Stacey’s Uneasy Dwelling in Marital Fire: Anxiety, Ambivalence, and Identity in The Fire-Dwellers

Abstract

In The Fire-Dwellers (1969), Margaret Laurence provides a psychologically complex view of domesticity through Stacey MacAindra, whose experience of marriage and motherhood is fraught with significant anxiety, ambiguity and a fragmentation of identity. This paper explores Stacey’s subjectivity via feminist and psychoanalytic lenses by engaging with Simone de Beauvoir’s critique of domesticity, Jacques Lacan’s theory of the divided subject and Julia Kristeva’s idea of maternal ambivalence. It suggests that Stacey’s dilemma stems from the conflict between socially assigned responsibilities and her own yearning for independence, resulting in a broken sense of self. Although her experiences are indicative of larger structural limits, there are moments of self-recognition that indicate a partial reconciliation with her condition. In the end, the novel repositions domestic life as a site of negotiation rather than fulfilment.