Isabella Bird (1831-1904) was a spinster Englishwoman who spent a great deal of time being sick in her youth. Upon the advice of a doctor, she began to travel, and developed a passion for globe-trotting.
On one of her many trips, she landed in San Francisco, and then took a train headed on a treacherous journey into the Rocky Mountains. Isabella tells the story of her brave and adventurous wanderings with a wealth of literary techniques inspired by the Wild West.
In her book A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879) Isabella writes about her 1873 trip to see the vanishing American West.
The Use of Hyperbole, of Overstatement
One literary technique prevalent in Isabella's description of America is the use of hyperbole, or overstatement. This reflects the European sense of wonder at the vastness of the American continent, the height of the mountains, the raging of the rivers, and the fertility of the soil.
Isabella describes the assortment of fruit she sees in San Francisco, "...all of startling size as compared with any I ever saw before." (p. 2).
However, the fog gets her down, and the heat of Sacramento tires her, and she looks forward to her trip into the mountains.
Once she arrives in the clear, pure, chilly mountain air, Isabella seems to come alive, and enjoys riding everywhere alone on her little horse, as she is assured that a lady such as herself can travel in perfect safety, which she does.
September, Estes Park and Mountain Jim
In Estes Park, Isabella feels the most healthful conditions. She writes, "I have just dropped into the very place I have been seeking, but in everything it exceeds all my dreams." (p. 67). She marvels at the healthy air, enjoys the early morning frosts, and the roaring fires of the camp where she is staying.
But it is the friendship of a fellow Brit, called Mountain Jim, that Isabella comes to value and to mourn. He is famous and notorious, a gunslinger, and a gentleman to Isabella, though when she first meets him, she notes, "Desperado" is written in large letters all over him." (p. 73).
Jim is a walking metaphor of his own soul. Half his face is as handsome as those found in Grecian statues, according to Isabella. The other half has been destroyed, with one eye gone. Jim always sits so that his good side is facing Isabella, and he hides both his physical and spiritual "bad" side.
Thus springs a love, between a proper English spinster and a fallen Englishman, turned American Wild West desperado. Both in their forties, they can enjoy their time, yet regret that they hadn't met sooner.
References
Bierstadt, Albert. (1830-1902)Estes Park, Colorado.
Bierstadt, Albert. (1830-1902) Long's Peak, Estes Park, Colorado.
Bird, Isabella. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. Sausalito, CA: Comstock Editions, Inc., 1987. Introduction by Ann Ronalk.
DeVine, Christine. "Isabella Bird and Mountain Jim: Geography and Gender Boundaries in A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains." Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies. Issue 3.2 (Summer 2007).
Teresa Knudsen - Teresa's writing appears in the British Library, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Online she has written for USA Today and E How.
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