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

The Wilderness in Margaret Atwoods Surfacing, Mary Austins Land of Little Rain, and Gary Snyders The Practice of the WildJourneys into the state of nature test far more than the physical boundaries of the human traveler. Twentieth century wilderness authors run for beyond the traditional travel-tour approach where nature is an external diversion from everyday behavior. Instead, nature becomes a catalyst for knowing our internal wilderness and our universal connections to whole living things. In Margaret Atwoods Surfacing, Mary Austins Land of Little Rain, and Gary Snyders The Practice of the Wild, nature mirrors each bank clerk what the narrators ultimately capture 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 understanding of the spiritual 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 meaning of family and her role in it. Though not overtly psychological, Mary Austins fierce devotion to the life and people of her desert community suggests these have become replacements for her own, unsuccessful attempts at conventional family life. Finally, Gary Snyders kinship 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 make of our consciousness. This progress resolves issues of the self and ones individual past, heals our psychic pain, and releases us from powerlessness and fear. By accepting the wilderness in ourselves we will understand th e wilderness in each other and our connectedness. Nature functions as catalyst, as guide, as test, as teacher. Then opening the spiritual window to grace, we ultimately realize the mishap of being fully human. References Atwood, Margaret. Surfacing (New York Fawcett Crest, 1972). Austin, Mary. Stories from the Country of Lost 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).