Canadian literary humour tends to derive from a kind of social and geographic conservatism. McCulloch's humour arises from the perspective of a Calvinist in a harsh land, a conservative view in which the role of woman is essentially domestic and inactive, and in which the (equally conservative) nation to the south poses a constant threat. Haliburton's view is similar, but the expressed conservatism implies the socio-political rather than the religious. Leacock continues this tradition, particularly in the way he comically attacks the rising authority of the female. It is these writers' allegiance to a British ideal of Canada in conflict with the democratic ordinary realities of Canadian life and the infectious, vulgar spirit of American republicanism which forces their humour.
