George Atwood's Wilderness Tips

Atwood’s ‘Wilderness Tips’ is just one of the short stories that is written as a part of a larger volume, ‘Wilderness Tips’ . From my reading of the passage provided, I have concluded that its main theme focuses on human survival, therefore, providing the reader with ‘tips’ on how to survive, not a physical or geographical wilderness in terms of nature and landscape, but on the urban settings of Canada and the harsh metaphorical jungle that was society at the time.

In this short passage, Atwood’s character ‘George’, is emphasised to be a very simple and non-complex man. Through this presentation of him, we are able to identify some of the key aspects of the Wilderness Paradigm in Canada. The passage refers to George as a “conservative man” who “loves traditions” which some may argue are characteristics of a typical native Canadian. His simplicity can be emphasised through the use of short sentences which Atwood purposely uses when she writes “Then he stubs out his cigarette, downs the heel of his Scotch and hauls himself out of the deck chair”. The heavily punctuated paragraph slows down the readers reading of the passage thus suggesting George’s character is as simple as the sentence structure used. It is at this point in the passage where Atwood draws on George’s simplicity to portray a wider message from the piece. Here, Atwood criticises the urban world outside of the beautiful landscape which
I find that the passage is helpful in differentiating between the wilderness in terms of nature and landscape and the metaphorical wilderness in which humans have to endure to get by. Her intricate dissection of Georges character through her sentence structure and narrative voice, helps illustrate how immigrants should, in her opinion, live within the ‘wilderness’ that is outside of Wacousta