Playing the fool: the satire of Canadian cultural nationalism in Mordecai Richler's The Incomparable Atuk

[...]his role is bound up with the disruption of prevailing social and cultural values, the contestation of forms of dominance, and his power with a sense of community, not in individualistic, self-serving or narcissistic pursuits (4). Mimicry, a form of parody, embodies "the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite" (Bhabha 86). [...]parody and mimicry as employed by the Trickster would be perceived as dangerous because of that figure's "double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority" (88). [...]Richler broadens his satire to target Canada as a "land of opportunity," as Atuk naively endeavours to make his way in the world by winning contests (clearly gimmicks employed by companies for the sake of advertising), one of many that seem to proliferate in Toronto: Toronto was so rich in opportunities that an alert Eskimo could even make a start on his fortune while he slept... Since the Twentyman Fur Company is "suffering from a run of foul newspaper publicity and questions in parliament" because of its exploitation of Eskimos, Twentyman endeavours to generate public sympathy for his enterprise -- an enterprise so extensive, it has even infiltrated the federal level of government (2-3).