26 pages 52 minutes read

Margaret Atwood

Death By Landscape

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2015

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Themes

The Difficult Transition to Womanhood

Like much of Atwood’s writing, “Death by Landscape” explores issues related to womanhood and femininity in a way that can be considered feminist. The bulk of the story is told in flashback and spans Lucy’s and Lois’s preteen and early teen years. For girls, Atwood suggests, this adolescent period is a particularly fraught time because it marks the end of the relative freedom of childhood. As children at Camp Manitou, Lucy and Lois are still mostly exempt from gender roles; they participate in the same kinds of activities boys might (canoeing, hiking, etc.), take part in “rowdy sing-songs,” and pretend to be explorers (Part 2, Paragraph 12). However, given when the story is set (the mid-20th century), this kind of physicality and adventurousness are possible only in the years before the girls hit puberty; at that point, they encounter the gender roles they’ll be forced to conform to as adults, which demand that women be quiet and gentle and that their most important relationships be the romantic ones they form with men rather than the friendships they form among themselves.

There are hints early in the story that the happiness Lois and Lucy experience in their years at the camp is unsustainable.

Related Titles

By Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Backdrop Addresses Cowboy

Margaret Atwood

Backdrop Addresses Cowboy

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Cat's Eye

Margaret Atwood

Cat's Eye

Margaret Atwood

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE

logo

Hag-Seed

Margaret Atwood

Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare's The Tempest Retold

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Happy Endings

Margaret Atwood

Happy Endings

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

Margaret Atwood

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Lady Oracle

Margaret Atwood

Lady Oracle

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Life Before Man

Margaret Atwood

Life Before Man

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

MaddAddam

Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Rape Fantasies

Margaret Atwood

Rape Fantasies

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Stone Mattress

Margaret Atwood

Stone Mattress

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Surfacing

Margaret Atwood

Surfacing

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Circle Game

Margaret Atwood

The Circle Game

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Edible Woman

Margaret Atwood

The Edible Woman

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Heart Goes Last

Margaret Atwood

The Heart Goes Last

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Landlady

Margaret Atwood

The Landlady

Margaret Atwood