Tracing a Yellow Brick Road

Much like the Land of Oz, works of fiction often seem limitless in possibilities. They, after all, each present a universe of their own or rather a fraction of it, but while the real world largely consists of random events beyond our control, imaginary ones are built upon conscious decisions. A story ends where it does because its writer has chosen so. In real life, the characters from Oe Kenzaburo's Dream Pictures would eventually return from their cabin and resume their lives, but the short story concludes long before this. It ends with a revelation that gives meaning and respite to Eeyore and his father's tribulations: "Why should I torment myself? Eeyore would be able to turn to himself and continue, 'You're just dreaming! There's nothing at all to be afraid of. It's just a dream.'"

However, a conclusion's impact on the readers is mostly determined by their expectations. For example, the absence of resolution in John Fowle's The Enigma is only shocking to readers who are familiar with the conventions of detective fiction and have come to expect them from this story.

In other words, the work of fiction guides its readers toward its finale. Death by Landscape by Margaret Atwood is no exception to this. The short story's explicit depictions of landscapes and Lois' retrospective point of view foreshadow its ending, defining it as an engaging and tender emotional experience instead of a ghastly haunting (amongst other possibilities).

The first element of the short story to set the readers' expectations in this direction is, of course, the title. Similarly to Sapphire's Push, Death by Landscape uses as its title an aspect of the story that is crucial to its telling but not to its plot. The concepts of push and landscape both have dual meanings in their respective texts. In Sapphire's short story, "push" is a reference to the paramedic's instructions to Claireece as well as to the stance that eventually leads to her salvation. In Margaret Atwood's tale, the landscapes can be found in Lois' paintings and at Camp Manitou.

The presence of the word "landscape" in the title incites the readers to pay close attention to its mention throughout the narrative. They first encounter the notion in the form of Lois' paintings. The latter all feature Canadian landscapes, the type of surroundings that would remind Lois of Camp Manitou. In fact, four of the six painters mentioned (A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer, and J. E. H. MacDonald) were part of the Group of Seven, artists determined to define Canadian art by portraying the nation's wilderness. Thus a link between the paintings and Camp Manitou is established, and the importance of the art pieces is hinted at.

Landscape is later brought up near the story's climax with the depiction of the view at Lookout Point: "It's a lookout all right, a sheer drop to the lake and a long view over the water." Again, the notion of landscape alerts the readers to the moment's importance, and its relationship to the paintings is made more apparent. It's as if pieces of a puzzle were slowly being disclosed to the readers, causing them to long increasingly for a resolution.

The connection between Lucy's disappearance and Lois' art pieces is finally explained at the end of the story: "every one of them is a picture of Lucy. You can't see her exactly, but she's there, behind the pink stone island or the one behind that." This revelation does not come as a surprise but rather as a long awaited answer. Its foreshadowing prompts the readers to pay close attention to this conclusion and to meditate on its significance.

While the continuous references to landscape do arouse the readers' interest and curiosity, Lois' sensitive point of view is what gives the story's conclusion its gentle meaning. Though narrated in the third person, Death by Landscape is entirely filtered through Lois' perspective. Her outlook is akin to that of Claireece in Push. Both are honest and almost innocent accounts of traumatic events. However, while Push is told in the present tense by a narrator who is as oblivious as the readers to what will happen next, Death by Landscape is mostly recounted in the past tense, from the point of view of someone who has been greatly wounded by what is to come: "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."

Decades after the fact, Lois still carries the weight of Lucy's disappearance. She "can remember everything, every detail." To emphasize this notion, the narrative switches from past tense to present tense when the story reaches Lois' final summer with Lucy: "this year Lucy is different again." The summer's account is frequently interrupted as her distress gets ahead of her recollection: "Was there anything important that would provide some sort of reason or clue to what happened next?"

Privy to her every thought, the readers can easily empathize with Lois: the naïveté of her childhood persona is very endearing, and her pain as an adult is nearly impossible to ignore. When the story reaches its conclusion, it is about Lois that the readers care. Lucy, whose appearances are always in function to Lois, has already become a secondary concern, her case deemed hopeless: "How could you ever find anything there, once it was lost? Maybe if they cut it all down, drained it all away, they might find [...] a few bones, some buttons, the buckle from her shorts." What could have been interpreted as the apparition of Lucy's ghost is understood as a manifestation of Lois' guilt and sorrow because we, the readers, have been driven to feel her pain:

"Everyone has to be somewhere, and this is where Lucy is. She is in Lois' apartment, in the holes that open inwards on the wall, not like windows but like doors. She is here. She is entirely alive."

The efficiency of this conclusion, or any other, is entirely dependent on the readers' expectations, interest, and affection for the story and its characters. By hooking its readers with a cryptic notion of landscape and by inviting them to share the viewpoint of a particularly gentle and sympathetic character, Margaret Atwood's Death by Landscape gives its ending a moving significance. Nothing is left at random. The work of fiction is a series of calculated decisions that carefully leads the readers toward its ending, crafting its own yellow brick road for them to follow.

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