The Loons

“The loons” by Margaret Laurence

The story and the plot
The loons is a short story included in Margaret Laurence book, “ A Bird in the House” In this short story, Laurence, writes the story of Piquette Tonnerre, A half-Indian girl who grew up under cruel circumstances in a society that suppresses half-breeds. The story is told through another girl, Vanessa, who comes in contact with Piquettethrough her father. As the title suggests the story includes these birds, the loons, and something that we can notice is the comparison between the loons and Piquette. The loons are very special creatures; they are, shy, lonely and can only be heard at night when they start their cry-like calling. That was maybe Piquette’s reason for not heard this calling when Vanessa invited her to go to theshore where they can heard them.
I consider that one of the most remarkable parts of the story, takes place in the lake that is the habitat of a group of these birds, and one could say that besides the story is about Piquette’s feeling toward the society she was living in the story also is developed around these beings, and as I said in the previous paragraph around the comparison between the birdsexistence and piquette’s life. In this way we can say that the human destroying of the loons' natural habitat symbolizes the invasion the white people made on the Indians territory, which is Piquette's background, and as the birds she suffers from this. At the beginning of the story, Piquette acts indifferently to her surroundings and as the loons show no interest in humans and nowhere in thestory can we see her showing any heartfelt feeling.
However as going on the story, as the birds become familiar to a new environment near their invaders, and have the chance to adapt to this "nearer to civilian life", Piquette marries a white man and has the chance to make a new life. Both the birds' chance and Piquette's attempt fail. Therefore, they are forced to find another way of living, andthey regret how their old way has been destroyed by the newcomers, and also regret have not succeeded in adapting to the white people's unyielding life. This way to describe this group of birds, I consider is the way the author wants to show the meaning that has Piquette entirely within the story. We can see its horizon as a far place of belonging being the old way of the Indian's, which she hasbeen unable to find because of the European invaders.
In the end she ceases to care if she lives or not, we can perceive this in the story through her heavy addiction to drink and her indifference to her own wellbeing, and the care of her children, and at last she dies because of this. At the end of the story what we can understand of the last phrases of Vanessa is that the only one who heard thecrying of the loons was Piquette, because she was the only that share the feeling that the loons had about being invaded by foreigners and settlers.
Now that we have a contextualization of the story I will move on this analysis to identify within the story the aspects presented by David Lodge in his book “The Art of Fiction”. I will go through each one of the aspects taking as examples scenes andevents within Margaret Laurence story.

The beginning
Margaret Lawrence begins the story in the first paragraph of the story, and the first aspect we caught is the description of the world Lawrence has chosen to develop the story. This is the starting point the author present us as the setting to develop the story.
“Just below Manakawa, where the Wachakwa River ran brown and noisy over thepebbles, the scrub oak and grey-green willow and chokecherry bushes grew in a dense thicket”
At the beginning of the story, the author clearly in a first sight describes us the environment of the town. She describes the scene talking about Tonnerre family’s shack, and from which materials this house was built many years ago by the elder of the Tonnerre family.
However this beginning favors,...