From "a Lonely Bird In The House" To "a Free Bird"

The Canadian writer Margaret Laurence is considered as "godmother of contemporary Canadian literature". She has honored with two Governor General’s Awards for fiction with more than a dozen literary awards. Her Manawaka Cycle plays an outstanding role in Canadian literature in1960s and1970s, and establishes her prestigious literary reputation as an eminent Canadian writer.Manawaka Cycle includes The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, A Bird in the House, The Fire-Dweller, and The Diviners. A Bird in the House, as her autobiographical fiction, includes eight short stories, and describes the protagonist Vanessa’s joy and trouble in the process of her growth. This thesis, from the perspective of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic criticism, analyzes A Bird in the House and explores Vanessa’s psychological growth. In Lacan’s sense, Vanessa’s journey to becoming a writer is the process of formation of subject.This thesis takes Lacan’s theory of subject as theoretical foundation and focuses on the mirror order, the symbolic order and the real order. This thesis analyzes the process of the protagonist’s formation of subject and the process of pursuit of literary creation. Meanwhile, it shows the process of the protagonist’s refusing to submit patriarchal right, pursuing the significance of women survive and seeking the independent subject. Just like the other female images created by Margaret Laurence, Vanessa is a woman with female brilliance who is brave in fighting and strives for independent value, and who challenges and subverts the modeled and mechanical women image of the traditional literature.Few scholars and researchers analyze the novel A Bird in the House alone at home and abroad. Up to now, there is no master thesis making an analysis on A Bird in the House from the perspective of Jacques Lacan’s theory of subjectivity. This thesis attempts to explore the novel from Jacques Lacan’s view of three orders, which hopes to open a new research perspective of female image of Manawaka Cycle.