Essay/Term paper: The diviners: how does morag's past influence pique's life

Essay, term paper, research paper:  World Literature

The Diviners: How does Morag's Past Influence Pique's Life

Michael Lo

Pique is the inheritor of French-Indian and Scottish-Canadian roots. She is
raised her mother in Canada and England. However, her growth is affected by
Morag's life style and Morag's past life. There are three events in Morag's past
that affects Pique's life.
Morag moves away from Christie when she goes to college and she rarely
comes back to Manawake, "Going to Winnipeg this fall. To college. And I'm never
coming back."
She does not seem care for her stepparents. In certain respects the
parent-child relationship between Morag and Pique resembles the one between
Christie, the Scavenger,
"You've never had somebody tell you mother was crazy between
she lived out her alone and wrote dirty books and had kooky people
coming out from the city to visit?" (P.446)
And both, in different ways, attempt to deny their parents. At one point,
Pique, having run away from home, ends up in a mental hospital in Toronto after
"a bad trip",
"Can't you see I despair you? Can't you see I want you
to go away? You aren't my mother. I haven't got a mother." (P.111)
Furthermore, Morag does not get married with Jules. When her husband is
Brooke Skelton, she has a sexual relationship with Jules and gets pregnant.
Later, Pique is aware that Jules is her father. Pique has an idea about why she
is different from the others because a typical family should have a mother and a
father, but she comes from a single parent family. When Pique first meets her
father she is at about five years old. Jules sings a song to Pique which she
finds fascinating and meaningful to her. Pique, at 18, is more mature than her
mother at the same age. She loves her father very much and wants to live with
him, however, Morag does not approve that Pique should stay with Jules,
"Why did you have me?"
"For your own satisfaction, yes. You never thought of him or of me."
We are aware that Pique needs care and love from both of her parents
because Morag cannot fulfill Pique's desire. She runs away in search of what she
thinks she is missing all along, which she, herself is not sure what it is.
Later on, she dates Dan McRaith, who is a husband of Bridie. They have a
abnormal friendship between them. As we know Dan Scranton and Gord are
boyfriends of Pique. It is coincidental with Morag's boyfriend first name is
also Dan. These two individuals occurs in Morag and Pique's life as their names
are the same. We do not know whether Pique has the intention to be a girlfriend
of Dan Scranton? However, we can deduce that Pique is doing the same things as
Morag's past.
In conclusion, Pique is made up of the conflicts of her parents with their
separate origins and cultures. She remains mysterious to Morag and she is closer
in her heritage to Jules. Like both parents, she has no feeling of belonging to
any particular group of people. She is divided by her parents because of her
mixed blood. Pique's dilemma shows that her problem is not simple, nor is it a
solution: "what really happened", she does not belong because she has not yet
found her own individual place.