Writers on Writing - Margaret Atwood's "Survival"

One of our tasks, in this course, is to read books that relate to "Writers on Writing" and to share information/our reading experiences for the purpose of discussion and debate. I would like to propose a discussion about "Survival - A Thematic Guide To Canadian Literature" by Margaret Atwood.

If you have read this book, let's discuss. If you have not, I encourage you to go to the library, a book store, or used book store and seek this book. There are so many wonderful, and informed, insights throughout Atwood's work that will only serve to better help you explore your own writing.

I am going to begin by typing out a section that we may all discuss. I hope this passage will get you excited enough to go get the book. Atwood's book is about what Canadians write about and how this writing is preoccupied by survival and victims. She also compares Canadians to American and British writers. Throughout the book she discusses a variety of Canadian genres. Quite early, she talks about "Basic Victim Positions" because Canadians (according to this book) tend to see themselves as victims or in survival mode (hence the title of the book). Although written in 1972, this book is still relevant and is also an excellent exploration of past Canadian writing. Here is what Atwood says about victims, from "Survival" pages 36-39:

If Canada is a collective victim, it should pay some attention to the Basic Victim Positions. These are like the basic positions in ballet or the scales on the piano: they are primary, though all kinds of song-and-dance variations on them are possible. The positions are the same whether you are a victimized country, a victimized minority gorup or a victimized individual.

Basic Victim Positions

Position One:
To deny the fact that you are a victim. This uses up a lot of energy, as you must spend much time explaining away the obvious, suppressing anger, and pretending that certain visible facts do not exist. The position is usually taken by those in a Victim group who are a little better off than the others in that group. They are afraid to recognize they are victims for fear of losing the privileges they possess, and they are forced to account somehow for the disadvantages suffered by the rest of the people in the group by disparaging them. As in: "I made it, therefore it's obvious we aren't victims. The rest are just lazy (or neurotic, or stupid); anyway it's their own fault if they aren't happy, look at all the opportunities available for them!"

If anger is felt by Victims in Position One, it is likely to be directed against one's fellow-victims, particularly those who try to talk about their victimization.

The Basic game in Position One is "Deny your Victim-experience."

Position Two:
To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim, but to explain this as an act of Fate, the Will of God, the dictates of Biology (in the case of women, for instance), the necessity decreed by History, or Economics, or the Unconscious, or any other large general powerful idea.

In any case, since it is the fault of this large "thing" and not your own fault, you can neither be blamed for your position nor be expected to do anything about it. You can be resigned and long-suffering, or you can kick against the pricks and make a fuss; in the latter case your rebellion will be deemed foolish or evil even by you, and you will expect to lose and be punished, for who can fight Fate (or the Will of God, or Biology)?

Notice that:
1. The explanation displaces the cause from the real source of oppression to something else.
2. Because the fake cause is so vast, nebulous and unchangeable, you are permanently excused from changing it, and also from deciding how much of your situation (e.g. the climate) is unchangeable, how much can be changed and how much is caused by habit or tradition or your own need to be a victim.
3. Anger, when present - or scorn, since everyone in the category is defined as inferior - is directed against both fellow-victims and oneself.

The basic game in Position Two is Victor/Victim.

Position Three:
To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim but to refuse to accept the assumption that the role is inevitable.

As in: "Look what's being done to me, and it isn't Fate, it isn't the Will of God. Therefore I can stop seeing myself as a fated Victim."

To put it differently: you can distinguish between the role of Victim (which probably leads you to seek victimization even when there's no call for it), and the objective experience that is making you a victim. And you can probably go further and decide how much of the objective experience could be changed if you made the effort.

This is a dynamic position, rather than a static one; from it you can move on to Position Four, but if you become locked into your anger and fail to change your situation, you might find yourself back in Position Two.

Notice that:
1. In this position the real cause of oppression is for the first time identified.
2. Anger can be directed against the real source of oppression, and energy channelled into constructive action.
3. You can make real decisions about how much of your position can be changed and how much can't (you can't make it stop snowing; you can stop blaming the snow for everything that's wrong).

The basic game of Position Three is repuidating the Victim role.

Position Four:
To be a creative non-victim.

Strictly speaking, Position Four is a position not for victims but for those who have never been victims at all, or for ex-victims: those who have been able to move into it from Position Three because the external and/or the internal causes of victimization have been removed. (In an oppressed society, of course, you can't become an ex-victim - insofar as you are connected with your society - until the entire society's position has been changed.)

In Position Four, creative activity of all kinds becomes possible. Energy is no longer being suppressed (as in Position One) or used up for displacement of the cause, or for passing your victimization along to others (Man kicks Child, Child kicks Dog) as in Position Two; nor is it being used for the dynamic anger of Position Three.

And you are able to accept your own experience for what it is, rather than having to distort it to make it correspond with others' versions of it (particularly those of your oppressors).

In Position Four, Victor/Victim games are obsolete. You don't even have to concentrate on rejecting the role of Victim, because the role is no longer a temptation for you.

(There may be a Position Five, for mystics; I postulate it but will not explore it here, since mystics do not as a rule write books.)

I devised this model not as the Secret of Life or the answer to everything (though you can apply it to world politics or your friends if you like), but as a helpful method of approaching our literature. It's a model about Victims for the simple reason that I found a superabundance of victims in Canadian Literature...stick a pin in Canadian literature at random, and nine times out of ten you'll hit a victim. My model, then, is a product of my Canadian literary experiences.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------