''The Animals in That Country'' is a 1968 poetry collection written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It is her fifth volume of poetry. Like other works by Atwood, The Animals in That Country explores themes relating to human behaviour and celebration of the natural world, with some of the poems expressing an

ecocentric Ecocentrism (; from Greek: οἶκος ''oikos'', "house" and κέντρον ''kentron'', "center") is a term used by environmental philosophers and ecologists to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centered (i.e. anthropocentric), syst ...

perspective and using the difference between the animals of the Old World and the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

to scrutinize issues like

power politics Power politics is a theory in international relations which contends that distributions of power and national interests, or changes to those distributions, are fundamental causes of war and of system stability. The concept of power politics pro ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and human existence.

Title

The title of the volume makes a distinction between "that country" and "this country" as a commentary on the differences between Europe and the New World. The animals in "that country" are described as having "the faces of people" and their deaths being romanticized as coming about as part of ceremonial or legendary scenarios, such as fox hunts or bull fights. By comparison, the animals in "this country", have "the faces of animals" and perish in commonplace and unsung ways, such as being hit by cars. The 2020 novel of the same name by Laura Jean McKay is named in homage to Atwood's collection.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Animals in That Country, The 1968 poetry books Poetry by Margaret Atwood Canadian poetry collections Little, Brown and Company books