Letter to America

I really liked this one not because it was short, but it really captured my attention to the nostalgia of the older days. I am amazed at how Margret Atwood captures the attention of the American audience by relating to familiar things of the past like "Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, the Andrew's Sisters, and Elvis." Atwood grew up in America but eventually moved to Canada and saw the changes America had made in the following years. Since Canada is like our sister country and because she was once American she gently but sternly brings up the problems Americans have issues with. Atwood recognizes the fact that America does tend to poke their noses in other countries too often enough to forget to care about our own people. "You have always wanted to be a city upon a hill a light to all nations..." The city on the hill phrase has been used since the colonization, it is the basis of how our country came to be, Atwood greatly respects America for that in the past in the time where we graciously accepted all. In a way I think Atwood's vision of America is too old fashioned, even in her childhood there were still social problems but she failed to recognized that aspect. With time America needs to evolve, as a country we cannot stay in the same state of mind, even our constitution does not fit in today's society. For example the right to bear arms, what does that mean in today's society? That we are allowed to all carry bazookas and large guns? That amendment just doesn't fit in our society, back then it was a necessity to carry a weapon around and even still it was a non-accurate rifle. Atwood also brings up the subject on our economy, America is plunged into a very large debt that grows and grows as we speak. Atwood addresses this problem because it gets personal, America and Canada are major trading countries with one and another. If the American market fails again Canada and the whole world's market will crash like it did in the 1930's. In the end Atwood does not leave us in utter despair, instead she leaves an open door to us. She makes a reference to King Arthur not being dead, but sleeping in a cave and she gives us a tip to our nation that to once restore our former glory we must dig deep into our past to find the answer. This could mean taking the back seat from the fast paced lifestyle we leave can be beneficial to our country. But also this once again proves Atwood still keeps an old fashioned mind that the old days were the better days.