Comparision of two of Margaret Atwoods Poems
The common characteristics between the two poems, "Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer," and "Further Arrivals," by Margaret Atwood, are that of the self-adaptation and self-awareness to nature. When you think of Canadian Literature in the era of the new land, it is not surprising that there are poems about surviving in nature, about being uncivilized vs. being civilized, and about growing and developing. These two poems are tied together with a number of key images, ideas, and thoughts. Even though "Further Arrivals," is one of a collection of poems taken from Atwood's "The Journals of Susan Moodie," both poems are very similar in their subject matter: "the close inter-weaving and inter-twining" (Bilan, 1978) of experiences with nature. "Atwood based events in this and the other poems in The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970) on Mrs. Moodie's accounts of her life in Roughing It in the Bush (1852) and Life in the Clearings (1853)." (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) In a nut shell, Susan Moodie moved here from the old land to the new land and has to adjust to the wilderness in order to survive and find some connection to nature, where as, the man tries his best to separate himself and refuses nature. And, if you look at the publ
And she does admit that she is aware ("I have not come out yet" [Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002]) of her own feelings, but that she is also unaware of what nature, the "large darkness" holds. " His "eyes made ragged by his effort," to bring human order, civilization, and light to nature. "The order of Nature is labyrinth, complex, and curved; the order of Western European Man tends to be squares, straight lines, oblongs and similar shapes," (Bilan, 1978) so the Pioneer is faced with trying to fit squares into circles. In Atwood's "poetry, she often explores. (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002)Moodie in "Further Arrivals" was willing to become more adapted and aware in regards to self and nature, and the Pioneer in "Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer" was not willing to become more adapted or aware when it came to anything that was not in his mind structured and civilized. The second and third stanza give us understanding of how ignorant, and even eluded, Moodie is toward the new world because "the immigrants threw off their clothes / and danced like sandflies," having no clue of what awaits them. (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) Then Atwood introduces the first reference to being civilized: "one by one our civilized / distinction," telling us the readers that these are civilized, proper, clean, well brought up individuals, unlike the earth and those "rotting of cholera. (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) Finally, "the green vision, the unnamed / whale invaded," and he is consumed by his self-inflicted nightmare. Then in stanza seven the reference to "My brain gropes nervous / tentacles in the night, sends out / fears hairy as bears" (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) implies that Moodie is consciously acknowledging the uneasiness she feels about the "large darkness," and how she is using her feelers to find her way and to make sense of the "darkness. The fourth stanza is a turning point, where we are first introduced to the "large darkness. As we move on in the poem it is apparent that the Pioneer is uncomfortable with his surroundings: "with no walls, no borders / anywhere; the sky no height / above him, totally un- / enclosed / and shouted: / Let me out!" (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) With his feeling of powerlessness and confinement he proceeds, in his mind, to "tame and humanize," (Bilan, 1978) nature by digging "the soil in rows," imposing "himself with shovels," and asserting "into the furrows. We saw in each poem the individual thoughts on nature, the thoughts on how to survive, and the individual path the individual actions resulted in.
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Acceptance Essays
