The Fire-Dwellers (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Margaret Laurence
- First Published: 1969
- Type of Work: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The 1960’s
- Setting: Vancouver and the fictional prairie town of Manawaka
- Principal Characters: Stacey Cameron MacAindra, Clifford (Mac) MacAindra, Katie MacAindra, Buckle Fennick, Luke Venturi, Matthew MacAindra
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: 1960’s, Child rearing or parenting, Family or family life, Self-discovery, Mothers, Parents and children, Sex or sexuality, Gender roles, Communication, Marriage, Dreams, God, Jealousy, envy, or resentment, Adultery, Canada or Canadians, Small-town life, Lifestyles, Middle age, Homemakers
- Locales: Vancouver, Canada
The Novel
The “doom everywhere” message that Stacey Cameron Macaindra, the protagonist of The Fire-Dwellers, allows to permeate her outlook on life is a projection of the inner turmoil she is experiencing. The real inferno of the novel burns in Stacey’s agitated consciousness. Stacey struggles to get a grip on herself, to accept her inadequacies, to accept that her family is never going to be like a Norman Rockwell painting, and to accept that she must aspire to represent sanity in what she sees as an insane world. The omniscient narrator gives credence to...
[The entire page is 2179 words long]
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