The Shaman and the River: Symbolism and Self-Discovery in The Diviners Natasha Borden College

The Diviners by Margaret Laurence begins on a farm. This farm is the place of Morag's birth and her early childhood years. In the first "snapshot," (p.7) her parents are standing in front of a "farm gate" (p.7). Her mother is pregnant with the soon to be born Morag. Morag is the "little fish...invisible...still buried alive" (p.8). With Morag as the "fish" her mother's body becomes the water in which she swims, the River of Life. So begins Morag's story and a narrative which conveys the importance of what is unseen, what we carry with us, and where we belong.

On the first farm, Morag is both herself, the child with an active imagination, and the shaman, the one who sees the unseen. She sees the "invisible creatures who [inhabit] the place with her" (p.13). When her parents become ill and are kept upstairs away from her,she creates another family, "the spruce -house family" (p.15). Into this new family she is born again, connected and rooted to this place. She knows that she belongs here. Although her parents die when she is only five, leaving her orphaned, they remain hidden deep inside of her. Looking back in later years, she does not consciously remember them but "they are inside [her], flowing unknown in [her] blood and...