SOURCE: Inness, Sherrie A. “‘An Act of Severe Duty’: Emigration and Class Ideology in Susanna Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush.” In Imperial Objects: Essays on Victorian Women's Emigration and the Unauthorized Imperial Experience, edited by Rita S. Kranidis, pp. 190-210. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998.

In the following essay, Inness categorizes class ideology and insecurity as factors for Moodie's perception of the female emigration experience.

“This colony is a rich mine yet unopen'd,” states Colonel Rivers, hero of The History of Emily Montague (1769), the first Canadian novel about the riches awaiting settlers in Canada. “Nothing is wanting but encouragement and cultivation,” he continues. “[T]he Canadians are at their ease even without labor; nature is here a bounteous mother, who pours forth her gifts almost unsolicited” (Brooke 1: 50). Rivers, a poor gentleman-soldier who emigrates from England, claims he is going to become “lord of a principality” in his new...