CLASS XI

ENGLISH CORE
POEM 1: A PHOTOGRAPH
BY: SHIRLEY TOULSON

TEXTUAL QUESTION ANSWERS:

Q1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
ANS: In the poem, the word ‘cardboard’ indicates the photograph that is glued on a paper
that is hard and thick. It has been used to describe the old practices when the photographs
were glued on cardboard and framed with glass at front in order to preserve them.
Q2. What has the camera captured?
ANS: The camera has captured the three girls—the poet’s mother and her two cousins,
Betty and Dolly, in their swimming dresses with the poet’s mother in the middle and the
two cousins on either side holding her hands and walking v feet in sea water.
Q3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
ANS: Over the years, the sea has not changed. Its waves are shining, tireless and fresh as
they were in the old days. The changes that occur in human face with growing age is
reminded by the changelessness of the sea.
Q4. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot? What did this laugh indicate?
ANS: This laugh’ indicated her joy at remembering an incident connected with her past
life, when she was quite young and free from the tensions and worries of life.
Q5. What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss”.
ANS: The sea holiday and the laughter of the poet’s mother are incidents of the past.
There is a sense of loss associated with them. Both are amusing yet disappointing as the
state of feeling comfortable or relaxed is unnatural or forced one. This sense of loss is quite
painful to bear.
Q6. What does ‘this circumstance’ refer to?
ANS: This circumstance refers to the death of the poet’s mother.
Q7. The three stanzas depict three different phases. Name them.
THREE PHASES

THT
1.THE GIRLHOOD OF THE POET’S MOTHER- the period before poet’s birth

2. MOTHER’S MIDDLE AGE: During poet’s childhood

3. PERIOD AFTER THE DEATH OF POET’S MOTHER

EXTRA QUESTION ANSWER
1. The poetess’s mother laughs at her past. How does the poet react to her past?
ANS: The sea holiday was a past experience for the poetess’s mother. A glimpse of the
photograph perhaps revived some feelings of shared joy and she laughed. For the poet,
her laughter is an incident of the past. It is amusing in ironic manner. The sense of loss
overcomes the pleasure.
2. Why, do you think, does the poetess say nothing about her mother’s death?
ANS: The poet has no words to express her reaction to this solemn and painful incident.
Death silences everyone. The extensive quietness and prevailing gloom silence her.

LONG ANSWER TYPE

2. The three stanzas of ‘A Photograph’ depict three different phases. Explain.

The poet Shirley Toulson has written the poem in three stanzas. In the first stanza the
poet looks at the cardboard frame of an old photograph which showed two girl cousins
holding the hand of the poet’s mother when they had gone for a beach holiday. The
poet’s mother was about twelve years or so and the other two were younger to her.
They stood at the beach smiling to the uncle through hair when he was taking their
photograph.

The second stanza the poet describes the event after twenty or thirty years since that
photograph had been taken. In this stanza Toulson says that whenever her mother
looked at the photograph, she would laugh and said that how Betty and Dolly were
dressed up for the beach holiday. The sea holiday had become the past of the poet’s
mother. The sweet laughter of the mother had become the poet’s past. Both the mother
and the poet suffered from a sense of loss. Here the poet has ironically said that both of
them were laboring to ease the loss.

In the third stanza the poet says that her mother has been dead nearly as many as she
had lived. She also says that she has nothing to say about that incident. The poet says
that the photograph is silent and leaves her silent as well. So, the last stanza explains the
poet’s adulthood when she is not with her mother.