Self-Deception in Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel

Abstract

This research paper attempts to underscore the growth of the Canadian personality reflected in The Stone Angel. The Canadians' psychological sufferings are largely caused by their country's subordinate position under the imperial power of America. In Canada, the citizen who is trapped between the American technological superpower with its spiritual poverty on the one hand and his own psychological unrest on the other fails to establish a workable balance between his needs and interests and the society's values and expectations. This colonial mentality prevents the Canadians from valuing themselves. They withdraw from reality into their inner world and cannot act because they see themselves as acted upon. Consequently, they accept to play the passive role which is extended by their self-conceit. The Canadian citizen who is victimized by different visible and invisible forces is psychologically disturbed, insecure and frustrated. In The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence tries to diagnose and analyze the Canadian characters' psychic conflicts within their social and political framework. Furthermore, she investigates in the consciousness of the characters' personal life to study their relations to each other and to examine their potentiality. Laurence tries to help Canadians create a more positive identity, for she strongly disapproves of the negative destructive self-image created by the Canadians themselves and tries to rediscover their authentic selves.