Here's just a short summary describing what the poem is about:
Journey to the Interior by Margaret Atwood
Selected Poetry 1965-1995, Virago Press, London, 2000
Journey to the Interior by Margaret Atwood is a journey to the unknown, a journey within. This poem describes the human psyche by comparing it to the Canadian environment and natural landscape. Journey to the Interior is an inner journey of self discovery.
The first stanza talks of the similarities between the human psyche and the environment. The images conveyed here are dark, this is no romantic bucolic picture of nature: here the “trees grow spindly; with their roots often in swamps”. It is a “poor country”. If this is a metaphor for her interior self, it is a cutting rejoinder to the glossy, self-help pop psychology that abounds today. Rather the interior self is vast, perhaps murky and sometimes deficient. The scene developed here is harsh and real, this place is not fertile, it is false and misleading, a place where you cannot rely on conventional things “the travel is not easy going from point to point”. This is a decaying world.
The second stanza shows the differences between the interior journey and all others. This journey is not defined with “the lack of reliable charts;” this is unknown territory. This stanza introduces some strange images to the responder; “your shoe among the brambles under the chair where it shouldn’t be” this appears to be a domestic image, but when examining the definition of brambles we discover that this image is not normal. Here she is saying how others have tried to explore their psyche and as a consequence have become lost in themselves. As sort of an escape she lightens the mood “have I been walking in circles again?” this aside is an attempt to exit the dark and depressive world that is surrounding the subject, the world of herself.
The final paragraph shows another example at the author’s desperation to escape the seriousness of her inner world; “whatever I do I must keep my head.” This is a dangerous journey. “I know it is easier for me to lose my way forever here, than in other landscapes”.
This poem is full of visual imagery, referring to the landscape and environment. These images are dark and unusual which adds to the eerie feel of the poem “I move surrounded by a tangle of branches, a net of air”. The use of the first person pronoun “I” makes the poem personal and individual. The use of this pronoun is not intrusive though; it could be anybody – the universal “I”. The intended audience would be educated and fluent in English.
Margaret Atwood attempts to chart the dark mystery that is ourselves in this poem, The Journey to the interior. She uses irregularity in rhythm, visual and sound imagery to create an atmosphere of uncertainty and danger. Atwood effectively examines the journey of the human psyche by comparing it to familiar physical landscapes.
