The Landlady Analysis Essay

The Landlady Analysis Essay In the poem, “The Landlady”, by P.K. Page, an observational Landlady is shown snooping through the tenants’ rooms and belongings. She becomes distinctly educated on their personal lives even without having direct contact with them. Ironically, the landlady eagerly awaits the day where she will be able to reveal herself to the people she knows so well. The explicit descriptions of the tenants and the Landlady’s thoughts convey the idea that the Landlady fails to develop her own identity, which demonstrates the desolation that occurs when lacking a sense of self. Page’s implementation of the title and the diction surrounding the character reveals the Landlady’s lack of humanity in self-identity. The title, “The Landlady”, portrays the author’s choice of not giving her a name. It generalizes the Landlady and makes her almost forgettable and irrelevant, reflecting how the Landlady feels about herself. A name is arguably the most important part in one's identity. In history, Holocaust survivors have described the feelings of being labeled as a prisoner number was dehumanizing and created loss of character. Similarly, Page’s application of never specifically naming the Landlady follows the idea of lack of identity. Another example of little sense of self is shown in the short story “The Story of an hour”. The wife of the story is continuously referred to as the husband’s wife until she has her epiphany, which is when she is given her own name. This revealed her own internal conflict of identity. This relates to the Landlady as both of the authors choose to not use their real name in order to symbolize their sense of self. Page manipulates diction by continuously referring to the Landlady as just her occupation or a creepy person. This connotation is belittling towards her, as a “Landlady” is not described to be an honorable job. Being a creepy lady also generalizes her even further, demonstrating how the constant reminder of being insignificant affects her own perception of her identity. Ironically, though the poem is all about the Landlady and her actions, Page’s use of structure shows that the readers do not develop deeper knowledge of the Landlady, but instead learn more of what the tenants perceive her as. It is not until the shift in tone near the end of the poem where the readers briefly learn of what the Landlady is feeling, which supports the emphasis on her lack of personality. The first half of the poem shows what the tenant's relationship with the Landlady holds, “Each face is dialled to zero publicly. She peers stippled with curious flesh;” (Page 3). This conveys how she is solely seen as the nosey Landlady, as it creates an image in the audience’s mind on how the Landlady is perceived. Once the Landlady slightly reveals her true intentions, “Prays she may catch them unprepared at last and palm the dreadful riddle of their skulls-hoping the worst” (Page 8), the audience finally learns a characteristic of the landlady that gives her humanity. It conveys a human-like thought, as it is a longing for human interaction, specifically an emotional one. The landlady hopes that they are in as much pain as she is, “hoping for the worst” (Page 8). Though it is selfish, it provides emotion which is unnatural for the character that was described earlier in the poem. The importance of the poem’s structure creates the image of an insignificant Landlady and adds to the theme of her lack of identity. P.K. Page vividly displays the actions of a Landlady in the poem, “The Landlady”. She is shown to be almost stalker-like, as she knows a lot about the tenants’ personal lives without ever making direct contact with them. Through the poem’s structure and title as well as the speaker’s diction, the Landlady is portrayed to have a struggled with identity, which demonstrates the pain that a lack of sense of self creates.