There's No Longer A Here and A There: Hometown and Alien Land in Atwood's Novels

The hometown as a metaphor of Canadian identity is one of the main recurring themes in Margaret Atwood's novels. Analysis of this theme is the key to understand both Atwood's work and Canadian literature. Most Atwood's female protagonists have the "hometown phobia" and "Mother" is their haunting ghost. As a matter of fact, both Hometown and Mother represent the protagonist's dark past. Atwood's protagonists often run to a distant alien place as an escape from their hometowns. But even in a foreign country, they cannot get rid of the haunting ghosts of their past. Atwood's aim in her writing is to emphasize the term of "Canadian identity".