The Burdening Effect of Remorse: Atwood's and MacLeod's Fiction Anonymous College

As Charlotte Bronte once wrote, “Remorse is the poison of life.” It is true that regret and remorse are inevitable in living a full life, but it also remains true that remorse can indeed be poisoning--so poisoning, in fact, that it can stop one from leading the life that one was intended to lead. In the short stories “Death by Landscape” by Margaret Atwood and “The Closing Down of Summer” by Alistair MacLeod, both of the main characters experience repentance in regards to their own lives, particularly when thinking about death. When Atwood's Lois thinks about Lucy’s death, and the unnamed narrator of “The Closing Down of Summer” anticipates his inevitable death, one can see how remorse plays a significant role in limiting these characters from being truly happy. Lois is constantly haunted by her past and perpetually keeps her past alive through landscape paintings, never fully accepting what has happened nor moving on from the death of her childhood friend Lucy. Likewise, the narrator in “The Closing Down of Summer” lives a solitary life as a miner, and he implies throughout the story and through Gaelic songs that he regrets the words left unsaid and the lapses in his presence around his family. Through these two short stories,...