A PHOTOGRAPH

ABOUT THE POET

Shirley Toulson was born in 1924 in Henley-on-Thames, England. Her passion
for writing was encouraged by her writer father. She served as an editor for
many magazines.

THEME
This poem deals with the theme of loss and bereavement and the impact it
leaves on those who are left behind.

OVERVIEW
The three stanzas depict three different phases.
The first stanza refers to the childhood of the poet’s mother.
The second stanza refers to the poet’s childhood when her mother was an
adult. The last stanza refers to the poet’s adulthood when she is not with
her mother.

A photograph is something that captures a certain moment of someone’s

life. The person might change in course of time but the memories attached
with the photograph are ever lasting.
The poet’s mother is no more but the photograph makes her memories
come alive.

LINE-WISE ANALYSIS
1) The cardboard (photograph) shows the narrator how it was on that
particular day (the cardboard’s lack of durability hints at the lack of
permanence of human life)
2) When the poet’s mother, along with her two girl cousins went paddling
on the beach.
3) Each of the cousins held one of her mother’s hands.
4) Her mother was the eldest amongst them, about twelve years old at that
time.
5) All three of them stood smiling, their hair strewn across their face
(possibly tossed by the beach wind)
(poetic device: alliteration... stood still to smile)
6) As her mother’s uncle clicked their picture with a camera. Her mother’s
face looked sweet.
7) And the picture was taken much before the narrator was born.
8) The sea in the picture is still the same today (has changed very less)
Symbolic of permanence.

POETIC DEVICES

• Alliteration – stood still to smile

• Paradox – Its silence silences
• Oxymoron – The laboured ease of loss
• Transferred Epithet – Terribly transient feet
• Synecdoche – transient feet (indicating transience of life)

Question--Answers

1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this
word been used?
• ‘Cardboard’ refers to the photograph.
• Signifies fragility, impermanence, transience of human life—
mother dead—all that remains is the photograph and her
memories

2. What has the camera captured?

• Captured the scene where mother alongwith her two girl
cousins—Betty and Dolly, posed for a photograph
• They were smiling
• Hair tousled due to sea-breeze
• Sea-water encircled their tender feet

3. Explain—‘Both wry with labored ease of loss’.

• Both mother and daughter recall happier times nostalgically.
• Realise that they will not be able to experience those times
again
• Mother recalls the happy times of her lost childhood
• Daughter recalls the happy times she had spent with her mother
• Both make/ have made efforts to adjust with the loss—but it has
left them wry, cynical
 4. Explain—‘Its silence silences.’
• Stillness of photograph and overwhelming sense of mother’s loss
mutes the poet—experiences loss of words

Practice ques

1. Why were the two cousins holding on to mother’s hand?

2. Why has the poet contrasted the images of the sea with the human
feet?
3. Mention the two things that are a matter of the past.