"It seems to me that Canadian sensibility has been profoundly disturbed, not so much by our famous problem of identity, important as that is, as by a series of paradoxes in what confronts that identity.  It is less perplexed by the question "Who am I" than by some such riddle as "Where is here?"

In the early 1950's when Harold Innis had published his thesis on communication--The Bias of Communication--culminating his short but brilliant career, Margaret Atwood was a teenager attending school in a suburb of Toronto.  She describes Canadian high schools as still schools of the Empire.  History consisted of the ancient cultures of Greece, Rome and Egypt, medieval Europe, the Kings of England, and if you were lucky to get to grade 13, Canadian history.  Study centered on different regions of Canada, with no discussion on possible problems such as the discontent of the French speaking people or the abysmal treatment of the Indians in forced land settlements.  Literature was British and French taught with a Parisian accent.  Students accepted this, thinking real history and real literature were made abroad. 

Margaret Atwood loved reading Canadian authors since she related so readily to the characters and situations.  She could never understand why Canadian literature was always tucked on a back shelf of a bookstore under the title "Canadiana".  While in high school, encouraged by her English teacher, she decided to become a writer.  She stunned her fellow students when she announced her intentions.  Years later she found they weren't astounded by her ambition but the fact that she had the "guts" to say it out loud.  Her parents were dismayed as they had suffered through the depression and felt she should get a proper job; but her teacher suggested she attend Victoria College at U. of T. because of a professor who taught Milton there, Northrope Frye.

Instead of going to England after her B.A.--the accepted pattern of further studies abroad--she  won a scholarship to Harvard.  At Harvard she was asked to fill in her gaps: she had not studied American literature.  There, she found herself reading excerpts from Puritan sermons and political treaties written af the time of the American Revolution.   No one pretended it was great literature but it was necessary for understanding the United States of America.  Here she was at a world-renowned university, studying second rate literature which they deemed important for understanding their culture.   She wondered why Canadian literature in Toronto was dismissed as second-rate and not worth studying?

Margaret decided to return to Canada after completing her studies at Harvard.  Unknown to her, other members of her  generation  were beginning to do the same thing, deciding not to become part of the "brain drain" but something unheard of, returning to Canada and setting up publishing in Canada for a Canadian audience. Between 1965 - 1970 these writers established their own Canadian publishing house.  They found the existing publishing houses were too conservative in their views or were  American branch plants and unwilling to publish anything too controversial or nationalist. The House of Anasi Publishing Co. was established and enjoyed unanticipated success.  They discovered that Canadians were ignorant of their own history and literature and were eager to read Canadian authors.  Authors, they reasoned, are ones who best transmit their own culture.

The absence of a Canadian identity was a chic topic of conversation.  This irritated Margaret Atwood who claimed Canadians had been too busy listening to their neighbours  (who can be rather loud), and had neglected to look at their own culture.  The United States has always been a destination for many Canadians, but the Americans are too indifferent to bother giving  us an image of ourselves.

Survival, a book on Canadian literature conceived during Atwood's years at Harvard was published in 1972.  It received a lot of criticism, but maybe that was because it had never been done. As she so aptly stated, "[E]veryone surely, should agree that the literature produced by a society has some connection with that society, and so it follows one can get a feeling of that society." 2   The theme is survivalist.  The plot abounds with victims, not very heroic victims but the triumph was just surviving.  What brought the greatest criticism was her statement that "Canada was a cultural colony and an economic one as well." 3  The criticism came from both the conservative right, the ultra left and the ethnic center.  Any student of economics would agree she was only stating the recurrent theme of the work done by Harold Innis on the fur trade and the cod fisheries.  Canada was explored and developed by England and western Europe and she was economically  dependent on these countries for markets, political power and military assistance.  Innis' concepts were contrary to the beliefs held in the 1930's.  The theme of survival was not very popular, not like the romantic American ideal of conquering a new frontier.  Despite all the criticism, ordinary Canadians bought the book.  She received many letters, some saying they had never realized they had a culture, and exiled Americans exclaiming they hadn't realized how different we are.

Canadian - American Relations

In the early 80's Canada established the National Energy Policy.  Our oil policy was not popular with the States which didn't think their own nationalism was out of the ordinary. (But then they don't like other countries establishing their own nationalism. ) Now it appears that national governments will have to move over and let international big business run our country.  With satellite communications, how can government control  what will be said or seen in a few decades?  There will be an expansion outward by whomever controls technology and we know who is to the south of us.

But Atwood still maintains there may be two Americas--the one of Thoreau and Lincoln, who gave voice to human dignity and human values and democratic ideals, and who would oppose these expansionists seeking more power.  She continues with her hope that there are also two Canadas: a Canada that is more concerned with human values and customs than corporate power.  "...[I]t is only the mind that is capable  of envisioning what is desirable and what is not... [P]ower corrupts, but it has never managed to corrupt everybody."  3  She concludes by reminding us that Canadians and Americans are not the same since we are the result of two very distinct and different histories; but we are all on this rapidly shrinking earth, and we have values beyond national ones.

Sources:

2.    Atwood, Margaret.  "Second Words"  Selected critical prose.  House of Anansi Press Ltd.,  Toronto.  1982.

3.    IBID, p. 392