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Abstract
Margaret Atwood, a remarkable and perhaps the most contemporary figure in contemporary Canadian literature. Her writing was influenced by specific events and ideologies such as the World War II, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movements, the Feminist Movement, the resurgence of Canadian national identity, contemporary literary and cultural theories about Deconstruction, Post-coloniality and Post-modernity. This political milieu is deeply reflected directly or indirectly in her writing.
The notions of Canada and Canadians are highly questionable more so in the light of multiculturalism. Canada as a nation, historically and geographically, had to fight its own battle to constitute its identity. Northrop Frye opined that somewhere if Canada has to have an identity, it must accept the identities of all the groups with their differences. Out of the processes of colonization and decolonization, it maneuvered its status as a bilingual multicultural nation a mosaic that accepts ethnicity of every citizen, assimilating it into its character. Canadian multiculturalism is a product of its history, geography and political system. Canadian multiculturalism has given rise to various questions and also offers a ground to negotiate the problematic of identity.