Hi everyone! I have just finished reading “Death by Landscape” and I must say, I really enjoyed it. Margaret Atwood is a very talented and clear writer. Even though this story is portrayed to be depressing at the beginning, Ms. Atwood has done a very good job focusing more on the plot of the story than the mourning of Rob, or her good friend Lucy. Any-who, moving on with the blog.

At the beginning of the story, Lois displays her art collection on the walls of her new apartment. She spends this time admiring the paintings, yet, Margaret explains that they do not fill her with peace, as paintings are usually meant to do. She says the paintings show landscapes that make her very uneasy. “Looking at them fills her with a wordless unease. Despite the fact that there are no people in them or even animals, its as if there is something, or someone, looking back out” (Atwood 336). As we can see, Lois mentions that she feels that someone is “looking back out,” which brings the readers attention to her camp experience starting when she was nine. The camp setting represents a domesticated wilderness. She is afraid of the atmosphere, but in time she does adapt to it. I believe that the symbolism in this story is the paintings. They seem to be a constant reminder of the past; a past of sadness, loss of a friend, and lack of closure.

When we read “Death by Landscape” we are able to picture the girls on their campsite and we can envision the wilderness around them, which makes it much more interesting and gives it that effect of realism. “Spindly balsam and spruce trees grow to either side, the lake is blue fragments to the left. The sun is right overhead; there are no shadows anywhere. The heat comes up at them as well as down. The forest is dry and crackly” (Atwood 344). This is an excellent example of imagery that is portrayed throughout the story. Margaret describes each scene so that the readers have a better image in their mind about where the setting takes place. This quote specifically describes the scene near the end of the story where we learn that the two girls get separated from the other campers to climb a trail that led to “Lookout Point,” which is a sleep cliff that overlooks the lake. Lois and Lucy rest on a rock very close to the edge of the cliff, which Lois is admittedly afraid of. She has a fear of heights, but Lucy, on the other hand, wants to jump off into the water. Lois stops her, and Lucy claims she needed to go pee. We learn that Lucy never returns, and Lois gets falsely accused of pushing her off out of rage. As the years go on, she mourns the the loss of her friend. We can only imagine what kind of fear that Lois has on wilderness after this incident, but we find out that it has had more of a positive impact on her life, than a negative one. She learns at the end of the story, that Lucy has been with her all along, in her house, in her paintings.

“She looks at the paintings, she looks into them. Every one of them is a picture of Lucy. You can’t see her exactly, but she’s there, in behind the pink stone island or the one behind that. In the picture of the cliff she is hidden by the clutch of fallen rocks towards the bottom, in the one of the river shore she is crouching beneath the overturned canoe. In the yellow autumn woods she is behind the tree that cannot be seen because of the other trees, over beside the blue silver of pond; but if you walked into the picture and found the tree, it would be the wrong one, because the right one would be farther on” (Atwood 348).

Throughout the story, we can clearly see how nature is presented as a negative role in Lois’ life. Her fear towards it is represented from the beginning, with her assumption that there was something more to her paintings. Atwood attempts to show the readers a symbolic perspective of the story, with describing each scene of the wilderness, and why Lois may have chose the paintings that she did. Though her walls are filled with landscape paintings, Lois’ inability to reconnect with the wilderness appears to be connected to her regrets about Lucy’s death.