16 pages • 32 minutes read
The Landlady
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Themes
Imprisonment and Captivity
One of the major themes in “The Landlady” is imprisonment or captivity. The eponymous character is presented like a jailer or prison guard, having dominion over the author, pervasively controlling physical space, meals, light, time, and even thoughts. The Landlady’s “lair” (Line 1) is directly beneath the speaker's home and is a space the landlady dominates so thoroughly that escape seems impossible. The danger of the landlady is that she is free to roam about the property as she wishes. The speaker states the landlady is “a raw voice loose in the rooms below me” (Lines 3-4). This contrasts starkly with the author’s sense of imprisonment. She seems entirely dependent on the landlady, who controls the author’s external and internal worlds. The most basic necessities—food, light, and the air the speaker breathes—are controlled, as is time itself. The landlady “is everywhere” (Line 9) and the speaker cannot even get away from her in dreams “of daring escapes in the snow” (Line 9), where the landscape becomes the landlady’s “vast face” (Lines 21-23). Upon waking, the author laments her failed attempts to “find some way around her” (Lines 26-27), as the landlady “stands there […] blocking my way” (Lines 30-31). By establishing and sustaining the landlady’s overbearing presence throughout the poem, Atwood creates an oppressive, almost claustrophobic atmosphere. Although the speaker's attempts to escape are ultimately thwarted, her imprisonment energizes the poem.
Depression and the Dampening of the Senses
While the title of the poem may be “The Landlady,” Atwood never introduces the reader to her. The landlady presides over the speaker’s thoughts and feelings and exists solely in the space of the speaker’s mind. The speaker is completely entangled in the landlady, not knowing where one ends and the other begins. In the seventh stanza the speaker proclaims:
She is a bulk, a knot
swollen in a space. Though I have tried
to find some way around
her, my senses
are cluttered by perception
and can’t see through her (Lines 24-29).
It is impossible for the speaker to distinguish reality because she is so disoriented. The speaker’s suffering is what is visceral and what takes form in the speaker’s mind. The speaker’s mind reels trying to give her form. The landlady is everything from a “a raw voice” (Line 3) to a “a vast face” (Line 21) to “a slab / of what is real” (Lines 32-33). All of these images are generated in the speaker’s mind and guide the reader to understand that the landlady is what the speaker has named the mental anguish they are suffering. It is the last tether the speaker has to the real world as they are consumed by their depression. For people who suffer from depression, a dampening of the senses can be one of the symptoms experienced. According to Psychology Today, “Depression is an experience of depletion. You’re worn down, hollowed out, devoid of enthusiasm or vitality. Your senses are dull, perhaps to the point of taking in very little around you” (Serani, Deborah. “5 Senses and Depression,” 2013). These are all true for the speaker. While senses seem overloaded, it is all with the same thing: the landlady. The speaker is not taking in any other sights, smells, tastes, or feelings other than the all-encompassing landlady.
Animals and Nature
Atwood employs many images of the natural and animalistic throughout her poem. This lends to the poem's feeling of force and the insurmountable. The first stanza begins with the image of a “lair” (Line 1), which is the home of an animal, specifically a predator, and is often portrayed as having one entry and exit, which adds to the feeling of being trapped. Next Atwood describes a “henyard” (Line 5), which is a noisy, busy place where there is little space between the animals inside. The imagery also brings to mind a lot of pointless movement or running around. In Line 19, Atwood evokes a snowy landscape, which is “vast” and gives the reader the feeling of something that will never end. Adding to this feeling of never-ending land, Atwood chooses to cut the word “landlady” into its two parts, which highlights the vast space that appears endless to the speaker. Atwood concludes with the image “solid as bacon” (Line 34). Bacon has a strong scent and a heaviness when it is understood that the death of an animal preceded its existence. This heaviness adds to the finality of the last stanza.
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By Margaret Atwood
