Death by Landscape by Margaret Atwood
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Death by Landscape is a short story written by Margaret Atwood and follows Lois’s life. The story draws the reader to Lois’s past life, where she recollects visiting Camp Manitou located in the wilderness (Margaret, 1990). Lois initiate does not like the camp and everything about it. However, as time passes, she enjoyed its sceneries and all that it contains. While in the camp, she meets Lucy, becomes great friends. Unfortunately, Lucy later disappears in a mysterious way that Lois cannot explain but blames herself for negligence. The loss of Lucy profoundly impacts Lois’s life, and Margaret Atwood sets the story to show how it changed her whole life.
The short story appears to address some separate but interconnected themes that affect a human’s life. Margaret Atwood’s story follows the theme of loss, isolation, and how our adaptation to the loss impacts our whole life. Death by Landscape closely follows the life of Lois to reveal to the readers how tragic losses such as the death of a friend can change our whole life and leads us into isolation, loneliness, blame, and overthinking if not handled positively. Margaret sets the theme of loss via the setting of the story. The first line of the story introduces the reader to a sad mood covered by the death of Lois’s husband, Rob (Margaret, 1990). Lois relocates to one of the condominium apartment, which she appreciates because of the extreme privacy it provides. The apartment does not have any plant life except in the pots within the solarium. The text reads, “the only plant life is in the pots in the solarium.” Lois even says that she does not have to worry about the lawn, the squirrel, and ivy that often forcefully force their muscular suckers into the brickwork. The text states, “She is relieved not to have to worry about the lawn, or about the ivy . . . or the squirrels.” This description reveals a setting that entirely lacks any connection with neither nature nor human interaction, but Lois seems to love the environment.
Also, within the text, a line reveals that Lois was the only child and lived with her parents as they had no siblings. Lois has lost her husband, siblings, kids, as well as Lucy, which grants her a perfect setting to be lonely and always feel alone (Margaret, 1990). Margaret is not presenting a single loss; neither does she present a loss within a family alone, but a loss of close, extended, and a friend. Therefore, in this case, Margaret tries to mean that because a loss is somehow inevitable in life, we must prepare to and adequately adapt to losses when they occur. The text describes Lois’s apartment has to have a big window which provides a good view of Lake Ontario which Margaret describes as “Lake Ontario with its skin of wrinkled blue-grey light and willows of Toronto Island shaken by a wind that is silent at this distance and on this side of the glass.” Most probably, Margaret is using this vivid description to show us how empty the life of Lois is. Her life resembles a grey lake, which is often empty, and her heart seems to appear as the barricade that prevents her from enjoying what life brings.
Lois’s apartment is full of paintings of trees, islands, lakes, and islands, but she does not know why she had bought them (Margaret, 1990). She had initially developed a fear of the wilderness following the disappearance of Lucy, but she still goes ahead to purchase paintings full of wilderness. The story reads Lois says that she at least recalls the moment they shared with Lucy whenever she sees the paintings and recollects the huge loss. This, however, makes her uneasy and reveals her masochistic approach to life. Margaret puts these strategies to help the reader understand the considerable impact that comes with the loss to the extent that the victim becomes confused. Lois seems confused and feels not to accept that Lucy had died, and life has to continue. She still holds items that remind her of Lucy’s death, even if they make her uneasy. The novel puts, “She wanted something that was in them, although she could not have said at the time what it was. It was not peace: she does not find them peaceful in the least”. It is like adding salt to an injury. In history, particularly, post-world war, arts was associated with affluent status. Margaret presents Lois as a lady who loves the arts, which reveals her wealthy state. Lois has all the wealth and still feels the loss, lonely and unhappy. Probably, Margaret wants the readers to understand that money can give us everything but can get us happiness; neither can it fill the gaps in our hearts. We have to realize that in the event of loss, unhappiness, we must convince ourselves that we can do overcome it and possibly seek psychological assistance and not rely on our wealthy because they are useless when loneliness and unhappiness set it wrath.
Moreover, Margaret reveals the human nature of blames after an incident. She prevents Lois from blaming herself for the disappearance of Lucy, which drives her to suffer, and we can get this from the comparison of her life before and after the event. The text goes, “she never felt she was paying full attention. She was tired a lot,” which reveals the sharp contrast in her life before and after Lucy’s death (Margaret, 1990). She had earlier that believed that her life could be “placid and satisfactory.” In the text, we learn that while Lucy cared less about things, Lois was a “watch-minder” who valued everything. However, later we learn a different version of Lois, and possibly the fact that she does not want lawn and squirrel could reveal carelessness as she grows old. All through, she thought about Lucy and thought of her family are entirely lacking in her emotions, and not being able to recall Bob’s face and her children grow in later life could suggest that Lois had lost interest in her own life.
While Lois can recall distinctly every moment she spent with Lucy after so many years and even regretting why she has to remember every single detail of these moments, she cannot even recall anything regarding her husband and children (Margaret, 1990). She overthinks about one incident, which shows that her mind and body are fixed with the tragedy of that happened so many years ago and did not manage to go over it. The text states, “was living not one life but two: her own, and another, shadowy life that hovered around her and would not let itself be realized.” Overall, the text tries to tell us that possibly Lois could be living a different life is she had accepted the loss and moved on. As long as one holds on to some tragedy that happened in the past, they cannot shun remembering such incidents, which ultimately leads to vulnerability, low-quality life, constant self-blame, not live one’s life, and many other chronic impacts. In other words, Margaret wants the reader to understand that we cannot do anything to a loss regardless of how big it was to us. The best thing to do in the event of a loss is to grieve as loud as we can and accept the loss as quickly as possible then continue with life. Lois is an example of a stunted lady because she holds sad memories to the extent of forgetting her to live her life.
Margaret strives to ensure that we understand that hanging up on painful incidents that we have not coped up well with will kill every kindle that we try to light (Margaret, 1990). She puts the title of the story in an ironic way to make this theme sink into us. Death by Landscape is ironic because we do not understand precisely the death of Lucy. Possible, Margaret left this for us, readers to decide whether Lois killed Lucy or the Landscape was to take the blame. The impact of not accepting a loss is vividly seen in Lois’s life after the invention. She continues to live a regretful life as portrayed by constant self blames concerning the incident. Lois shows an apathetic attitude towards life.
Probably, the title as well could be a reminder of the danger of the wilderness. Margaret portrays wilderness as a cruel place where lives are lost in mysterious ways. We can relate the wilderness in the text with loneliness, emptiness, and feeling of wanting no connection with any human or animal creature. We all know how loneliness leads to overthinking, which drives to depression. Depression reduces the quality of life and among the leading cause of suicide globally. Margaret wants us to realize that a loss is irreversible, and once they happen, we should not continue to stay in the wilderness because we lost a loved one or a friend. Instead, we must avoid it and move, interact with new people, make a new friend, and live a more fruitful life. We must not be like Lois.
In conclusion, Margaret has excellently communicated to us about how loss can cause long term negative impact if not handled well. The story communicated through Lois, which we are to sympathize with since she failed to handle her loss positively. Lois ultimately realizes the need to fix all the childhood mistakes and accepts the loss. She recognizes that she was uneasy because of holding to the past, which left her living two lives at once. Margaret uses Lois’s life decisions as a lesson to readers and the human fraternity to understand that blaming oneself after a painful incident is human beings’ nature. However, we must move on. Using blaming gain and not accepting a loss is one of the most dangerous ways of adapting to a loss and will lead to long term impact in our lives. We must learn from Lois to accept our losses as part of our lives to find inner peace, which is the most crucial determinant for a quality life.
References
Margaret Atwood. (1990). “Death by Landscape” (pp. 2894 – 2906)