Commentary on "A View from Canada"


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As an international person who has lived in numerous countries and experienced various cultures, I have had to present the circumstances of those cultures to people who really couldn’t fathom anything except stereotypes and news brief information. So I have to present to them a contrast. That is what I feel Margaret Atwood is presenting to us in her essay "A View from Canada"; contrasts and circumstances for the listeners to relate to. She speaks about the studies in school (something most of the audience would be familiar with) and points out the differences. She talks about Canada’s reclaiming of its identity and the turning point of ‘Americanisation’ in the fifties, and makes references to comic books and television, reaching out to the youthful memories of those in the audience. This of course depends on her audience: it seems as a speech her presentation could work for nearly any age group over thirteen: they had had to experience at least a little of growing up and remising and had to have had some impression on Canada as a country. She plays off that as well: the lack of Canadian ‘identity’ being its identity.

As a personal response, I’ll have to unfortunately say that that lack of identity was really my reaction to the piece. It was interesting, yes, and learning about the culture was fascinating as I know very little about both American and Canadian society mind books and television, but I really seem to know very little more about Canadian culture now than when I began reading the piece. In fact it left me feeling rather rained: as if I had concentrated on reading something (and I really have to concentrate in order to understand a piece of writing) and nothing had come of it but bland ‘just another weak view’ words. I respect Atwood as an author and I’m sure the piece would have worked very weak as a speech. But frankly I found little to grasp onto. Maybe because it was I am not American by nature, and the speech was geared towards Americans. There’s a point: to anyone but Americans it comes of as little more than a sweet Reader’s Digest article.

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