The Landlady

Atwood is known for her feminist writings and for examining the female experience in her work. The second-wave feminist movement arose in response to women returning to their requisite roles as housewives and caretakers after the Second World War, whereas the first-wave feminist movement began primarily to give women the right to vote. The second-wave feminist movement began in the early 1960s and ran through the 1980s; this timeline coincides with Atwood’s first poetry publication and the publication of her highly acclaimed novel The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985. Other second-wave feminist writers include Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. The second-wave feminist movement promoted equality in pay and education as well as reproductive rights, focusing on the availability of birth control and abortion rights. While the movement may have begun in the United States, Canada quickly followed suit and “in 1968, McGill University students produced the Birth Control Handbook; and in 1970, the Abortion Caravan set out from Vancouver and made its way to Parliament Hill in Ottawa” (“Women’s Movement in Canada.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 2016). In an interview with Ms. Magazine Atwood said, “I began as a profoundly apolitical writer, but then I began to do what all novelists and some poets do: I began to describe the world around me” (“Margaret Atwood.” Poetry Foundation). Atwood’s works are focused on women, both their suffering and their strength.

In her poem, “The Landlady,” the landlady controls the life of the speaker but is really only in control of a very small amount of space from which the speaker cannot escape. And though it is a very small space, it is a space of great import to the speaker—it is where she lives. This idea calls back to second-wave feminist ideas of fighting for control over women's bodily autonomy. It should be noted, however, that Atwood often bristles at being labeled a feminist writer. While she certainly recognizes how her work fits well within a feminist frame, she is more concerned with readers—and the world at large—labeling things so neatly and confidently. She accepts and promotes a more nuanced view of feminism that encourages people to consider the details and repercussions of ideologies as opposed to simply accepting a single idea wholesale and never questioning when something doesn't fit perfectly within that box.