Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature

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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.

[edit] Table of Contents

What, Why, and Where Is Here?

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