Analysis of Guy Vanderhaeghe's Short Story, "The Watcher" In relation to Margaret Atwood's essay "Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature."

Drama at the Farm: A Canadian Survival Story Canadian Writer Margaret Atwood would argue that every country in the world has a single unifying and informing symbol, to act as a belief system that keeps everyone together and working for common ends. These unifying symbols manifest in the literature produce by authors and literary thinkers; whether or not it is done consciously or subconsciously. According to Atwood, in the United States "Frontier" is the unifying …

…this country, the land changes you, give us all something in common, that unifying symbol that Atwood praises as the center of everything Canadian. Survival. As Atwood aptly puts it, "A writer's job is not to tell a society how it ought to live but how it does live."(Atwood 42) Works Cited: Atwood, Margaret. "Survival." Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: Anansi, 1972. 25-43. Vanderhaeghe, Guy. "The Watcher." Man Descending. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1982.