Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature

Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature is a survey of Canadian literature by Margaret Atwood, one of the most well-known Canadian authors in the world. It was first published by House of Anansi in 1972.

A work of literary criticism, as Atwood writes in her preface to the 2004 edition, Survival was an attempt to deal with her belief that in the early 1970s, Canadian literature was still looking for a grounding in a national identity that would be comparable to that of Great Britain or the United States (Atwood 2004, 3). The thematic approach of the book and its intended non-academic audience (6) corresponds with a focus on contemporary Canadian literature as a point of entry. Therefore, the book does not provide an extensive survey of the historical development of Canada's literature, but an introduction to what is Canadian about Canadian literature for readers as citizens of Canada (cf. 22). In Survival, literature emerges as central to the development of national identity, what she calls a sense of "here".

To Atwood, the central image of Canadian literature, equivalent to the image of the island in British literature and the frontier in US-American literature, is the notion of survival and its central character the victim. Atwood claims that both English and French novels, short stories, plays and poems participate in creating this theme as the central distinguishing feature of the nation's literature. See also garrison mentality.

The central image of the victim is not static; according to Atwood four "Victim Positions" are possible (and visible in Canadian literature). These positions are outlined below.

• Position One: To deny the fact that you are a victim^[1]

This is a position in which members of the "victim-group" will deny their identity as victims, accusing those members of the group who are less fortunate of being responsible for their own victimhood.

• Position Two: To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim (but attribute it to a powerful force beyond human control, i.e. fate, history, God, biology, etc.)^[2]

In this position, victims are likely to resign themselves to their fate.

• Position Three: To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim but to refuse to accept the assumption that the role is inevitable^[3]

This is a dynamic position in which the victim differentiates between the role of victim and the experience of victim.

• Position Four: To be a creative non-victim^[4]

A position for "ex-victims" when creativity of all kinds is fully possible.

Contents 1 Table of Contents 2 Notes 3 References 4 External links

Table of Contents

What, Why, and Where Is Here?

1. Survival
2. Nature the Monster
3. Animal Victims
4. First People: Indians and Eskimos as Symbols
5. Ancestral Totems: Explorers, Settlers
6. Family Portrait: Masks of the Bear
7. Failed Sacrifices: The Reluctant Immigrant
8. The Casual Incident of Death: Futile Heroes, Unconvincing martyrs and Other Bad Ends
9. The Paralyzed Artist
10. Ice Women vs Earth Mothers: The Stone Angel and the Absent Venus
11. Québec: Burning Mansions
12. Jail-Breaks and Re-Creations

Notes

References

• Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2004. ISBN 0-7710-0872-4

External links

• Review of the 2004 edition of Survival at thepeerreview.ca
• CBC radio interview with Margaret Atwood on Survival when it first came out. Broadcast Nov. 6, 1972.
• Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Survival