Importance Of Colonialism In David Atwood's Surfacing

Conversely, in Surfacing, through David, Atwood shows some aspects of cultural colonialism, particularly how the American intrusion have shaped the attitude of Canadians. The relationship of David and Anna is like a game and David is the one who sets the rules of the game and his wife Anna has to work hard to catch up with the constantly changing rules. It is David who has to assert himself as the dominating one in the final analysis and who must always win the game. David throughout the novel uses Anna’s femininity against her to uphold his sense of masculine superiority by putting her down. Similarly, narrator sees David as an “American” in spirit despite his alleged hatred of Americans. He firmly believes that “the balance of power” has to be maintained at all costs. David is a prototype of cold and calculating man, who is forever hiding or ignoring feelings. It is one of the reasons

In Cat’s Eye, she recalled the anglophile that dominated Canadian schooling in the 1950s. Elaine ponders ‘Rule Britannia’: Because we’re Britons, we will never be slaves. But we aren’t real Britons, because we are also Canadians. This isn’t quite as good. (80). Here, the postcolonial reality is experienced as a mild but insistent inferiority complex, a sense of internalised alienation. On the contrary, in Surfacing Atwood addressed the pressures of America’s cultural colonisation of Canada, and in an interview she expanded: “it’s impossible to talk about Canadian literature without also talking about the fact that Canada’s an economic and cultural colony”. This broader view of colonialism encompasses various manifestations of national domination and suppression, and for Atwood, Canada’s marginal position in terms of political and economic power places her, as its citizen, as a marginal, colonial, and postcolonial