other things associated with her, the chair and the ebony cane?

 
Margaret Laurence:

                      My writing, then, has been my own attempt to come to terms
                      with the past.  I see this process as the gradual one of freeing
                      oneself from the stultifying aspect of the past, while at the same
                      time beginning to see its true value which, in the case of my
                      own people (by which I mean the total community, not just my
                      particular family), was a determination to survive against
                      whatever odds. ("A Place to Stand On")
 
Tomorrow-Tamer, [where "Rain Child is from]:  "The stories
               are set in Ghana in the period immediately prior to its constitution as an
               independent nation in 1957, and so depict a society in transition, in which the old
               and the new come into violent collision at every turn. Notwithstanding the
               specifically African context in which they are elaborated, however, the themes are
               essentially those that appear elsewhere in the Laurentian canon, those having to
               do with the nature and foundation of identity, the constraints upon human
               communication, the true essence of freedom, the complex interplay between
               change and tradition. As in Laurence's other books, these themes are typically
               articulated through the central metaphor of exile, reinforced in many instances by
               biblical imagery of the fall, of exodus, and of the quest for a Promised Land. What
               we are witnessing in other words are the preoccupations that haunt the entire
               corpus of Laurence's fiction, worked out on this occasion within the framework of a
               specific political situation which invests them with a local habitation and a name, a
               particularized content and a set of appropriate metaphors. And as in Laurence's
               other works, the unvoiced question hovering over nearly all of these stories is that
               of the basis that can be established for relationship with the Other, the "Other"
               conceived in both a personal and a cultural sense. ("Dancing to a New Song The Limits of Community in
               Laurence's The Tomorrow-Tamer "  David Lucking )
 

Who is Margaret Laurence?   Photo and biography of the author, from the York University "Archives and Special Collections" site.

Margaret Laurence  Entry from The Canadian and World Encyclopedia.

Margaret Laurence (1926-1987)  Biographical and bibliographical information.

Northwest Passages: Margaret Laurence  Photo, biography, and links to available books.

Information related to "Rain Child"  Ethnic Groups in Ghana

  Setting --

Margaret Laurence Home   Information about the writer's family home in Neepawa, Manitoba. Also includes a biography and list of publications.

Further Studies --

The Margaret Laurence Society Page  Links to conference, newsletter, archives, and biographical information.

Margaret Laurence (1926-1987) : Library of Congress Citations - Book and name citations.