Before this lesson, I had never heard of Susanna Moodie. Going through the lesson and learning more about her, I was inclined to answer question two because I really find her story fascinating.
The implicit understanding of Susanna Moodie’s introduction to the third edition of Roughing it in the Bush is how much Moodie is ignorant and entitled. What we sense from the introduction is her expectation and imagination through which she sends a message to her fellow European settlers that they will be coming to a “salubrious climate”, “fertile soil”, “commercial advantages” and “great water privileges”, and she felt comfortable to feel like it is her “mother country” without giving any account to the occupant of the land. The fact that she can feel at home in Natives’ land, despite all the challenges she faced in the process, she sounds entitled to something that is not hers to begin with. No where in the introduction Moodie mentions the Native’s perspective, her interaction with them and what the settler did to them. While it might seem that there is not negative narrative her interaction with the Natives in her introduction, leaving story is practically killing the Natives’ story. Dr. Patterson’s analysis of Moodie’s story — that Moodie believed that the land is “empty” and “soulless land was an empty land belonging to no one”—is reinforced by the fact that there not mention of her interaction with Natives and is an indication that her understanding that the “Indians” will vanish or that even they never existed.
Margaret Atwood writes “ Mrs. Moodie is divided down the middle: she praises the Canadian landscape but accuses it of destroying her; she dislikes the people already in Canada but finds in people her only refuge from the land itself; she preaches progress and the march of civilization while brooding elegiacally upon the destruction of the wilderness…” My understanding of Moodie from Atwood’s perspective is how much Moodie had a love-hate relationship with the land herself called “New World”. I think her complicated relationship comes from her lack of understanding of where she was going, particularly her lack of understanding of who the land belonged to in the first place. Immigrating to the place with a sense of entitlement, her high expectation and lack of realistic imagination is what made her transition difficult.
There also the usage the word “emigration” and “immigration” that is worth exploring in this passage. According to Merriam Dictionary “Immigrant and emigrant both refer to a person leaving their own country for another. However, “immigrant” and its verb form stress the country going to, while “emigrant” and its verb stress the country coming from.” Moodie uses the word emigration reoccurring while she used the immigration once in the introduction. According to Moodie “emigration is a matter of necessity, not of choice” but then she also states motivate for emigration is “the emigrant’s hope of bettering his condition”. It sounds to me that they made a choice to better their life, but she makes it sound that they were exiled from their country. My personal experience is that, I immigrated to Canada for better education and life and that is a choice I am privileged enough to make. Moodie sounds like a privilege person who is not even aware of it. I find the recurrence of the word “emigration” in her introduction fascinating because it shows that how much less attention she paid to the land she is immigrating to. Or am I reading too much between the lines? What are your thoughts?
Work Cited
Moodie, Susanna. Roughing It in the Bush. Project Gutenberg, 2002. 2002. Web. February 16, 2020.
Atwood, Margaret. The Journals of Susanna Moodie by Margaret Atwood.
Hi Wongelawit,
Your analysis of Moodie really helped to clarify some of the incongruent aspects of Moodie’s narrative. As someone who did not grow up in Canada, I also had never heard of Moodie. To me, Moodies narrative reminded me of a lot of colonial discussions at the time, where prominent figures would portray the Americas as being essentially empty land with no people occupying it. This was one such way of erasing Indigenous narratives and justifying colonialism. I agree that Moodie does demonstrate privilege in her depictions and that her focus on emigration draws away from the sinister realities of her immigration. After reading Moodie’s writing and your commentary, I found myself curious as to why she might of written about Canada with such a distinct duality. Why is the land she is settling such a positive and negative force to her? Additionally how does this fractured opinion potentially impact a reader and their thoughts about Indigenous people at the time of its publishing?
I think it all comes down to her not acknowledging the people that lived in the land before their arrival. You notice Moodie comparing the things she sees to what she knows in her home country and her journey is to build that life in this “new world” which wipes out the exitance of all other things already existed.
I run a volunteer program in home country Ethiopia this past summer and brought some volunteers from Canada. They all had different experience and enjoyed their stay differently. What I noticed was that the ones that acknowledged the unique culture in Ethiopia and the way people live their life is different and not necessarily comparable to the way people live their life in Canada, enjoyed their stay. On the other hand, the ones that compared the lack of internet access, lack reliable amenities and the cultural, did not like their experience. We notice even today how people immigrating to new places and do not respect the people that live there. For instance, when people that immigrate to Africa (or other developing countries) they try to impose the Western way of living on people because they believe that is the right way of living. However, that is not always true.