The Landlady: An Enigma Anonymous 12th Grade

In P.K. Page’s 1943 poem, “The Landlady,” the main character, the landlady, gives readers an uneasy feeling. This is because the speaker of the poem portrays the landlady in a complexly eerie manner. In the poem, the speaker describes the landlady herself and her interactions and relationships with her boarders. The speaker portrays her as an enigma. The speaker supports this portrayal of the landlady through her skeptical tone, elaborate imagery, and selection of detail.

The speaker’s tone depicts the landlady as an enigma. The speaker uses a skeptical tone to indicate how she feels about the landlady. She talks about her constant unexplained nosiness and her desire to control without a reason: Nothing is unprepared. They hold the walls about them as they weep or laugh. Each face is dialed to zero publicity. She peers stippled with curious flesh; (9-12)In other words, the landlady is calculated and extremely interested in every aspect of her boarders’ lives. Through sharing this information and having no justification as to why the landlady acts in this mysterious way, the speaker indicates her own curious attitude as to why the landlady is this way. This curious attitude indicates the speaker’s skeptical tone, which shows...