Wagner, Jeannette Ethel2024-08-152024-08-1519821982https://hdl.handle.net/1828/20015Margaret Laurence strongly believes .that one can only know oneself if one knows one's roots, and her own roots are firmly imbedded in the Scots Protestant tradition. Her four female protagonists in the Manawaka novels share this tradition. However, neither Laurence nor her protagonists are able to wholeheartedly accept their religious heritage and must find alternative means of coping with their spiritual dilemmas. This thesis begins by presenting Laurence's background and orientation and how they relate to her protagonists' lives. It then explores the traditional religious elements in the novels. Chapter Two deals with the single element Laurence finds positive-the Bible. She makes extensive use of Biblical: allusions and parallels. The protagonists also make Biblical allusions and quote or refer to verses at moments of deep emotion. The Bible remains a vital source of· succor and enlighten­ment. Not so the church, as Chapter Three illustrates. Institutional­ized religion is depicted by Laurence and experienced by her protagonists as sterile and judgmental. The only strong feeling it is still capable of raising is guilt. Chapter Four, the main chapter, focuses on Laurence's protagonists. They all feel they have lost Eden, having been banished to a spiritual wilderness and suffering from culturally imposed bondage. Gradually they come to realize that much of their bondage is self-imposed. Hagar is bound by her upright p ride; Rachel is bound by childishness and fear of life; Stacey is bound by her fear that she cannot always make everything all right for her loved ones; Morag, the social out­cast, is bound by her desire for social acceptance. As they each learn to accept themselves and their lives, they relinquish their often denied belief in an Old Testament judgmental, patriarchal God. They develop instead a personal relationship with a New Testament loving, compassion­ate God who becomes a source of grace in their lives. In the course of the four novels, then, there is a definite progression in the spiritual development of the protagonists from Hagar to Morag. The former does not gain any real awareness of her plight until she is on her deathbed. The latter, like Laurence, is a mature author who expresses her faith in God and life through her fiction.124 pagesAvailable to the World Wide WebThesis