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PAPER ID:IJIM/V.II(XII)/ 162-165/29
AUTHOR:Khushbeer Dhaliwal
TITLE: BLURRED IDENTITIES: A THEMATIC STUDY OF MARGARET ATWOOD’S “THIS IS A PHOTOGRAPH OF ME”
ABSTRACT: Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian feminist novelist and poet. She writes about the subjugated position of women in the patriarchal society. Her female protagonists fight for their identity and survival in the society that suppresses their existence to the core. Her poetry brings out the power relations between the sexes that privilege men to exercise hegemony over women. Thus, self, identity, female body, the environment are the dominant themes of her poetry. In the poem, “This is a Photograph of Me”, Atwood describes a blurred old picture, taken years ago, which the speaker (a woman) insists is her own. She cannot be seen as she is submerged in the lake and the light effects bring out her false image. However, her real self/ image are different from what can be seen in the picture. The poem therefore, brings out the identity crises that the speaker as a woman faces, as she becomes a commodity in the patriarchal society. The paper aims to study by a feminist approach the various themes explore by Atwood in the poet. The focus will be on the identity crises faced by a woman in her men dominating society. It will also bring out the gender inequality inherent in the society.
KEYWORDS: Identity Crises, Oppression, Gender Inequality, Gender Roles and Male dominance.