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THE RESONANCE OF MANAWAKA: LANDSCAPES OF RECONCILIATION Consequently, the protagonists often embark on real-world adventures that facilitate transformative changes in life patterns and reconciliation with their former selves, symbolizing a broader journey toward reconciliation within Canadian society. WILD LANDSCAPES OF MEMORIES In her Manawaka fiction, Margaret Laurence consistently challenges the enduring myth of the Golden West. This myth romanticizes settlers as brave conquerors of untamed lands, offering a utopic and “soothing contrast to the harsh realities of the contemporary world” (Nash 69). Laurence, however, tells the stories of Pioneers and settlers alongside those of the Métis as representatives of the marginalized Indigenous population and bearers of their cultural heritage. In doing so, she subverts the simplistic portrayal of settlers as brave yet peaceful and hard-working individuals cultivating an uninhabited land, confronting it with the image of the Métis, dispossessed of their land and pushed to the margins of society. By engaging with Canada’s Pioneer past and its rigid dogmas, Laurens opens up the possibility of reconciliation. The story of The Stone Angel (1964) revolves around a ninety-year-old Hagar Shipley, representing the generation of Laurence’s grandparents, children of the first settlers. Initially, Hagar rebels against her authoritarian Pioneer father, but as she ages, she eventually adopts his provincial conservatism, living confined by pride and social prejudice. Hagar thus stands for both narrow Puritan morals anda rebellious spirit against the provincial background they represent; although “it was, of course, people like Hagar who created that background, with all its flaws and its strengths” (Laurence, “A Place to Stand On” 18). Hagar’s journey towards inner transformation commences in her old age, triggered by the prospect of relocation to a senior home. The shock comes when her son Marvin, whose wife grows tired of constantly caring for the increasingly infirm Hagar, decides to sell the family house — a symbol of everything Hagar has gained in her lifetime. In defiance, Hagar escapes to the wilderness, represented by an abandoned fish cannery on the coast, where she is determined to assert her autonomy. The physical challenges Hagar faces in the natural landscape as she struggles while seeking refuge mirror the internal conflicts which she carries within herself. Although Hagar’s climbing the difficult terrain and conquering the territory can be seen as a triumph over both the wilderness and her aging body, it also foreshadows the eventual shift in her perspective. Initially, she follows the Pioneer belief in dominating the surrounding landscape and defeating hostile Nature to find safety and security. The turning point comes when Hagar notices her fingerprint on a spongy spot on a piece of mouldered wood. Debra « 57 «
