PUSHPALATA VIDYA MANDIR

CLASS XI - ENGLISH NOTES – HORNBILL – 1. A PHOTOGRAPH (POETRY)

I. Answer the following:

1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been
used?
The word ‘cardboard’ in the poem refers to the photograph. It is just a piece of
paper - a memory as the poet’s mother is dead and gone. It signifies the
transience of life and what remains is an insignificant piece of paper.

2. What has the camera captured?

The camera has captured the scene when the poet’s mother and her two female
cousins, Betty and Dolly, went paddling. They were holding the poet’s mother’s
hands. The elder of the three was about twelve years. The three of them stood
smiling as the wind tousled their hair.

3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
The sea has not changed over the years. It remains the same through generations.
On the contrary, life is transient. The mother has now been dead for years.
Human life is transitory and this transience is contrasted with the permanence of
nature.

4. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?
The mother laughed at the fleeting moments that had long passed. She relived
the memory when they were dressed as children and taken out. She laughed as
she recalled the happy memories.

5. What is the meaning of the line ‘Both wry with the laboured ease of loss’.
The poet’s mother had been out on a beach holiday, years back and felt nostalgic
about it, similar to what the poet felt when she relived the memories of her dead
mother. The memories, in each case, were beautiful, but painful to recall as time
slipped away, so easily.

6. What does ‘this circumstance’ refer to?

‘This circumstance’ is the death of the mother. This fact is as true and as real as
the one that her mother had experienced, on the beach. Both the situations are
now a memory of the past. The first is a memory of the mother’s past and the
second of the poet’s past.

7. The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?
The first stanza is the poet’s description of the photograph that had captured a
moment from her mother’s childhood. The second stanza deals with recollections.
The mother’s recollection of her childhood just as the poet recalls her mother who
is now dead. The third stanza philosophises death and the transience of life.

8. Comment on the tone of the poem.

The tone of the poem is that of sadness. Shirley Toulson looks at an old
photograph of her mother and is reminded of her mother who is no more. She
recalls the moment when her mother was twelve years old and looked sweet and
happy.

9. What emotions does the poet’s mother have when she looks at the photograph?
The mother feels nostalgic looking at her bygone years. She laughs out loud and
tells her daughter how her cousins had dressed up for the beach. She recalls those
days when she was innocent and playful.

10. What does the poetess mean by ‘their terribly transient feet’?
The dictionary meaning of the word transient is brief and fleeting. The three girls
were at a growing age. They underwent notable changes as time passed. But the
sea suffered no change over the years. The expression highlights the contrast
between mortal man and timeless, ageless sea.

11. Explain: The sea holiday was her past, mine is her laughter.
The determiner ‘her’ at both places refers to the poetess’s mother. The picture
taken during the sea holiday 20-30 years ago made the mother laugh. Her sea
holiday was her past. But twelve years after the mother’s death, her laughter has
now become a thing of the past for the poetess.

12. What is silenced and how has it silenced the poet?

The period of nearly twelve years since the poetess’s mother passed away, has
been painful for the poet. It has silenced the poet. She is left without words; she
has nothing to say. She cannot hear her mother’s laughter anymore. There is only
silence now and the poet has to bear her loss in silence.

13. ‘Each photograph is a memory’. Justify the statement in the light of the poem.
Photographs are memories that are captured and kept for lifetime purposes.
Shirley Toulson’s ‘A Photograph’ captures one such moment when her mother was
young and she went on a beach holiday with her cousins. Gone are these days of
the mother and her cousins but the photograph manages to bring back those
memories even after thirty years. The laughter of the mother while seeing the
photograph has become a past incident. But the photograph allows the poet to
recall and revive the laughter through the image captured thirty years back.
Therefore, photographs are indeed memories.

II. Comment on the following:

1. Title
The poem, A Photograph is composed in blank verse. Its title is very much
appropriate as it reminds the poet of 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
eternal. In this poem, the poet’s mother is no more but the photograph
makes her memories come alive. The mother’s sweet face or her cousins
heavily dressed up for the beach have all changed with time but the moment
captured in the photograph still gives happiness to the poet’s mother when
she views it thirty to forty years later.

2. Theme
The poem, A Photograph is about transience of human life, death, and mysteries
surroundings them. The poet is looking at the photograph of her mother and
missing her. The photograph depicts the scene of her mother’s childhood when
she along with her cousins, Betty, Dolly and uncle had gone to the beach. The
uncle had clicked this photograph.

Many years later after the poet was born and grown up into a young lady, her
mother and she would look at the photograph; the mother used to laugh at her
childhood photograph.

After a few more years, the poet’s mother died. The poet still preserved that
photograph. Now she would look at the photograph and miss her mother’s
laughter at her own photograph. The poet felt the sea-holiday was her mother’s
past; and her mother’s laughter had become her past now.

She also makes mention of man’s transience on the sands of life. When she thinks
about all this, she becomes miserably quiet with the sadness of separation from
her mother.

3. Figures of speech found in the poem:

1. Allusion:
An Allusion is a reference or an incidental mention of something; either directly or
by implication. Example of an allusion from ‘A Photograph’ is the cardboard
(photograph) itself. The durability of the cardboard shows the lack of
permanence of human life.

2. Alliteration:
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial letter (generally a consonant) of several
words marking the stressed syllables in a line of a poetry. ‘stood still to smile’ is
an example of alliteration from the poem.

3. Transferred Epithet:
A transferred epithet is a description which refers to a character or event but is
used to describe a different situation or character. ‘Transient feet’ is a
transferred epithet in the poem, ‘A Photograph’. It refers to the human feet but it
is used to describe the lack of permanence of human life. The sea is constant and
eternal while the human feet, which are being washed away by the sea, are
transient.
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CHECKED & APPROVED BY
MS. BLISS BERNARD