"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

The fourth stanza is a turning point, where we are first introduced to the "large darkness." (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) Here we are able to see how deep Moodie's fear is towards the darkness and chaos. But in stanza five Moodie refers to entering "the large darkness," as entering "...our own / ignorance...." (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) She has some understanding that it is her own response to the fears of the "large darkness," that is making it was it is. 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.

From the first line in the first stanza the Pioneer starts in on his illusion by "proclaiming himself the centre," of a nature that undoubtedly has no centre. 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." (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002) He is declaring himself "not random," and what is random, is nature. In this poem, unlike "Further Arrivals," the Pioneer is not accepting nature but is trying to insert his own man-made civilized order. "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. Unlike Moodie in "Further Arrivals," the Pioneer thinks nature is what needs to be changed; in actuality it is his own thought processes that need to be changed. And in stanzas four and five nature "replied with aphorisms...words / he couldn't understand," and words he did not want to understand.

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." (Stott, Jones, & Bowes, 2002)

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Approximate Word count = 1628
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)