17 pages • 34 minutes read
Margaret AtwoodThis Is a Photograph of Me
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Smearing of a Print
The “smeared / print” (Lines 3-4) suggests the lack of clarity of the titular photograph, emphasizing The Hidden Subjectivity of Objective Truth. What happened to the speaker is “blurred” (Line 4) like the “lines and grey flecks” (Line 4) of the photographic image. Thus the indistinct quality of the photo becomes a metaphor for the lack of clarity of the viewer’s vision. The use of the word “smeared” (Line 3) is also evocative. It could mean the photograph was printed with a lack of care, taken by a person in motion that would distort the lens, or tainted by some later substance (water, Vaseline, oil). But to “smear” someone also means to damage the reputation of a person. By being erased from the landscape, the speaker has been smeared into nonexistence. The idea of an external force raises the question of who took the photograph on the same day that the speaker drowned—positing that something happened to the speaker against their will.
The Rough Terrain
Another detail of significance is that the rise on which the “small frame house” (Line 12) rests “ought to be a gentle / slope” (Lines 11-12). This shows that the residence, which might normally be construed as a place of shelter and safety, is difficult to get to. The rough hill up to the house is symbolic of domestic unhappiness—the small “house” is not a home, and what was supposed to be “gentleness” is instead a troubling climb. The line implies that the speaker’s home life was insecure, and perhaps even dangerous. This would support a theory that the ghost speaker was drowned by another, perhaps someone living in the aforementioned house. The photo acts as a metaphor for the “me” who is not seen in it but literally lies “under the surface” (Line 18).
The Shifting of Size
The motif of distortion pervades “This is a Photograph of Me.” The ghostly speaker admits that “it is difficult to say where / precisely” (Lines 19-20) the dead body is in the lake, though the speaker is sure that the corpse is right in the center of the photograph. It is also impossible to indicate “how large or small I am” (Line 21) due to the “distortion” (Line 23) that light refraction through water creates. This ambiguity forces the reader to wonder about the identity of the speaker, whose vulnerability persists even after death. Although in most religious, cultural, and spiritual traditions, the bodies of the dead are treated with care, and although funeral rites typically focus on praising the lives and highlighting the relationships of the deceased, this body has been stripped of all markers of individuality: We cannot even know its size or location. While the speaker’s voice personalizes the corpse to some degree, the harrowing disappearance of the person drowned makes this death—intentional or accidental—all the more disturbing.
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