Margaret Atwood’s Survival:

To Atwood, the central image of Canadian literature, equivalent to the image of the island in British Lit and the frontier in American Lit, is the notion of survival and its central character the victim. Atwood claims that Can Lit participates in creating this theme as the central distinguishing feature of the nation's literature. 

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:

▪       Position One: To deny the fact that you are a victim. 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.). 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. 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. A position for "ex-victims" when creativity of all kinds is fully possible.