Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

DAGUERREOTYPE TAKEN IN OLD AGE, by MARGARET ATWOOD Poet Analysis Poet's Biography

"Daguerreotype Taken in Old Age" by Margaret Atwood is a poignant meditation on aging, identity, and the passage of time. Through the contemplation of an old photograph, the poem explores the dissonance between the self-perception of the speaker and the physical evidence of aging captured in the image. Atwood uses vivid imagery and metaphors to convey the complex emotions associated with growing older and the inevitability of change.

The poem opens with the speaker acknowledging change but expressing surprise and detachment from the "vapid face" observed in the photograph. The description of the face as "pitted and vast, rotund" and "suspended in empty paper / as though in a telescope" conveys a sense of estrangement from one's own image, as if the person in the photograph is a distant, barely recognizable celestial body.

The comparison of the aged face to "the granular moon" underscores the theme of alienation and the transformation of the self into something unrecognizable and lunar—remote and marked by the passage of time. This imagery suggests that aging renders the individual as an object of observation, much like the moon, subject to the scrutiny and projections of others, as well as to one's own self-examination.

The speaker's movement "out into the garden" and among the vegetables, with a head that is "ponderous" and "reflecting the sun," continues the exploration of the physical manifestations of aging. The garden, a space of growth and life, contrasts with the speaker's sense of heaviness and decline. The "shadows from the pocked ravines / cut in my cheeks, my eye-sockets 2 craters" evoke a landscape altered by time, further emphasizing the theme of erosion and change.

The speaker's orbit "among the paths" and around "the apple trees / white white spinning stars" introduces a cosmic dimension to the experience of aging. This celestial imagery, coupled with the speaker's sense of being "eaten away by light," suggests a process of gradual diminishment and dissolution. Light, typically associated with clarity and revelation, here becomes an agent of fading and loss, consuming the speaker's physical form and, by extension, their sense of identity.

"Daguerreotype Taken in Old Age" is a reflective and deeply moving exploration of aging as a process of becoming alien to oneself, of being transformed by time into a figure both familiar and strange. Atwood masterfully captures the emotional and existential weight of confronting one's own mortality, the transformation of the self into something other, and the search for meaning and continuity in the face of inevitable change. Through its rich imagery and contemplative tone, the poem invites readers to consider their own relationship with aging, memory, and the passage of time.

POEM TEXT:

I know I change

have changed

but whose is this vapid face

pitted and vast, rotund

suspended in empty paper

as though in a telescope

the granular moon

I rise from my chair

pulling against gravity

I turn away

and go out into the garden