Haunted: The Journals of Susanna Moodie
Keywords:
Susanna Moodie, Journals, Atwood, Narratology, Literature, Jennifer Aldred, HumanitiesAbstract
Using an interpretive, hermeneutical approach, this article explores the work of Susanna Moodie, Margaret Atwood, and Charles Pachter. The intertextual resonances that connect these works are examined, as well as the link between text, image, and visuality. Susanna Moodie was a nineteenth century British immigrant to the backwoods of Canada, and her autobiographical text provides a narrative context from which both Margaret Atwood and Charles Pachter respectively grapple with and negotiate the complex, polyglossic nature of Canadian culture, identity, and art. The interface between Atwood's poetic explication of cultural, linguistic, and literary identity and Pachter's illustrative visual representations reveals the powerful synergy that is born when text and image collide.
We are all immigrants to this place even if we were born here: the country is too big for anyone to inhabit completely, and in the parts unknown to us we move in fear, exiles and invaders. This country is something that must be chosen-it is so easy to leave-and if we do choose it we are still choosing a violent duality.
