Mapping the boundaries: Margaret Atwood'ssurfacing

Abstract

The trouble is that to achieve an identity, to distinguish a national or regional identity within something larger, it is necessary to draw boundaries, create splits. The chivalry of the European feudal world must be cracked apart to free the English gentleman; only by emphasizing boundaries and differences can Quebec exist or re-appear within Canada. Although national identity through synthesis seems possible (Canada, Australia and Russia, for example, demonstrate this, however shakily at times), nearly every attempt to assert identity seems to involve rifts and divisions, and as history teaches, these precede conflicts. The creation of identity is not infrequently a ticklish and dangerous process, marked by schism, exclusion and tension. The most immediately painful or sensitive of all boundaries are perhaps not those drawn across landscapes or nations, but those drawn within cultures, society or within personalities. National conflicts have their microcosmic analogies. Richard Gwyn has some salutary words about Canada and Canadian concern with national identity and regionalism. As the political equivalent of narcissism, he writes,