SOURCE: "A Double-Bladed Knife: Subversive Laughter in Two Stories by Thomas King," in Canadian Literature, Nos. 124-25, Spring-Summer, 1990, pp. 243-50.

Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, critic, and author of children's books. In the following essay, she offers an analysis of the short stories "Joe the Painter and the Deer Island Massacre" and "One Good Story, That One," commenting on King's use of irony and humor.

Once upon a time long ago, in 1972 to be exact, I wrote a book called Survival, which was about Canadian literature; an eccentric subject in those days, when many denied there was any. In this book, there was a chapter entitled "First People: Indians and Eskimos as Symbols." What this chapter examined was the uses made by non-Native writers of Native characters and motifs, over the centuries and for their own purposes. This chapter did not examine poetry and...