King's College London Faculty of Arts & Humanities Coversheet For

King’s College London Faculty of Arts & Humanities Coversheet for submission of coursework (Undergraduate & Taught Postgraduate) Word count, which should be calculated electronically, must be stated accurately below. For details of what is included in the word count, and penalties incurred by exceeding the word count limit, please consult the coursework submission policy in the Faculty handbook. DECLARATION BY STUDENT This assignment is entirely my own work. Quotations from secondary literature are indicated by the use of inverted commas around ALL such quotations AND by reference in the text or notes to the author concerned. ALL primary and secondary literature used in this piece of work is indicated in the bibliography placed at the end, and dependence upon ANY source used is indicated at the appropriate point in the text. I confirm that no sources have been used other than those stated. I understand what is meant by plagiarism and have signed at enrolment the declaration concerning the avoidance of plagiarism. I understand that plagiarism is a serious examinations offence that may result in disciplinary action being taken. I understand that I must submit work BEFORE the deadline, and that failure to do so will result in capped marks. (This is a letter followed by five digits, Candidate no. W 3 4 4 0 9 and can be found on Student Records) Module Title: Victorians Abroad Module Code: 6AAEC048 (e.g. 5AABC123 ) Discuss the representation and significance of the idea of Assignment: 'wilderness' (in Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush and (may be abbreviated) Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life) Assignment tutor/group: Adelene Buckland Deadline: 03 May, 2016 Date Submitted: 01 May, 2016 Word Count: 3979 Your assignment may be used as an example of good practice for other students to refer to in future. If selected, your assignment will be presented anonymously and may include feedback comments or the specific grade awarded. Participation is optional and will not affect your grade. Do you consent to your assignment being used in this way? Please tick the appropriate box below. YES x NO W34409 Katherine Marchant 6AAEC048 Victorians Abroad May 2016 Dweller of the Wild: Wilderness and Identity in Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush and Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life The Industrial Revolution reshaped Britain’s infrastructure, leading to dramatic social and economic changes within the country. As technological innovation replaced traditional agricultural practices with machines and factories, Britain’s landscape morphed from one of pastoral towns and villages to one dominated by cities, where populations became condensed and grew exponentially. By the first half of the nineteenth century, it was apparent that this sudden shift in population—both in count and in location—strained resources such as food and housing for the growing working class. It was during this period of anxiety surrounding overcrowding that a fantasy of immigration arose. Britain’s numerous colonies, scattered across the stretch of the globe, promised bountiful resources—food, land, and the opportunity to escape the destitute life of the working class. Some Victorians immigrated to the colonies, either by choice or by force of circumstances, and encountered landscapes totally unlike that of industrialized Britain. Writers Susanna Moodie and Marcus Clarke both emigrated from Britain, settling in Canada and Australia, respectively. Though positioned on near-opposite sides of the globe, both Moodie and Clarke encountered lands that had been untouched by the Industrial Revolution. In the absence of civilization, they found wilderness—a particular geographical condition which forced them to reevaluate things they had taken for granted as British citizens, such as social constructions and personal identity. Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, published in 1852 but written about twenty years before, features an autobiographical account of her life as an immigrant to Canada. Clarke’s novel For the Term of His Natural Life, first published between 1870 and 1872 in the Australian Journal before becoming a novel two years later, constructs the fictional narrative of a convict sent to Australia to live in a penal settlement, taking place from the 1820s to the 1840s. These two texts address the ways in which landscape—specifically, the “wild,” which lacks the comforts and 2 W34409 structure of the civilized world—affects man. Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush and Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life reveal that wilderness has the capacity to transform a person’s identity. Before we approach Moodie’s and Clarke’s texts, we must first orient ourselves with the relevant terminology that will appear in this paper—namely, the words wilderness and identity. Wilderness refers to land that is uncultivated and, often but not in every instance, uninhabited by humans.1 The wilderness is a geographical location in which man has not cleared out the natural flora and fauna to make space for agricultural activities, which involve domesticated flora and fauna under the control of human care and influence. Civilization, or society and the presence of human cultivation, can be regarded as the binary opposite of wilderness. The second term that will be discussed in this paper, identity, refers to “Who or what a person or thing is; a distinct impression of a single person or thing presented to or perceived by others.”2 The key aspect of this definition is the idea that identity is something that requires an exchange between the individual and the outside world. Depending upon his observers and external conditions, an individual’s identity can change. In short, an individual’s identity is socially influenced. Thus, when we discuss identity in relation to wilderness, we are examining what an identity looks like when it is torn out of society and placed in an uncivilized space. Both Moodie and Clarke tackle this question of individual identity within wilderness; however, though Moodie’s memoir and Clarke’s novel both contain immigrant narratives taking place in the early nineteenth century, it is essential to note the key differences between the two texts. First, we must take into account the conditions under which Susanna Moodie and Clarke’s fictional protagonist, Rufus Dawes, travel to their respective locations are notably dissimilar. Moodie is a settler; Dawes is a convict. While Moodie lands in Canada with the intention of cultivating the land and building a replica—or something close to it—of the society from which she has come, Dawes arrives in Australia to a pre-organized society in the form of the penal settlement. In an essay comparing these two works, John F. Tinkler writes that “Clarke sees Australia as 1 Oxford English Dictionary [online], ‘Wilderness’, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/229003 [accessed 28 April 2016]. 2 Oxford English Dictionary [online], ‘Identity’, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/91004 [accessed 28 April 2016]. 3 W34409 developing from an imported social institution of which stratification and conflict are the key features… The bond that [Moodie] sees holding together the independent individuals of her world is a commitment to cultural standards imported from Britain, represented especially by an ideal of education.”3 Dawes, as a convict, immigrates to a place where the only familiar institution—the only recognizable trace of the society he knows—is the prison system. Moodie, on the other hand, travels to Canada with other settlers, all of whom are committed to establishing familiar institutions to build civilization. Despite their different motivations for emigrating, it is their displacement from Britain, and, therefore, the social positions that they once knew, that we are discussing when we examine the effects of wilderness. Second, we must acknowledge that the gender of the authors—and the gender of the main characters in their respective works—establishes two very different perspectives from which Moodie and Clarke approach the discussion of identity. In nineteenth century Britain, men and women held very different positions in society. As a result of social expectations and mores, or acceptable behavior, manners, and customs as dictated by society,4 male and female sense of identity were quite distinct. Thus, as we examine the ways in which Moodie and Clarke discuss the effects of the wilderness on a woman’s or man’s identity, it is necessary to take into account what the characteristics of these identities are within British society. In her essay discussing Roughing It in the Bush, Tihana Klepač, assistant professor of English literature at the University of Zagreb, mentions some of the lasting effects that British social roles have on Moodie, who is reluctant to abandon what she knows: Even though she eventually masters the art of milking cows and paddling a canoe, and bravely saves her children and house furniture from being burnt in a fire, [Moodie] confines herself to her socially defined female role. This is most evident when she claims that her 3 John F. Tinkler, “Canadian Cultural Norms and Australian Social Rules,” Canadian Literature 94, Autumn (1982), p. 20. 4 Oxford English Dictionary [online], ‘More’, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/122175 [accessed 28 April 2016]. 4 W34409 decision to emigrate was the result of her duty to her husband and children…5 Klepač’s analysis of Moodie’s attempts to reproduce domestic life argues that her desires are not only tied to the act of settlement, but also to her gender.6 Victorian women’s lives were confined to matters in the “private sphere,”7 and so it is no surprise that Moodie’s narrative—and her efforts in Canada—center around the cultivation of domestic life. Moodie describes emigration in the introduction of her book as something of a chore: “Emigration may, indeed, generally be regarded as an act of severe duty, performed at the expense of personal enjoyment.” 8 Leaving one’s home country to settle in a foreign land is sometimes unpleasant and born from necessity.

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