Susanna moodie

Susanna Moodie
“Roughing it in the bush”

Moodie was born December 6, 1803 at Bungay, England. She was the younger sister of three other writers. She wrote the first of her children's books in1822. In 4 April 1831, she married John Moodie, a retired officer who served in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1832, with her husband and daughter, she immigrated to Canada.
This very fact will frame herentire career, since her writings and her most remarkable and important novel, Roughing It in the bush, will be all about emigration, adaptation and contrast between old and new world.
The family settledon a farm in Douro township, Upper Canada. Moodie continued to write in Canada and her letters and journals contain valuable information about life in the colony. She observed life in what was thenthe backwoods of Ontario, including native customs, the climate, the wildlife, relations between the Canadian population and the strong sense of community.
In 1852, she published Roughing it in theBush, detailing her experiences on the farm in the 1830s. This novel, as said above, was her greatest success. It was a kind of “emigrant´s guide” although she claimed that her intention was not todiscourage immigrants but to prepare people like herself, raised in relative wealth and with no prior experience as farmers, for what life in Canada would be like. She also included humorous anecdotesregarding the natives and poetic descriptions of the landscape.

ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH
"In moments like these, I ceased to regret my separation from my native land; and filled with the love ofNature, my heart forgot for the time, the love of home..."
The Canadian classic "Roughing It in the Bush" is written as a narrative in which the author is the narrator of her experiences as an emigrantfrom England, her voyage to the New World and her struggles to adapt to the new life are a wonderful example of transforming her British identity into Canadian identity during her stay in the farm...