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Photograph Of Me

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How does Atwood’s use of metaphor in ‘This is a Photograph of Me’ portray her feminist perspective?

In ‘This is a Photograph of Me’, Margaret Atwood utilises natural imagery in the photograph to symbolise the dominance of men over women in an oppressive patriarchy. Atwood challenges and satirises societies ‘fixed concepts’ of women and reinforces to the reader the diversity of women in society. Inspiringly, Atwood brings the reader to discover the truthful depiction of the female identity and the true essence of feminism.

To contradict the narrow-minded image of literature’s representation of women, Atwood utilises the motif of a photograph to portray the theme of female oppression. Atwood uses irony to juxtapose the concords of the speaker’s appearance and the reality revealed in the photograph. Rather than disclosing the speaker's identity, the photograph obscures the depiction of the …show more content…

Thus Atwood satirises typical representations of women in literature through the lack of vivid imagery to describe the (female) speaker. The suggestive title provides multiple interpretations on Atwood’s intentional message. The speaker draws attention to the photograph, and the significant claim of the speaker’s presence in the image verges on the fact that the speaker's true identity can be found in the photograph and the unreal self in reality. “At first it seems to be/a smeared/print: blurred lines and grey flecks/blended with the paper; then, as you scan it”, Atwood uses the intransitive verb “scan” to evoke the idea that the female speaker was graphically analysed by others, reflective of how women in society are subject to graphic analysis and evaluation by others (for example, revealing ‘too much skin’ labels a woman as promiscuous however ‘covering skin’ labels a woman as repressed, conservative or a prude). The “blurred lines” are representative of patriarchy’s inability to truly identify

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