Explication of 'The Landlady' by P.K. Page: A Detailed Analysis

This essay offers an in-depth explication of P.K. Page's poem, 'The Landlady,' exploring themes of loneliness, human connection, and the limitations of perspective. The analysis delves into the landlady's voyeuristic tendencies, her yearning for authentic interaction, and the use of imagery such as sepia tones and snapshots to convey the alienation of modern society. The essay examines the landlady's attempts to understand her tenants through cryptic phone calls and observation, highlighting the one-sided nature of their interactions and her ultimate inability to penetrate their inner lives. It also references Page's other works to contextualize the poem's exploration of vision, subjectivity, and the search for genuine human contact in a world increasingly characterized by superficiality and detachment. The essay concludes by suggesting that 'The Landlady' reflects the pervasive loneliness experienced by individuals in contemporary society.

Running Head: EXPLICATION OF “THE LANDLADY” BY P.K. PAGE
Explication of “the Landlady” by P.K. Page
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1EXPLICATION OF “THE LANDLADY” BY P.K. PAGE
“The Landlady” was first published in the month of May 1944 in the Canadian Forum.
The poem serves as a tribute to the form of loneliness that is extremely inherent to human being.
The essence of Page’s poetry, both as an artist, and a poet is visible in the functionality of
perspective that is applied as a resource in texts and narratives. The depiction of vision is
extremely limiting, while being liberating at the same time. The poetry of Page also portrays an
immense underlying tension in the subjectivity-objectivity distancing that is visible in the
perspectives of her mouthpiece characters. With the help of those perspectives along with the
filters such as imaginative, linguistics, and the reader’s own subjectivity. Page’s early poems
bear the testimony of her trips to Brazil in the year 1957 they address the tension that is also
explored in her work. Her texts also grapple when it comes to boundaries that deal with
conventional vision. One of the central issues of Page’s texts deal with the difficulty of
transcending the sense of identity of the protagonist. The function of vision lies in the
subjectivity that is present in the perception. This advance in the notion that is not mapped,
instead is rooted intuition enhanced by the perspective of the narrator.
The poem begins with an addressal to the boarders in the house of the landlady. The
narrator is impersonal as she talks about the impersonal attitude of people who come and go, in
literal sense of the term. The “sepia” color of the air is symptomatic to the color of old
photographs that manage to cover the original colors of the film. There is a stark contrast
between her urges to take something from her tenants and the alienation that is reflected in “the
craving silence swallowing her speech”. The act of “swallowing her own words would allow her
to pick up strands of conversation of the tenants. The inclination towards photographs reoccurs
during the mention of “camera eye” that is used by Page to describe the activities that are being
recording and are in the state of constant flux (Geddes). By letting her eyelids drop like

2EXPLICATION OF “THE LANDLADY” BY P.K. PAGE
“shutters”, she is able to record the life of her tenants in the form of “exact” mental images, in a
sepia tone that veil the real subject matter. Her mind becomes an album of snapshots into which
she can indulge herself once their expressions become blank, like that of “zero”. The boarder’s
phone calls are always “cryptic”. The landlady fails to catch them unguarded, “unprepared” and
without the presence of “wall/about them” (Geddes). This is clearly the portrayal of lack of a
vulnerable moment that can distinguish the boarders from being anything but a human. The
inquisitive nature of the landlady is established with the use of words such as “jump”, “dream”,
and “tremble” (Geddes). The readers gradually understand that even with the help of a “wire”,
that the landlady uses to unlock the minds of her tenants, the intimacy is nothing but one-sided.
This leads to further discontent as the repetition of her dissatisfied state is present in the line –
“like a lover, must know all, all, all.” Her hopes of catching them “unprepared at last” are futile.
The landlady realizes the her knowledge is constrained, her photographs do not do justice to the
characters for they are only the surface portraits. All that she can do is to wish to look past their
placid face unless she reaches “the dreadful riddle of their skulls (Geddes).” Page has created the
landlady as s steady pulse, a being who is alive, in the world that is completely erratic. Her
yearning for authenticity and the need to get away from “the room of you” furthers the presence
of a cage in which her “self” is restrained (Geddes).
Page’s other works such as “Prediction Without Crystal” take up the problem that is
present in the complacency of vision, along with perspective. “Element” discusses the concept of
the writer that shows the wholesomeness of vision with the help of elaborated vision. While
“Arras” is a chronicle that documents the speaker’s attempt that is made to analyze as well as
manage the newly acquired power of vision that the narrators gains with her newly endowed

3EXPLICATION OF “THE LANDLADY” BY P.K. PAGE
vision. There is also a string of questions that is conveyed by the speaker while projecting her
uncertainty.
“The Landlady” is the story of every individual in the present society who craves for an
authentic human contact, some exchange of words other than the cryptic phone calls that are
made for getting food delivered at home, at drive through, or at the cash counter where the
“encounter” consists of words such as cash, credit, or debit. All these examples scream of the
plight of human beings’ loneliness in which we are doomed.
As a criticism, the poems of Page are highly rooted in her own personal experiences. That
to some extent limits the reach and extent of her poetry.

4EXPLICATION OF “THE LANDLADY” BY P.K. PAGE
Work Cited
Geddes, Gary, ed. 20th-century poetry & poetics. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996.