“Here, am I, in the midst of this immense forest”: Irish Immigrants in the American Wilderness”

The essay focuses on the transformation of Irish immigrants’ relationship with nature and the landscape around once they have left the beloved motherland to take their chances in the New World. A close analysis of James McHenry’s novel The Wilderness or Braddock’s Time; A Tale of the West will show that after the crossing of the Atlantic the initial pastoral reverence for an idyllic Ireland gives way to a conquering and aggressive attitude towards the American wilderness, their new home, on the part of the Irish immigrant Gilbert Franzier and his countrymen. At the same time this objectification of nature uniquely “valued in terms of its usefulness to [the humankind]” (Garrard 18) contrasts with the concern for nature of the American Natives Irish immigrants meet when invading their land.