Margaret Laurence: A Bird in the House-Research Paper On July 18, 1926, Margaret Laurence was born to Scottish father, Robert Wemyss, and Irish mother Verna Simpson Wemyss. They lived in Mrs. Wemyss' hometown of Neewapa, Manitoba, until Margaret's move to Winnipeg in 1944. Margaret was but 4 years old when her mother died of a kidney infection. It was at this point that her aunt came to care for her and later marry her father. They were shortly thereafter moved into Margaret's grandfathers home. Margaret found living with her grandfather to be a very difficult task, and much of her writing in "A Bird in the House" reflects her relationship with her grandfather using the character Vanessa and her rough, uncaring grandfather. Like Margaret, the character Vanessa is an aspiring writer who is faced with many obstacles in her life. The grandfather-granddaughter relationship is one of the most prominent aspects reflected from Margaret's own life. Vanessa grandfather was oftentimes hard on her and the family, and showed lack of compassion and caring, in general. His rules were strict and always enforced, thought sometimes challenged by Vanessa. Margaret thought this of her grandfather until later in life, again, like Vanessa. Margaret's first attempts at writing mainly took place upon her arrival to Winnipeg United College, in 1944. She had obtained a scholarship, so she left her hometown of Neewapa to graduate in 1947 and begin her career. Her first job was at "the Winnipeg Citizen", a local newspaper where she worked various jobs. This was also reflected in Laurence's book "A Bird in the House". Vanessa had begun writing as a child, but when she came of age, she too, left her small hometown and headed to college in Winnipeg to study. It was in 1947 as well that Margaret met her husband Jack Laurence. Due to his line of work they traveled and lived in many places in the world including Africa, Somalia, England, and Vancouver, Canada.
Margaret Cochran Corbin (1751-c.1800) fought alongside her husband in the American Revolutionary War and was the first woman to receive pension from the United States government as a disabled soldier. She was born Nov. 12, 1751 near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., orphaned at the age of five and was raised by relatives. When she was twenty-one she married John Corbin. John joined the Continental Army when the American Revolution started four years later and Margaret accompanied her husband. Wives of the soldiers often cooked for the men, washed their laundry and nursed wounded soldiers. They also watched the men do their drills and, no doubt, learned those drills, too.
Margaret (Peggy) O’Neal (who preffered to be called Margaret) was born in 1799 in Washington DC. She was the daughter of William O’Neal, who owned a thriving boarding house and tavern called the Franklin House in that same town. It was frequented by senators, congressmen, and all politicians. She was the oldest of six children, growing up in the midst of our nation’s emerging political scene. She was always a favorite of the visitors to the Franklin House. She was sent to one of the best schools in Washington DC, where she studied English and French grammar, needlework and music. She also had quite a talent for dance, and was sent to private lessons, becoming a very good dancer. At the age of twelve, she danced for the First Lady Dolley Madison. Visitors of the Franklin House also commented on her piano playing skills.
When Mary Zimmerman adapts a play from an ancient text her directing process and the way she engages with text are woven together, both dependent on the other. She writes these adaptations from nondramatic text, writing each evening while working through the pre-production rehearsals and improvisations during the day with the cast. The rehearsal process influences the text, and the text enriches the rehearsal process, so that one cannot exist without the other. Every rehearsal is structured the same but each production is unique because as Zimmerman states in “The Archaeology of Performance”, she is always “open to the possibilities”. The piece is open to everything happening in the world and to the people involved, so the possibilities are honest and endless.
Anna Kingsley, a woman of strength and determination overcame many odds not expected of an African American slave. She married a slave owner, owned land, and was once a slave herself. She was well known in a free black community she helped establish.
Louise Bernice Halfe was born in 1953 in Two Hills, Alberta. Her Cree name is SkyDancer. She grew up a member of the Saddle Lake Reserve and at the age of 7 was sent to the Blue Quills Residential School in St. Paul, Alberta. . After leaving the school at the age of 16, she attended St. Paul’s Regional High School where she began to journal about her life experiences. (McNally Robinson)
An imposing character in A Bird in the House, Grandfather Timothy Connor’s power over his household is also a sign of his weakness. The house that he built is “part dwelling place and part massive monument” (Margaret Laurence 3). Grandfather Connor, a pioneer in Manawaka, is a monument himself and is often associated with his architectural feat. The title of Margaret Laurence’s novel is A Bird in the House; Grandfather Connor is the house that both shelters and entraps the people – especially the women – in his life with his actions. With a stranglehold on his household, Grandfather seems to fit into the traditional male role as the authoritarian but is plagued by guilt and loneliness. He uses his anger as a shield and a mask; he “demands strength because he is afraid of weakness” (Jon Kertzer 43). Early in his marriage, Grandfather Connor had an affair with a girl in Winnipeg but his wife Agnes “never told him she’d considered leaving him” (Laurence 85). This places Agnes in a position of higher power: she is virtuous, and Timothy knows that she may be too good for him. As Uncle Terence remarks: “Another person’s virtues could be an awful weight to tote around. We all loved her. Whoever loved him?” (86). Because his family loves Agnes and will happily obey her, Timothy attempts to reassert his power by being strict and demanding.
Susan Smith could have been a normal woman. If you passed her on the streets you wouldn’t know that she would turn out to be a killer. Susan had a secret though, a deadly secret. Susan Smith was a cold, calculating killer, capable of murder in cold blood. I believe Susan had many factors contributing to the state of mind she had before the murder of her two sons, like her traumatizing childhood and the many dysfunctional relationships she had.
The life of Jane Kenyon was one full of victories, hardships, and all around love for her creative and poignant poetry that she shared with the world. Throughout the terrible events that plagued her adulthood, Kenyon maintained persevering and doing what she loved most, which was to keep writing and inspiring others. Many people who read her poetry were able to catch a glimpse into the underlying meaning that was intertwined into the verses. The purpose of Kenyon's writings was to show the world about her attempt to do her best in staying strong even through all the deprivations that occurred in her life. She was able to combine her private life with her love for her work, just like most great poets do. However,
Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on February 7, 1867 in a log cabin near Pepin, Wisconsin. Her family consisted up of five children. Their names were ( in order of age oldest-youngest) Mary, Laura, Caroline/Carrie, Charles/Freddy(died at birth), and Grace. Laura’s Parents were Charles Ingalls and Caroline Quiner. Throughout her life Laura depended on her family for support, but after she got married, she depended more on her husband. Laura went to a variety of schools. She started her education in Wisconsin when she was five with her sister Mary. When Laura was seven, her father wanted to move somewhere else, so the settled in Walnut Grove. She continued her schooling there until 2 years later, when her father wanted to move again because of failed
The Development of Escape Margaret Laurence's novel A Bird in the House is a collection of independent and intertwined short stories written from Vanessa MacLeod's point of view. As an adult looking back on her childhood, the protagonist examines how she, and essentially everyone in her life, experiences a sense of entrapment and a need to escape. Because the author begins and concludes the novel with the Brick House, the major theme of escape is shown to have developed in Vanessa as she matures through childhood and adolescence and becomes an adult. Firstly, Margaret Laurence emphasizes that freedom and escape are always within reach, even if one does not notice or believe it. For the majority of the novel, Vanessa's greatest want is to escape the confines of Manawaka (her hometown), the Brick House, and Grandfather Connor.
Vanessa resides in a safe, clean environment, in a brick house, south side of the tracks. Vanessa’s mom keeps the house neat and tidy which results in Vanessa’s life always being in order. The brick house shows the wealth in the MacLeod household because bricks were uncommon on the prairies and also were expensive, especially during this time period (depression). Furthermore, the Macleod’s were a middle-class family, as they “could afford only one load” of birch wood because “it was expensive.”.
My name is Fatima Lundy. I am a transfer student majoring in English at LIU Brooklyn. I have some questions about my transfer credits and their equivalents. Srividhya Swaminathan advised me to contact you. I would like to make an appointment to see you at your earliest convenience. I am free from 1 pm to 2:45 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays. Wednesdays, I am free before 1 pm and after 3:30 pm. I do not have class on the other days. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Holly Janquell is a runaway. Wendelin Van Draanan creates a twelve year old character in the story, Runaway, that is stubborn and naive enough to think she can live out in the streets alone, until she is eighteen.She has been in five foster homes for the past two years. She is in foster care because her mother dies of heroin overdose. In her current foster home, she is abused, locked in the laundry room for days without food, and gets in even more trouble if she tries to fight back. Ms.Leone, her schoolteacher, could never understand her, and in Holly’s opinion, probably does not care. No one knows what she is going through, because she never opens up to any one. Ms. Leone gives Holly a journal at school one day and tells her to write poetry and express her feelings. Holly is disgusted. But one day when she is sitting in the cold laundry room, and extremely bored, she pulls out the diary, and starts to write. When Holly can take no more of her current foster home, she runs, taking the journal with her. The journal entries in her journal, are all written as if she is talking to Ms.Leone, even though she will probably never see her again. Over the course of her journey, Holly learns to face her past through writing, and discovers a love for poetry. At some point in this book, Holly stops venting to Ms. Leone and starts talking to her, almost like an imaginary friend, and finally opens up to her.
Bird usually portrays an image of bad luck that follows afterwards and in this novel, that is. the beginning of all the bad events that occur in the rest of the novel. It all started when Margaret Laurence introduced the life of Vanessa MacLeod. protagonist of the story, also known as the granddaughter of a calm and intelligent woman. I am a woman.
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.