."..with a quality of chilling mockery, [the loons] voices belonged to a world separated by aeons from our neat world of summer cottages and the lighted lamps of home." The Loons, by Margaret Laurence is a representation of the separation of races in mid-western Canada in the early 1900's. The story is titled The Loons because the actions the birds and the character Piquette Tonnerre are quite similar.

The settlement of the Europeans in the early 1900's pushed the natural wildlife away from the desired habitable land and into the deep wilderness. The natural wildlife included everything and everyone that was not Anglo European. The Tonnerre family was in the middle of both the native and European cultures. Like the loons they were pushed out of the settlers land.

. Piquette Tonnerre's speech and mannerisms aided in her segregation from the townspeople. Vanessa MacLeod, nearly of the same age as Piquette, identifies Piquette's heritage with being closer with nature, but unknowingly she is just as much of a outcaste to the natives as she is to the settlers. Piquette embraces this negative stereotype and lives it out till she matures into a young adult.

Trying to adapt to the growing European surroundings, Piquette moves away and marries a city man. When the relationship ends she moves back to the shack that she once lived in, but her old home killed her and her two children. She died unable to escape her old surroundings.

Much symbolism can be seen in this story. Laurence parallels the loons and Piquette in their inability to change themselves and their environment. The loons were unable to adapt to the human invasion. Perhaps the loons left and did not return, or they could have died off. Piquette was unable to break away from the cultural label that was imposed upon her. She was an outcaste, and then tried to fit in, but nonetheless she was unable to escape society's stereotypes. As stated at the end of the story, "Perhaps they had gone away to some far off place of belonging. Perhaps they had been unable to find such a place, and had simply died out, having ceased to care any longer whether they lived or not."