The Rain Child, Margaret Laurence

The come down squirt, Marg art LaurenceMarg art Laurence (1928-1987) is one of the most beloved bring outrs in Canada, she was make a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1972 that shows her popularity. Also The range and the step of her work made her the most recognized and accomplished of the writers of the 1960s (New 265). She began to write from age 7, but none of her stories was print until she moved to Africa, where she lived for seven old age because of her husbands job. Her first published fiction, the Uncertain Flowering, was followed by several short stories, published in various journals, that were collected in The Tomorrow-Tamer in 1963. The Rain Child is one of these short stories, which sets in Africa and was influenced by Laurences experience as a minority at that place. Moreover, she recognized the division between their Afri tummys traditional ancestral away and their contemporary partly Westernized present (New 265).The plot of the account statement is quite undecomposable an African girl, Ruth, who has been educated in England moves linchpin to Africa with her father, and becomes a student in Eburaso Girls School where the narrator, dangle Violet Nedden is the side of meat teacher. Her integration, her indistinguishability problems and behavioral changes are told by overlook Nedden. These themes can be found in the otherwise short stories as well, because they focus repeatedly on outsiders trying to get by with their own identities (New 266). In profit, Laurence shows special sympathy for those, both African and European, who no longer fully belong anywhere (The Oxford Companion ti Canadian Literature 634) in her short stories.The main motif in The Rain Child is identity because every main character has identity problems. The narrator, Miss Nedden is an English adult female who moved to Africa to teach and she has spent there 22 years, but she did not become a real African, however she has fitting herself to the circumste nces much easily than her boss, Miss Hilda Povey. Miss Povey is more close-minded than Miss Nedden as she says at the beginning of the tier, twenty-seven years here Africa. . . and she equable felt acutely uncomfortable with African parents. Miss Nedden is more open-minded, for instance, she gives up to teach Daffodils and turns to Akans poetry, and she joins to the girls when they go to the Odwira. On the contrary to her achieved integration, Miss Nedden keeps her English identity, for instance, her garden chair which is standardised a throne for her, and the reader also can sense the superiority over Africans in her thinking. However, she also cannot be a real English woman after sp quiting so many an(prenominal) years in Africa. As she says it at the end of the short story I think of that island of grey rain where I must go as a stranger, when the time comes.The other main character, Ruth, is also fight with identity problems because she has lived in England before she moved back to Africa with her father. She seems African with her browned skin but she cannot speak the Twi, the language of the area and she does not cognise a lot about the African culture and traditions. For her, everybody seems strange and several(prenominal)ways barbarian with the traditional African dress that they get around after classes and their uncanny beliefs, for instance Yindos talisman. She does not feel as she is at home, she wants to go back to England I wish I were back at home. Ruth becomes happier when she meets David, an English boy, but he makes her shocked when he says I know youre not the ordinary kind of African. Youre almost almost like a like us.. It is not enough for Ruth, therefore she runs away to the forest and at the end of the short story she leaves the school and goes to another in the town.Ruths father, Dr. Quansah also has got some kind of identity problem. He has worked in England for many years and there he has had friends but he cannot bring any neither European nor African in Africa. As he says I still find most Europeans here as difficult to deal with as I ever did. And yet I seem to have lost partake in with my own people, too.. He has got a mixed identity, because he also keeps Hesperian habits, but in a way he appeases African in his thinking. For instance he eats western food, wears European clothes and speaks English, but he is not identical to Europeans because he resents the Europeans racism.The theme of identity also brings up the question of race and culture. Ruth is an African girl because of her roots, but she has been brought up in a different culture, therefore she feels herself more English than African. However, in the eyes of other people she will remain African, she cannot be truly English, as David says she is just almost like them. On the contrary, the conclusion of the short story is about the power of culture supra race. Race is insignificant and artificial, Laurence is saying culture is real and inviolable. (Craig 115).In addition to culture, the traditions have got important roles in the short story, for instance, the senior girls are allowed to wear the traditional, colourful African dress. The main traditional event in the story is the Odwira festival. There happens something shocking to Ruth when she sees Kwaale and a boy doing the Shoot an pointer ritual. The boy shoots an imagenary arrow to Kwaale and she shows her naked body to him. It is a reminder that women are the source of life, however Miss Nedden is not sure that Kwaale and the boy unfeignedly know about this customs meaning or origin or they just care about the beat of their own blood.Also the denomi solid ground of the short story is connected to African culture because when Ruth was innate(p) her mother called her an African name which means child of the rain. Her English name, Ruth is also interesting because it can be seen as a biblical refernce. Ruth in the Bible was a poor, foreigner woman and h er story shows the triumph of ingenuity and courage over tough circumstences. This is a bit sarcastical because in The Rain Child Ruth is neither apt nor courageous because she does not want to be a part of her brisk country.Laurence used mainly Ruths story to tell problems with which a whole nation and generation faced at that time. The themes identity, migration, alienation, integration, race, sense of belonging she put in The Rain Child show a great sense of understaning towards these people. Laurences style embraces assured symbolism while it strives for the immediacy of ordinary experience (New 265).