“Death by Landscape”: Setting Confining and Defining Character

Sometimes understanding a story and relating to the character depends upon awareness of the setting. The integral setting of Margaret Atwood’s “Death by Landscape” mirrors the protagonist’s emotions and allows the reader to explore her insecurities. This setting of a camp surrounded by forest and rivers has the most delicate control of the character. The setting becomes overwhelming in its effect upon aspects of the protagonist’s life such as feelings and thoughts of uncertainty.
The story begins with Lois as a widow living alone in a condominium apartment relieved that there is no need for maintenance of nature and landscaping. Her relief that “the only plant life is in pots in the solarium” hints that she has issues with dealing with the world of nature similar to the world of nature she knew as a thirteen year-old girl. Yet, it is revealed that she has quite a fancy for paintings of landscapes; rich, lush, vivid landscapes of “convoluted tree trunks on an i...