The Wilderness in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, Mary Austin’s Land of Li

The Wilderness in Margaret Atwoods Surfacing, Mary capital of Texass Land of Little Rain, and Gary Snyders The pattern of the WildJourneys into the out of workerness test far more than the physical boundaries of the kind traveler. Twentieth century wilderness authors move beyond the traditional travel-tour hail where nature is an external diversion from everyday life. Instead, nature becomes a gun for knowing our internal wilderness and our universal connections to all living things. In Margaret Atwoods Surfacing, Mary Austins Land of Little Rain, and Gary Snyders The Practice of the Wild, nature mirrors apiece narrator what the narrators ultimately discover in the wilderness reflects what needs they bring to it. Their points of view, expectations, and awareness all determine their experiences of the wild and self. Ultimately, however, each work reveals that the experience of nature need not be restricted only to self-discovery, but may well expand to an judgment of the spiritu al family self. Atwoods psychological novel describes the return journey by its narrator from a self-centered, urban existence to the Canadian wilderness of her youth, where she finds the nitty-gritty of family and her role in it. Though not overtly psychological, Mary Austins intense devotion to the life and people of her desert conjunction suggests these have become replacements for her own, unsuccessful attempts at conventional family life. Finally, Gary Snyders affinity with nature exemplifies a life integrated in all aspectsa union that merges the practical, psychological, and spiritual into what may be called the cosmic family. Birth of Family Margaret Atwoods Surfacing describes the heroine/narrators phy... ...our experiences the progress of our consciousness. This progress resolves issues of the self and angiotensin converting enzymes individual past, heals our psychic pain, and releases us from powerlessness and fear. By accept the wilderness in oursel ves we will understand the wilderness in each other and our connectedness. Nature functions as catalyst, as guide, as test, as teacher. consequently opening the spiritual window to grace, we ultimately realize the possibility of macrocosm fully human. References Atwood, Margaret. Surfacing (New York Fawcett Crest, 1972). Austin, Mary. Stories from the Country of deep in thought(p) Borders. Ed. Marjorie Pryse (New Brunswick Rutgers UP, 1987). Pryse, Marjorie. Introduction to Stories from the Country of Lost Borders by Mary Austin. (New Brunswick Rutgers UP, 1987). Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild (San Francisco North Point Press, 1990).