Death By Landscape

“Despite the fact that there are no people in [the paintings] or even animals, it’s as if there is something, or someone, looking back out.”

The above passage is an example of Atwood’s use of foreshadowing; by the end of the story, Lois concludes that the supposedly “empty” landscapes actually conceal Lucy. This, however, doesn’t necessarily explain Lois’s motives for hanging on to paintings that disturb her; it’s unclear, for instance, whether she collects art in an attempt to get Lucy back, to punish herself for Lucy’s disappearance, to assert control over the place where Lucy disappeared, or a mixture of all three. Lois’s sense that someone is watching her is also significant in light of the story’s interest in Canada’s colonial past, which Lois at times expresses guilt over. The very fact that the landscapes are empty can be read as an indictment of this history, which has ignored and displaced the peoples who originally lived in the scenery depicted.

“[Camp Manitou] had been founded by Cappie’s parents, who’d thought of camping as bracing to the character, like cold showers.” 

Figuratively speaking, this passage provides a possible explanation for why things go so badly wrong at Camp Manitou. Although the girls at the camp take part in a variety of outdoor activities, the point of the camp isn’t really to learn about or appreciate the natural world. Instead, the experience of camping is supposed to build character, presumably with the expectation that the girls will then apply what they learn to their lives back home. In other words, Camp Manitou is ultimately meant to shore up the principles and values of modern Canadian society, which Lucy, at least, seems to have difficulty accepting.

“Lucy was from the United States, where comic books came from, and the movies. […] Her house was on the lakeshore and had gates to it, and grounds. They had a maid, all of the time. Lois’s family only had a cleaning lady twice a week.” 

Lois is initially drawn to Lucy because she sees her as exotic and exciting. This is partly a function of Lucy’s wealth; Lois’s family is well-off, but Lucy’s seems like royalty in comparison. Lois is also drawn to Lucy’s Americanness, which she associates with comic books and movies. This connection to pop culture contributes to Lucy’s glamor in Lois’s eyes, while also perhaps suggesting another way to understand Lucy’s fate: By tying Lucy to different forms of fiction or illusion, Atwood hints that her eventual disappearance is a kind of sleight of hand. 

“Lois and Lucy, thinks Lois. How our names date us. Lois Lane, Superman’s girlfriend, enterprising female reporter; I Love Lucy. Now we are obsolete, and it’s little Jennifers, little Emilys, little Alexandras and Carolines and Tiffanys.” 

In a society that values women only when they’re young and beautiful, an elderly widow like Lois is “obsolete.” This idea becomes especially significant, however, in light of the story’s later events; like Lucy, Lois has undergone a kind of disappearance but in a much slower and more mundane way. In fact, by disappearing as a young girl, Lucy has arguably avoided becoming invisible and irrelevant in the eyes of society.

“On this fire they burned one of Lucy’s used sanitary napkins. Lois is not sure why they did this or whose idea it was. But she can remember the feeling of deep satisfaction it gave her as the white fluff singed and the blood sizzled, as if some wordless ritual had been fulfilled.” 

“Death by Landscape” is in part a coming-of-age story, so it’s not surprising that Atwood devotes some time to discussing Lucy’s first period—a conventional symbol of adulthood for girls. However, the “wordless ritual” Lois and Lucy devise to celebrate this event stands in contrast to most of the other markers of maturity in the story. Lucy, for instance, is apparently ambivalent about both her first kiss and her first relationship; she describes the former as “rubbery at first, but then your knees go limp” and doesn’t respond at all when Lois asks her whether she wants to return to her boyfriend (Part IV, Paragraph 1). By contrast, burning the pad is an entirely “satisfying” experience, at least for Lois—the likely difference being that it is an improvised and personal experience rather than one, like romance, that is dictated by societal norms.

“Looking back on this, Lois finds it disquieting. She knows too much about Indians. She knows, for instance, that they should not even be called Indians, and that they have enough worries without other people taking their names and dressing up as them. It has all been a form of stealing.

“But she remembers too that she was once ignorant of this. Once she loved the campfire, the flickering of light on the ring of faces, the sound of the fake tom-toms, heavy and fast like a scared heartbeat; she loved Cappie in a red blanket and feathers, solemn, as a Chief should be, raising her hands and saying, ‘Greetings, my Ravens.’ It was not funny, it was not making fun. She wanted to be an Indian. She wanted to be adventurous and pure, and aboriginal.”

The above passage captures the story’s complex attitude toward Canada’s colonial history. In hindsight, Lois realizes that the way Camp Manitou used and distorted indigenous culture was “a form of stealing”—that is, cultural appropriation—and feels guilt over her involvement in it. At the same time, however, she is forced to admit that there was something pleasurable about that stealing at the time, in large part because it gave her a sense of freedom that Western society has traditionally denied to women. Ultimately, however, this is simply another form of imperialism; by coopting certain aspects of indigenous culture, modern Canadian society provides a safe outlet for girls’ frustration, making the existing power structure all the more secure.

“Out on the lake there were two loons, calling to each other in their insane, mournful voices. At the time it did not sound like grief. It was just background.”

In addition to being an example of both foreshadowing and Atwood’s use of birds as a motif, this passage is significant in light of the story’s later description of Lois’s paintings. On the face of it, the description of these landscapes as having “no backgrounds” is a reference to the dangerousness of the Canadian wilderness, which Atwood describes as convoluted and mazelike (Part IX, Paragraph 8). However, it also offers a window into Lois’s mental state: rather than being a memory, Lucy’s disappearance is in the forefront of Lois’s mind and is a constant presence in her life. The above passage, then, is in part a description of an earlier time when nature could be meaningless “background” to Lois rather than an inescapable reminder of what happened to Lucy.

“‘Don’t,’ [Lois] says.

“‘Don’t what?’ says Lucy, glancing around at her mischievously. She knows how Lois feels about heights. But she turns back.”

When Lois and Lucy reach the top of Lookout Point, Lucy walks over to the edge of the cliff and contemplates aloud what it would be like to jump into the water below. Lois begs Lucy to step away from the edge in the above exchange, which illustrates the differences between the two girls. Lois is the more timid of the two and particularly afraid of heights, whereas Lucy is not only reckless where her own safety is concerned but also careless of others’ feelings; in fact, Lucy actually seems to take pleasure in goading Lois, although she backs off a moment later. The passage therefore lays the groundwork for Lucy’s disappearance a few paragraphs later, implying that Lucy is both bold enough and selfish enough to voluntarily vanish. Atwood’s description of her as looking “mischievous” is especially significant, given Lucy’s association with the raven—a trickster figure in First Nations’ mythology. Again, the implication is that Lucy might have disappeared on purpose.

“Lois is sitting in Cappie’s office. Her face is bloated with crying, she’s seen that in the mirror. By now she feels numbed; she feels as if she has drowned.”

Like the girls’ friendship itself, Lois’s response to Lucy’s disappearance is complex. It becomes clear over the next several paragraphs that, in addition to grief, Lois feels guilt, as well as an inability to fully come to grips with the reality of what has happened. This passage, however, suggests that Lois is also grappling with the sense that Lucy’s death is in some sense her own as well; Atwood elsewhere depicts the girls as having overlapping identities, and the death Lois imagines for herself in this passage—“drowned” and “bloated”—is potentially the death that Lucy encountered in reality. The idea that Lucy’s presumed death symbolically marks the end of Lois’s life is central to the story’s conclusion.

“What can be said that makes any sense? ‘Girl vanishes in broad daylight, without a trace.’ It can’t be believed; other things, worse things, will be suspected.” 

In the aftermath of Lucy’s disappearance, it becomes clear that “Death by Landscape” is, among other things, about the way loss impacts people and the ways in which survivors cope with it. Atwood suggests that the impulse is to “make sense” of what has happened, but she also suggests that this is a largely pointless endeavor; in Lucy’s case especially, there simply isn’t any plausible explanation for why she is gone. Efforts to create some kind of explanation through narrative are equally hopeless, as Atwood notes a few paragraphs later; the more Lois recounts her story, the less she “believes” it because it has “become a story”—a legend that seems detached from reality (Part 8, Paragraph 5). The passage also further underscores the link between Lucy’s disappearance and the adult world of sexuality, since one of the “worse things” that would presumably be suspected when a teenage girl disappears is rape.

 “‘Were you mad at Lucy?’ says Cappie, in an encouraging voice.

“‘No,’ says Lois. ‘Why would I be mad at Lucy? I wasn’t ever mad at Lucy.’ She feels like crying again. The times when she has, in fact, been mad at Lucy have been erased already. Lucy was always perfect.” 

As Lois herself realizes a few moments later, Cappie’s question is meant to prompt her to confess to pushing Lucy off the cliff in a fit of anger. On a literal level, this doesn’t seem likely; the story is told in the third rather than the first person, so the reader presumably has access to all the known “facts” surrounding Lucy’s disappearance. However, the exchange does demonstrate why Lois might feel partly responsible for Lucy’s fate. Besides confirming that Lois has “in fact” been angry with Lucy in the past, the insistence that “Lucy was always perfect” is in and of itself a motive for jealousy. It’s also untrue that Lucy is always perfect, and this fact is another demonstration of the way loss impacts those who survive; as Lois attempts to make sense of Lucy’s loss, she “erases” all the memories of her friend being less than perfect.

“While Rob was alive, while the boys were growing up, she could pretend she didn’t hear it, this empty space in sound. But now there is nothing much left to distract her.”

Lucy’s disappearance has not simply left Lois anxious and guilty. In disappearing, Lucy actually becomes a much more integral part of Lois’s life than she probably would have been otherwise. Atwood captures this in the paradoxical statement about “hearing” an “empty space in sound”; technically, silence is something that can’t be heard, but like Lucy, it leaves a strong impression on Lois precisely because it isn’t there.

“And these paintings are not landscape paintings. Because there aren’t any landscapes up there, not in the old, tidy European sense, with a gentle hill, a curving river, a cottage, a mountain in the background, a golden evening sky. Instead there’s a tangle, a receding maze, in which you can become lost almost as soon as you step off the path.” 

Lois’s perception of her paintings mirrors her perception of the Canadian wilderness itself; she views the natural world as a hostile and confusing one that is constantly trying to encroach on civilization and that will immediately swallow up anyone who “steps off the path.” What is especially significant about this passage, however, is the comparison to “old, tidy European landscapes” because it suggests that Lois’s attitudes are shaped by a sense that she—a woman of European ancestry—is out of place in Canada. In other words, her views stem in part from anxiety or guilt surrounding the history of colonialism in Canada. The passage also echoes Lois’s earlier sense that, in shaping Lucy’s disappearance into a “story,” she has lost track of the reality of it. In both cases, Lois suggests that there is something about the Canadian wilderness that can’t be captured by traditional artistic conventions.