A Strategic Reading of Margaret Atwood’s “Wilderness Tips”

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Published: Jan 1, 2013

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Sanguansri Khantavichian

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the symbolically charged and nationality-oriented text of “Wilderness Tips,” the title story of Atwood’s collection of the same name, and to discuss the author’s aesthetics.  Themes and images of power and survival dominate the story, whether in the form of language play, food, technological advances or Bluebeardian sexual politics.   Noted for her deployment of fairy-tale intertexts, here Atwood reworks fairy-tale themes of victimization and metamorphosis to reinforce her treatment of gender relations. My proposition is that there is an interconnectedness between the different strands, for instance, a merger between the feminist and environmental concerns is achieved in the final episode of “Wilderness Tips.” On the other hand, “Wilderness Tips” is about Canada, about what it is like to be or to become Canadian, whether as direct descendants of the original colonial settlers or as immigrants, about Canadian history from colonial settler days to decolonization to present-day multiculturalism and, above all, about the Canadian North.  All the subjects enumerated above warrant an anthropological, cultural, and linguistic investigation in the contextual, intertextual, and subtextual directions undertaken in this paper.

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No. 1 (2013): Thoughts 2013
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Articles

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Author Biography

Sanguansri Khantavichian

Sanguansri  Khantavichian an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Chulalongkorn University until her recent retirement, earned an Honours degree in English Studies from Stirling University in 1978, an M.A. in 1981 and a Ph.D. in English and American Literature in 1985 from Tulane University. Since 1991 she has been a Life Member affiliated to Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, England. Her interests include contemporary writing, Margaret Atwood, translation, and English language teaching.

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