Nature the monster or did Atwood get it all wrong: Representation of nature in Alistair Macleod's short stories

Abstract

In 1970s, Margaret Atwood published a monograph Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), in which she identified essential themes that appear in English-written Canadian fiction and depicted survival as a unifying symbol for Canadian culture. Survival, according to Atwood, is often bound to the portrayal of harsh Canadian nature in all its destructive force where a man's most daring hope is to survive. However, even though Atwood generalized and claimed that the defined themes appear in majority of Canadian fiction, there are authors whose portrayal of nature may be interpreted differently. This paper focuses on selected short stories by Alistair MacLeod, whose life and writing is bound with the region of Nova Scotia and who frequently depicts a canine character, representing the bond between man and nature. The aim of this paper is to analyse this bond and declare whether MacLeod's representation of nature corresponds with Atwood's negative perception.