The short story, The Sound Of The Singing, deals with conflicts and how they effect the people in them and around them. Vanessa McLeod is a dynamic character who changes her perception of herself in the course of the story. Through her changed perception, Margaret Laurence is suggesting that a person's identity is change by their surroundings and the conflicts they fight through in there lives.
             Vanessa, still naive, consciously resists the "upright" values of her family and believes she has control of her own identity therefore she, purposely attempts in many early parts of the story, to show ways of opposing her entire family. "I was prepared, for the question was the same each week. I rarely listened in Sunday school, finding it more entertaining to compose in my head stories of spectacular heroism in which I figured as a central character, so I never knew what the text had been." This shows that the reason she does not listen in Sunday school is because it doesn't hold any interest for her. But openly knowing the question before it is asked each week she prepares a lines that she has found interesting in the bible. "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle" This reflects her interests and identity in an indirect way towards her grandmother. Also Vanessa has no belief in repeating lines that are weak and do not parallel her thoughts. "My lines were generally of a warlike nature, for I did not favor the meek stories and I had no use at all for the begats" Vanessa at the beginning opposes any figures who side and have upright values.
             For this reason, she is initially attracted to the free-spirited "downright" qualities of her Uncle Dan, the black sheep of the family. "They bore a vastly different expression, however. Uncle Dan's eyes hardly ever stooped laughing" This shows that she likes the high moral an
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