A photograph of me by Margret Atwood - Essay Example

?A speech by my image The poems in question provide us with two people who struggle with the quest of identity. They are torn between freedom and imprisonment which makes it hard for the character to identify himself. He does not know who he is, whether he is free or not and whether there is a listener to his cries of grief. Progressive insanities of a pioneer by Margret Atwood presents a nearly confused person seeking way out of his own mind. He stands in a field where he is the only person present in its vastness. Albeit such space, the character feels locked in where he does not comprehend. He calls to be let out when he is already out of his prison. The poem implies lack of walls or borders the vastness of the heavens provides space to the speaker. Even so, he still shouts to be let free. Such statements imply confusion in the speaker’s mind. He goes further to shout at the top of his lungs. This is quest for freedom and an inside cry to be set free. The speaker cannot seem to find direction when he actually is free from limitation. He probably thought that freedom is all about being without restriction and failed to realize the responsibility that comes with decision making. The situation is clear that the speaker is unhindered by anyone but himself. The poem thus represents his realization that not the world around him, but he limits himself and that it is his mind that harbors confusion. In the past, he fails to comprehend the importance of making his own choices and letting others follow suit. He did not determine his own cause. Even so, that is now the agenda of this poem, to get over with his insanity and find direction. He wishes to fish opportunities and what belongs to him in the open seas as if fishing out whales. In order to understand the world around him, the trees, the ground he needs to realize himself first. The speaker comes to a realization when he doubts everything there is to know and gains his new understanding of the world around him. He realizes that he is the first in the process of knowledge then the rest fall in place like rows of grass. He is the most important, like a lost prince that needs to find his identity and everything else will know indeed that he found his lost soul. In that, the world around him will respond by obeying his cause and making him happy. His life can only change when he deals with the nuisance in his own self. The speaker realizes order when he realizes its absence. The absence of order is what he knew, then he realizes an ordered absence which could present him with his identity when he discovers that he is the absent one in the pattern of life and his presence will order the very activity of living beings within his circumference. The speaker realizes how big his own dreams and visions are, like whales but then, his folly, he enticed them with bent pin while he thought worms were biting. How wrong he was! The speaker did not consider options and the possibilities that he was using bent pins on a large dream, that there were no worms to bite. Worms would only work for him, making the ground habitable for organisms, for his environment in which he would live. In the poem ‘A photograph of me’ the speaker presents an unknown, undiscovered image. The image lies in the middle of a water body, where his/her identity is flecks of color, something he cannot figure. Yet the image is his reflection, in the middle of a water body, implying he stands nowhere to see his image. In the water he is lost in the muds, and the grass but he is under the surface of the water, drowning. The speaker drowns in his own image, his identity which he does not fathom. He is lost in the lake, beyond the hills and where it is find for someone to find him. Even so, the speaker provides directions for people to find him. A hope of realization, if someone could pay attention then he would probably find out who he is. The speaker here seeks help from the people around him, he provides them with guidelines to what he thinks he is and emphasizes that he is lost. The idea of using a lake illustrates his desire to know who he is in a critical situation of identity loss. He implies that he is drowning and not dead, to mean that there is hope for rescue if someone actually pays attention to him. The first speaker in progressive insanities of a pioneer seeks help from the environment around him to find his identity. The two poems present the same urge to seek after oneself in a lost environment. It is symbolic in use of a forest and whales and the use of a lake. The symbolism presents both speakers with a way out that is also attached to a promise. The first one has a prize of whales that symbolize dreams and visions which the person may have tried to achieve but using the wrong methods or methods that are not good enough for the task to accomplish those dreams. In order to achieve a realization of one’s dreams all the same, it is important that parties note and do the necessary tasks. They may use a little help but from the right persons. The first speaker is requires to use his bait properly, he is firstly, required to change its pin for a more suitable one. The first step, which they have already realized and taken in both poems is to acknowledge that they are lost and confused. This is expressed in both complaints, accusations and desperate statements by the two speakers. They, step by step in realizing their situation, also discover the solutions to them. It is thus a systematic process of solving a problem whose cause may not be known but which will be realized in the process of seeking direction. Works Cited Howells, Coral Ann. The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,, 2006. Print. Read More