The Makings of an Outsider

To be an outsider is to be isolated from a particular society and forced to look on as a detached third party without the ability to merge as an integrated and accepted participant. While the outsider identity may be thrust upon the individual, the individual himself/herself may hinder his/her assimilation and therefore be the cause of his/her own isolation. In both Margaret Atwood’s poem collection Journals of Susanna Moodie and Maria Campbell’s narrative poem, “Jacob,” protagonists Susanna Moodie and Jacob struggle as outsiders in their respective Canadian environments. Both protagonists are outsiders as Moodie is an outsider to the wildlife environment of the Bush and Jacob is an outsider to his Indigenous community; however, Moodie’s outsider status is a result of her personal fear of the unfamiliar, while external societal forces create Jacob’s outsider identity. Both outsider identities, while differing in causation, illustrate the negative impact Western ideology has on the new settler and Indigenous populations as the former’s preconditioned Western beliefs turn Canada’s natural environment into an adversary and the latter is pressed to abandon its unique cultural traditions. Through strategic word choice, both Susanna Moodie and Jacob are established as outsiders in their respective natural and social environments; however Moodie’s personal barriers cause her outsider identity, while Jacob’s outsider status is forced upon him by societal factors, providing a commentary on the destructive impact of Western ideologies. Atwood manipulates words to situate Moodie as an outsider to nature as she writes, “The moving water will not show me/ my reflection./ The rocks ignore” (“DAQ”16-18). Atwood uses negative descriptors such as “ignore” to personify nature as unwelcoming, setting Moodie up as an outsider to the seemingly hostile Bush. The personification also, however, brings forth Moodie’s own role in her outsider identity as she projects her personal fears onto inanimate natural elements incapable of demonstrating the contempt she perceives. As literary scholar Erin Smith points out in her article “Gender and National Identity in ‘The Journals of Susanna Moodie’ and ‘Tamsen Donner: A Woman’s Journey,’” “Moodie…belongs to civilized, rational England, and she has arrived in the wilderness where those civilized rules of existence no longer apply” (79). As Smith states, Moodie has entered an environment that rejects the rules she is accustomed to but rather than trying to adapt, Moodie writes the environment off as hostile. Atwood strategically has Moodie question the validity of her perception as she writes, “Or is it my own lack/of conviction”(“DAQ” 6-7). Through this rhetorical question, Atwood implies that Moodie realizes her negative personification is likely due to her own hesitations of her surroundings. Unlike Moodie, who creates her own outsider identity, Campbell selects words which portray Jacob as a victim as she writes, “He gets one of dem new names when dey put him in dah/ residential school./ He was just a small boy when he go/ an he don come home for twelve years./ Twelve years!” (“Jacob” 72-77). Campbell’s deliberate choice of the words “put” and “just” highlight Jacob as a victim of his circumstances, and emphasize Jacob’s lack of choice in being removed from his Indigenous community. Enforcing Jacob’s young age stresses his inability to remove himself from the situation he is “put” into. Also, the repetition of “twelve years” foreshadows Jacob’s inevitable outsider identity as it provides a concrete time period that Jacob is absent from his people.
The careful word choice that sets Moodie and Jacob up as contrasting outsiders also creates a commentary on the detrimental impact Western ideologies have on the Indigenous and new settler populations. Atwood’s use of negative descriptors to describe the Bush demonstrates Moodie’s “need to arm herself with man-made things and logic against the destructive, anarchic forces of nature” (Smith 79) and presents the defensive perception many new settlers have upon arriving in the Bush, due to the deeply ingrained Western ideologies of civilized behavior they arrive with and want to maintain. Similarly, Campbell’s choice of words to illustrate Jacob as a victim parallels the many defenseless Indigenous children who are removed from their homes and placed in residential schools due to Western society’s need to strip them of their cultural identities and impose its ideologies of Christianity and the English language. Both Atwood and Campbell’s careful choosing of words helps to emphasize the negative impacts of Western ideologies by establishing Susanna Moodie and Jacob respectively as contrasting outsiders to their natural and social environments.
Both Susanna Moodie and Jacob are depicted as outsiders in their respective environments; however, through narrative voice, Moodie’s personal fears are identified as the root of her outsider identity while Jacob’s societal conditions cast him as an outsider, both demonstrating the negative impact of Western ideologies. Atwood adopts Moodie’s persona through first-person narrative voice and sheds light on Moodie’s unwillingness to assimilate as she writes, “In time the animals/ arrived to inhabit me,/ first one/ by one,/ stealthily…then/ having marked new boundaries/ returning, more/ confident, year/ by year, two/ by two” (“DFTB” 6-15). Through first person narrative voice, Atwood establishes the predator/prey relationship between Moodie and the Bush. The vivid images of animals working to inhabit her stem directly from Moodie’s mind, revealing her inner fear of becoming one with nature. While Moodie situates herself as an outsider through the description of her feelings, portraying nature as the predator also reveals nature’s willingness to accept Moodie, showing that Moodie could assimilate by letting go of hesitations. Moodie sees herself as prey to the uncivilized wilderness and affirms her reluctance to be overtaken as she states, “I was not ready/altogether to be moved into” (Atwood, “DFB” 17-18). By writing in first person, Atwood depicts Moodie as an individual who is self-aware of her culpability in being an outsider.
Contrasting Atwood, Campbell uses an interjecting third person narrative voice to confirm Jacob’s victimization as she writes, “We use dah membering/an we pass it on by telling stories an singing songs…But all dis trouble you know/he start after we get dah new names/cause wit dah new names/he come a new language an a new way of living” (“Jacob” 45-43). Here the narrator strays from retelling Jacob’s story and becomes an active participant by including herself with “we.” She lists the cultural customs Jacob and their Metis culture share and the Western influences that threaten to destroy them. She generalizes the troubles he faces to show that his forced outsider status is one to sympathize with as others of their community suffer from it as well and is beyond their control, differing from Moodie whose struggles as an outsider stem from her inability to accept her surroundings.
Atwood’s and Campbell’s respective uses of narrative voice to develop their protagonists’ personal struggles also comments on the destructive impact of Western ideologies on the new settler and Indigenous communities. By writing in first person to convey Moodie’s fear of being prey to the Bush’s wildlife, Atwood comments on the lack of room in Western ideologies for open-mindedness towards unfamiliarity. She demonstrates the consequences of being unable to assimilate in an environment that does not possess the familiar attributes of the Western world. Campbell shows the destructive impact the ideologies of “Westernized” names and language have on the Indigenous society, as the interjecting narrator creates sympathy and identifies the factors behind the loss of Indigenous traditions by listing the things lost with the Western way of living. Even the narrator’s combined language of English and Metis mimics the breaking down of what were unique Indigenous traits. Through contrasting narrative voices, Moodie and Jacob are portrayed as protagonists suffering from differing outsider identities, developing the commentary on the damaging impact of Western ideologies.
Atwood and Campbell create a commentary on the harmful impact of Western ideologies by using irony to establish Susanna Moodie and Jacob as respective willing and forced outsiders to their environments. Atwood uses irony to illustrate Moodie’s failure to learn as an outsider by writing, “I was/ (instantaneous)/ unlived in: they had gone./ There was something they almost taught me./ I came away not having learned” (“DFB” 33-37). Instead of Moodie feeling elated to have escaped the natural environment she spent all her time fighting, Atwood uses situational irony to change the tone of the poem from one of panic and anxiety to wistful regret. As literary scholar Marge Piercy points out in her article “Margaret Atwood: Beyond Victimhood,” “At first [Moodie] holds onto her identity with all her strength and loss is all disaster and attack. But when she leaves the wilderness she realizes she is losing something she did not yet have, that she needs” (42). Moodie’s recognition that she could have learned from nature by assimilating creates irony, as Moodie’s determination to preserve her civilized nature is what hindered her own growth. This portrays Moodie as an outsider of her own making as she set out to achieve self-preservation rather than growth during her stay in the Bush; her regret demonstrates recognition of her mistake.
Campbell uses irony to illustrate the unavoidable suffering Jacob endures as an outsider. Irony is evident as the narrator’s grandmother explains, “Hees hard for me to tell you dis but dat Prees/ hees book he bring us bad news today./He tell you dat Awchak he was your Daddy./My grandchild/Awchak was your wife’s Daddy too” (Campbell, “Jacob” 205-209). Education is meant to be a positive institution that provides possibilities, but here it is a catalyst for Jacob’s deepest isolation as it reveals the incestuous nature of his marriage. His longing to know his parentage and feel connected to his Indigenous community results in him losing even more of his identity as it is explained, “Dah ole womans/ dey stay with him for a long time/ an dey sing healing songs an dey try to help him/ but he say he can feel nutting” (Campbell, “Jacob” 217-220). What is supposed to be a gift of enlightenment and connection ironically numbs Jacob to the point where his culture’s healing traditions cannot reach him. The irony marks Jacob as a forced outsider rather than one of his own making like Moodie, as he seeks knowledge to free himself of his outsider identity though it comes too late to do him any good.
As the use of irony in both texts develops contrasting outsider identities, it also creates a critique of the harmful effects western ideologies have on new settler and Indigenous communities. The irony of Moodie feeling regret for not having learned from the natural environment acts as a metaphor for the consequence of the Western ideologies instilled upon new settlers. Her preconditioning to rational civilization parallels the same preconditions new settlers arrive to the Bush with, making nature an instant but unnecessary adversary. Similarly, Jacob’s outsider identity being worsened by the knowledge of his parentage highlights the detrimental effects of Western society’s insistence on replacing the Indigenous people’s cultural names with Christian ones. The irony also makes him numb to the traditional healing songs of the Metis people, commenting on Western society’s shameful desire to rid Indigenous communities of their unique beliefs and customs. By using irony to establish Moodie and Jacob as contrasting outsiders to their respective environments, Atwood and Campbell also develop a commentary on the negative impact Western ideologies possess.
In essence, both Margaret Atwood’s collection Journals of Susanna Moodie and Maria Campbell’s narrative poem Jacob present their respective protagonists Susanna Moodie and Jacob as outsiders struggling in their natural and societal Canadian environments; however Moodie is an outsider due to personal fears of the unknown while external forces mark Jacob’s outsider identity. Differing in causation, both outsiders provide a commentary on the harmful impact Western ideologies have on new settler and Indigenous communities. Both Atwood and Campbell manipulate words to create their protagonists contrasting outsider identities as Atwood uses negative verbs to personify nature as an adversary in Moodie’s mind and Campbell emphasizes words which portray Jacob as helpless to stop his outsider identity from shaping. Atwood uses a first person narrative to confirm Moodie’s personal fear through her emotional process as the catalyst for her outsider identity while Campbell writes in an interjecting narrative voice, creating sympathy for Jacob’s forced outsider state by highlighting factors that are beyond his control. Lastly, both Atwood and Campbell use situational irony to show Moodie’s realized mistake in making herself an outsider and Jacob’s failed but eager attempt to overcome his outsider identity. To be an outsider is never an easy identity to bear, however some are helpless to rid themselves of it while others mistake it for a safety net, shielding them from the unknown.