Atwood’s Personal Narration Effects Her Readers
Atwood’s Personal Narration Effects Her Readers
When one reads Margaret Atwood’s poetry, that which stands out most prominently is her intensely personal style of narration. Her style is both inviting and revealing which aides in creating an intimate relationship with the reader. This narration allows Atwood to befriend and beguile readers with her use of easy, everyday speech and soothing story-like themes while also enabling her to tackle larger and more pressing social issues. As an ardent feminist, the technical aspects of Atwood’s poetry reflect her concerns for matters such as equality for women and the need to challenge social norms. Most concretely, these concerns are voiced through her usage of style, tone, punctuation and word choice. The three poems that I will be analyzing, “This Is a Photograph of Me,” “They Eat Out,” and from Circe/Mud Poems “Men With the Heads of Eagles” each focus on this theme of feminism and achieve their goals through the employment of Atwood’s graceful and calming tone. Yet, by guiding the reader gently and not didactically, Atwood subtly introduces her concerns without the noise and clamor oft associated with her cause.
Atwood’s easy-going, colloquial tone is perhaps best exemplified by her titles. Her titles, “This Is a Photograph of Me,” “They Eat Out,” and from Circe/Mud Poems “Men With the Heads of Eagles,” all aspire to create a friendly relationship with the reader. In the case of the title of “This is a Photograph of me,” Atwood manages to combine emotions of self-indulgence, pride, and optimism with the naiveté of a young child to create an audience that is spellbound by the precociousness of this child. The very capitalization of the word “is” underscores Atwood’s efforts to create this type of relationship. By capitalizing “is,” Atwood makes what seems to be a grammatical mistake, a mistake one might expect from the writings of a precocious youth. Likewise, the title, “They Eat Out,” seeks to produce the warm and inviting atmosphere of a friendly dinner. While the phrase “eat out” seems harsh and caustic, Atwood uses this terminology because of its colloquial value. By using this phrase, Atwood mimics the language patterns of friends and family seeking a quick meal, and thereby creates a similarly warm and caring environment. With...