Connections to Emphasis on Death in Literature and Human Reality

"This Is a Photograph of Me" (1966) - Margaret Atwood

"(The photograph was taken

the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center

of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where

precisely, or to say

how large or small I am:

the effect of water

on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,

eventually

you will be able to see me.)"

The intimate self reflections that flow through the poem, make it clear that Margaret Atwood uses the classic Greek myth of Narcissus to make assertions about current pyschological climates within our society. Narcissus fell in love with his reflection so much that he could not stop staring at his reflection in a lake, finally he met his death as he tried to join with it. Obviously in content „This Is a Photograph of Me“ parallels that of Narcissus, as Atwood nonchalantly describes the drowned body of a person in a picture.The first-person perspective of the poem, and the central focus of the body in the captured scene helps to convey the self-obsession apparent in Narcissus. The fact the poem describes a photo reflects modern obsession with pictures and filming oneself and the moments that comprise a life, and put undue emphasis on one person's existence, just as Narcissus did. However, while the narrator's focus is on his or her dead body, with lines like "It is difficult to say where precisely, or to say how large or small I am," and "the effect of water on light is a distortion" tell the audience that the body may not be visually evident or major in the photo being described. These facts translate Atwood's main theme. By relating the poem to the tale of Narcissus, the reader can infer that the narrator's death was self-imposed, like that of suicide. Although contrastingly the scene does not revolve around the death, only its telling. This gives the message that suicide and death do not stop the world, nor perhaps majorly affect it, but does seep through eventually. In the end we can see that the narrator's body represents the inevitable, as it was for Narcissus, but without the permanance and vanity that most people fantasize and imagine. The slow realization of death, as with the realization of a dead body in a picturesque landscape, without emphasis or immense importance thus becomes more horrifying than the tragic and poetic deaths we all dream of. 

The first person perspective within this poem, gives it the eccentricity that makes it so effective. The reader pays attention to the narrator foremost in the poem, allowing for the themes to become more subtle. This subtlety of theme reflects the subtlety of death, thus making the poem more striking, as the audience slowly comes to the truth just as the narrator describes in the poem "eventually you will be able to see me.“ The first person perspective also makes the narrator's dead body less dramatic and important. Third person views in such matters make death seem grand, poetic, and meaningful which would be the opposite of what Atwood wishes to convey to her readers, and would simply be copying the significance of Narcissus, instead of being ironic in connection to it. I believe that the first person perspective is often avoided in poetry, because it is so hard to effectively pull off, and because the imagery of the third person is so appealing to mere mortals. Using it in such a way makes Atwood brave and daring in her exploits to expose the human condition and reality of nature in her poem.