An Analysis of The Rain Child And Antigone

Short stories play an important role in literature, being sometimes more expressive than any novel of a more considerable length. Many people prefer them to novels: they are usually not so complex as novels are, there are only a few characters in them, they are easier to follow, and so on. They are popular all over the world. In this paper I would like to deal with short stories written by such great Canadian authors as Margaret Laurence and Sheila Watson. Their works are well-known not only in the English speaking countries, but also in other parts of the world. Their books and other writings have been translated into several languages and receive attention and praise from many countries.

The first short story that I am now going to deal with is my favourite one out of the two that I have chosen to analyse. It is The Rain Child written by Margaret Laurence. It is a sad story about a black teenager, Ruth Quansah, who was born in England and who spent all her childhood there. The main problem of this short-story is how to find one`s identity when one is uprooted - torn out of the place where one belongs. Although Ruth's mother died when she was a baby, her father did his best to give her everything she needed. When she was 15, however, Dr. Quansah decided to return to Africa, to his birthplace. I think that it is only natural that Ruth has been deeply affected by England and that she considered herself an English girl, rather than an African one. She grew up in England, she was educated there, all of her friends were English - everything connected her with the UK. So, when she is taken to Eburaso, she gets quite confused. She can't speak Twi which is the mother tongue of all the other girls at her school. Her father hasn't taught it to her, he has always talked to her in English because he didn't want her to face the same language problems as he had had to. Another difficulty is that she doesn't understand the Africans, she is not acquainted with their culture and