Margaret Atwood

“If you look long enough, eventually, you will be able to see me”(24-25) The last line of Margaret Atwood’s poem “This Is a Photograph of Me” is an example of an open ending that leaves you speechless, just as many of her poems do. Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, television script writer, environmental activist and always is refered to as a feminist. Atwood is a feminist who strongly believes in equality, creating primarily female protagonists. She realized that women could be intelligent by being around the female faculty members at Victoria Collge at University of Toronto. She also attended Radcliffe College and Harvard University. Atwood had enjoyed writing from a young age. When she was six Atwood had already started

She compared the line “the effect of water on the light is a distortion”(22-23) to men’s dominance that is warping the true voice of women. She believes that the poem comes across as a morbid description of a photograph taken of a dead woman, but should be viewed as a strongly feministic poem full of symbolism(Tammens). Atwood has repeatedly refused to have her work labeled as feminist and did not intend it be one; however, she moslty writes about women and how their gender affects them. Atwood is known for speaking out passionately about feminism, but nothing significant in her life sparked her to feel so strongly about it. She grew up very normally and never faced any traumatic experinces. Her mother was a nutritionist and her father was an entomologist, an insect scientist. She even got to join her father in the Northern Ontario wilderness while he worked and constructed research, which was a great learning experience for her (notablebiographies.com). She had a happy childhood and continues today to live a happy life with her domestic parter, Graeme Gibson, a fellow writter and enviromental activist, and their daughter, Eleanor Atwood Gibson. Atwood and Graeme are both joint honarary presidents of the Rare Bird Club within BirdLife Internaltional