Death By Landscape

The paintings Lois collects are the story’s central motif; “Death by Landscape” opens and closes with descriptions of them, and the title refers to them. They also, of course, depict the kind of landscape that perhaps killed Lucy: lakes, cliffs, and forests in the backwoods of Canada. That being the case, it’s possible that Lois’s collection is an attempt to tame or control the dangers of the natural world, which she continues to fear even as an old woman.

However, Lois does not find the presence of the paintings calming; on the contrary, “looking at them fills her with a wordless unease” (Part 1, Paragraph 5). Given that Lois has felt guilty ever since Lucy’s disappearance, it therefore seems possible that she collects paintings that remind her of that day as a way of punishing herself. It’s noteworthy, however, that part of what unnerves Lois about the paintings is the sense that something in them is watching her—that is, that they aren’t true landscapes but rather depictions of something conscious. Lois eventually concludes that the thing that’s watching her is Lucy herself, but it isn’t clear if this is comforting to her either; the story’s closing description of Lucy as “entirely alive” and “in Lois’s apartment” is somewhat menacing (Part 9, Paragraph 12).