Panic and Anxiety in Women: A Study of Margaret Laurence’s A Jest of God

Abstract

A Jest of God (1966) is the second novel in the Manawaka series of Margaret Laurence. Rachel Cameron, the protagonist of the novel is a middle-aged introverted, spinster school teacher who lives with her mother in the prairie town of Manawaka. She has returned home to Manawaka from the university in Winnipeg after the death her alcoholic father, Niall Cameron. She lives in a flat with her mother Mrs. May Cameron. Mrs. May Cameron is a hypochondriac mother, a good example of an elderly woman who controls others through her need of them.