After reading Margaret Atwood’s “Letter to America” I felt as if I could not relate to it fully since it conveyed a life from the forties and fifties which is far before my time. I did not read the Disney comic books, listen to radio shows, or watch any of the movies she mentioned. To be honest, I have only heard of one out of the three movies. I was raised in a time where the works Atwood describes are part of study material assigned throughout grade school. I am clearly not her intended audience when it comes to this letter. I can debate that the letter was written for the older audience who grew up during these times and I can also debate that the letter was written for the younger generation. I believe though, that this letter was intended for an older audience: an aging society who grew up in the United States during this era which was full of economic growth. The average American, at this time, held white-collar jobs and were able to afford education and luxuries such as books and movies. This is who Atwood is catering to.
Now that I know who Atwood was writing for, I wanted to find out why she wrote it. This letter was first published on March 28, 2003 in the Globe and Mail newspaper. This is after the September 11th attack on the Twin Towers, after the shock the whole world endured from this blow and after the United States sent troops over to Afghanistan. This letter was written at a time when the “War on Terrorism” started to show it’s true colors; many innocent American soldiers were dying and quickly. I say this because the American people were so fueled by hurt, loss, anger, humiliation and revenge that they made a decision based upon those feelings and when the war did not end as quickly as anticipated those emotions calmed which lead many American’s to question whether this was the right decision; is the loss worth the gains? Atwood’s purpose, to me, is to have Americans start to focus positively on themselves instead of negatively about the surrounding world. She says, “Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn‘t use to be easily frightened.” I think she is challenging the American people to change their thought paths, put their money and efforts into supporting their own people to do greatness instead of dumping it into security, national defense and war.
Atwood’s “Letter to America” fuelled a lot of controversy and left room for others to refute her thoughts. To me, I think that this letter could be more effective if she didn’t just focus on childhood memories but focused on true life events during the time. There was war - World War 2 ended in 1945 and The Cold War started in 1953. This is all during the era she is mentioning about as being a “better time.” I find it unfair for Atwood to write about only the good aspects of the era and fail to mention that there was war. I wonder if any of her childhood memories included the brutalities caused by those wars? The people who grew up during this time remember it and that is why I think many find it hard to accept her thoughts. They seem incomplete.
If she had incorporated a realistic picture of her era, the letter would be extremely effective, if not at the time, later that year. I am talking about Operation Red Dawn and the capture of Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003. Had Atwood mentioned the wars in her letter, the American people might be inclined to dissect the US’s approach to values, morals, and beliefs. I say this because during the Gulf War the United States government, who was supposed to be neutral in the war, funded Iraq which was lead by Saddam Hussein. When Iran and Syria stopped Iraqi oil production and movement through their territories, the United States started funding the use of chemical weapons and turning a blind eye. Are those not crimes against humanity? Many families and individuals were brutalized by this act and even though it was a breath of fresh air to the whole world that Hussein was captured, what does that say about the USA when it can accuse Hussein of such heinous crimes and act like they had no part what so ever in any of it. By being able to analyze this, the American people might see how their current ways are destroying what is beloved and great about the United States of America.
So I pose a question - Does Margaret Atwood write a fair piece or is she holding onto a childhood memory that is inaccurate due to egocentricity of youth?
I like your idea of bringing up her somewhat selective memory, and how you show her frame of mind at the time. I do think that we naturally remember the good and forget the bad. I do believe that she is somewhat in denial that America has started to head down the wrong path when it has been going that way for a while. I see that you very passionately write about your thoughts on the war. I do think that if she had brought up wars from earlier decades she would have possibly taken away some of the light she was trying to shine on the current war. A very thought provoking blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm having a hard time deciding whether it's selective memory or not, I never thought of it that way. In my blog I wrote that I felt her nostalgia towards this simpler time as justified. Yes, WW2 was a war, however when the U.S. finally involved itself in the conflict to assist Canada and the UK it tipped the scales of the war. Dead were millions of people, however, millions more would have surely died had the U.S. not participated in the war. Either way this war definitely looked better on the Americans than the current strife in the Middle East to secure oil.
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