17 pages • 34 minutes read
This Is a Photograph of Me
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Background
Social Context: Margaret Atwood and Feminism
In her long career, Margaret Atwood has been known for her feminist concerns throughout her many artistic endeavors. While her feminism has always been apparent, her reputation was solidified by the popularity of her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which has become a cultural touchstone for feminists worldwide.
Many critics feel, however, that Atwood’s feminism was obvious from the start of her career. The poetry collection The Circle Game (1964) in which “This is a Photograph of Me” appears, was created a year after The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s popular examination of women’s angst, challenged patriarchal social mores. Along with other authors of the second-wave feminist movement that grew out of Friedan’s work, Atwood in her writing investigated the definitions of partnerships, family, marriage, domesticity, reproductive rights, and inequality.
Atwood has sometimes balked at the feminist label for being limiting, identifying herself as an artist first, stressing that she cares about a variety of social problems, including sexual politics, class inequity, and the environment, and noting that she has created complexity of character and situation for both male and female characters. As her public interviews make clear, Atwood has been an outspoken activist against societal repression, the trampling of human rights, and environmental harm. She often uses the genres of Gothic romance, historical fiction, spy thrillers, and speculative fiction to address these issues, subverting tropes with new perspectives. We can see this at work in “This is a Photograph of Me.”
Historical Context: Photography Prior to 1964
To understand the photograph in “This is a Photograph of Me” it is helpful to understand how photographic images were created before the digital age. With digital cameras, photographers can delete a bad photo, crop to the best angle, adjust exposure and colors, and otherwise edit images before printing. In contrast, Atwood’s poem was written in 1964, and her speaker clearly states the photograph was “taken some time ago” (Line 1), so prior to the early 1960s. The quality of the photograph as described by the speaker also hints at its age. Portable cameras appeared in the late 19th century, but Kodachrome film was first made available in the 1930s. Prior to 1935, black-and-white photographs, like the one in the poem, were standard. The focus on most cameras had to be adjusted manually, making blurry images commonplace. Images could also easily become out of focus if the cameraman or subject moved. Cameras, their film, and the developing processes for printing were expensive and there were few options for corrections. High-quality photos depended on chemicals and developing time—and mistakes could easily be made. Developing film by hand in dark rooms with troughs of chemicals meant frequent over- or under-exposure. The quality of photographic paper could also result in grainy or distorted images, such as the “grey flecks” (Line 5) mentioned. Certain chemicals also lent themselves to fading. All of these things may explain the quality of the titular photograph and why even a blurry photo of a landscape might have been kept for a significant time.
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By Margaret Atwood
