A photograph class 11 English Poem Explanation, Summary || NCERT, SEBA, CBSE,Board

A photograph CBSE,SEBA Class 11 NCERT English Hornbill Book poem 1 Explanation, Summary :

                                

  A photograph CBSE,SEBA Class 11 English (Hornbill Book) poem 1 - Detailed explanation of the poem ,along with summary, Further Discussion,also the important Notes. All the excercise and question and answers given at the back of the lesson have been covered.

The poem "A photograph" Introduction of the lesson:

   The poem"A photograph" is written by Shirley Toulson. In this poem ,she recalls her mother and her memories while looking at a childhood photograph when her mother was twelve years old or so. She has been deceased twelve years ago and she can't explain her grief on her mother expired.

        Class 11 English (Hornbill Book)

              Poem-1 -- A photograph

 

                By-  Shirley Toulson  

                                                 

 The cardboard shows me how it was         When the two girl cousins went paddling   Each one holding one of my mother's  hand's

And she the big girl -- some twelve years or so.

All three stood still to smile through their hair

At the uncle with the camera. A sweet face,

My mother's, that was before I was born.

And the sea, which appears to have changed less ,

Washed their terribly transient feet.

Some twenty_thirty _ years later

She'd laugh at the snapshot."See Betty

And Dolly," she'd say ,"and look how they

Dressed us for the beach."The sea holiday

Was her past ,mine is her laughter. Both wry

With the laboured ease of loss

Now she's been dead nearly as many years

As that girl lived . And of this circumstance

There is nothing to say at all.

It's silence silences.

.

Summary of the poem:

       The poet describes looking through a photo album,the pages of which seem to be made of cardboard.She is looking at one picture in particular. It is a picture of three girls,the tallest and oldest one in the middle and two younger and shorter ones at each side of her .The girl in the middle is the poet's mother,and the poet speculates that her mother must have been around twelve years old when the picture was taken . The other two girls are two of her mother's cousins.Each of the cousins is holding on to one of the older girls hands for support. The picture has been taken on a day the three girls had gone paddling at the beach.

Explanation of the poem "A photograph" :

    The poet describes the conditions in which the photograph of her mother and her mother's cousins was taken . The poet says that her mother's uncle had been the one to take the photograph. He had asked the three girls to pose for him , and so they had . They had left their hair upon , and their hair was obsuring part of their faces.Through the film of hair covering their mouths,one could see that they were smiling into the camera. However,one face in the picture draws the poet's attention to a greater degree than the other two faces.It is her mother's face that she is concentrating on, and she comments that the face was a sweet one.The poet also says that the photograph was taken long before her own birth. Since then ,her mother's face had of course changed since the time the photograph had been taken. In contrast to this,the sea which lay along the beach where the photograph was taken had changed to a lesser degree. That very sea had been washing the feet of the poet's mother and her two younger cousins the day the photograph had taken. The poet calls those feet "terrible transient" since all the girls in that photograph had stopped being so young and had grown up since then . Their childhood hasn't lasted very long.

The poet stops looking at the photograph and recalls what her mother used to say about the photograph. The poet is not sure whether it was twenty years after the photograph was taken,or thirty years after it,but she remembers her mother telling her to look at how the cousins, called Betty and Dolly, looked at that young age. The poet's mother also asked her to look at how their parents had dressed them up for a visit to the beach. Perhaps the plan to take the photograph had been there all along.

The poet says that her mother used to consider the photograph as an inroad to the past that she had left behind. On the other hand,the poet herself considered the memory of her mother laughing as a relic of the past that she missed every day. In both cases,the memories of the past made the two women contemplating them feel disappointed as they tried hard to come to terms with what they had lost.

The poet says that her mother has been dead for the past twelve years,that you is,the same number of years that was the age of her mother in the photograph she had been looking at . The poet is able to think of her mother's death, but she has no words with which to explain how that death has affected her . The fact that the death has silenced her mother has also left her speechless.

Analysis Of the poem "A PHOTOGRAPH":

 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.The poet reminisces that the sea holiday was the past of her 

mother and for her the laughter of her mother is past now. Both the moments of life 

have been permanently etched in the poet’s mind with a feeling of eternal loss.Death 

now has overpowered the innocence of these moments and the pleasure they 

treasured. The poet concludes the poem on a melancholy note with the comment that 

there is nothing to say or comment upon this sad event. The silences seems to silence 

all the other thoughts.

Further discussion Of the poem "A PHOTOGRAPH":

      “A Photograph,” a poem by the English writer Shirley Toulson, describes the adult 

speaker’s discovery of a photograph showing her mother, at that time a girl, and some 

even younger cousins during a holiday at the sea. At the time the picture was taken, the 

speaker’s mother mentioned as “the big girl,” was roughly twelve years old , and the 

picture shows her holding the hands of the two younger girls as they swim. The photo 

shows all three girls smiling for the camera, and the speaker fondly recalls how her 

mother, in her thirties or forties, later looked at the picture and laughed at the way she 

and her cousins were dressed. Now,the speaker, looking at the picture herself, ponders

the fact that her mother has been dead for roughly twelve years— ‘’as long as the 

young girl in the picture had at that point lived’’.

Clearly one theme of Toulson’s poem is mutability, or change. In the first paragragh,the 

picture records a time in the distant past. In the second paragraph,the speaker recalls a 

time in the more recent past; and then the speaker finally comments on the present, 

when her mother has been dead for roughly twelve years in the final paragraph. 

The poem is thus a meditation on the passing of time and also on the fact of loss, 

especially the mother’s loss of her youth and the speaker’s loss of her mother. Yet the 

poem can also be seen as a response to, and minor victory over, such loss. Just as the 

photograph records the past so that the past still, in some sense, exists, so the poem 

itself records both the photograph and the responses to it of the speaker’s mother and 

of the speaker herself. The poem itself functions as a kind of photograph, preserving the 

past so that it never completely disappears.

The fact that the photograph is surrounded by (or pasted onto) a piece of mere 

“cardboard” already suggests the idea of fragility. The photograph is not surrounded by 

a sturdy metal frame, nor is it (apparently) preserved under protective glass. Instead, 

the photo is in some ways as vulnerable to change as the people it pictures have 

proven to be. In the photo, the mother, then a twelve-year-old girl, serves as a source of 

security and reassurance to her younger cousins. Ironically, of course, the mother 

herself is now dead; although she protected her cousins when she was herself just a 

girl, nothing has been able to protect her from the inevitable fact of death. The poem, in 

a sense, emphasizes the inexorable fate of most human beings—the way most of us 

move from early strength to ultimate vulnerability and death. The poem, then, is not 

merely a meditation on the speaker’s mother but also on aging, growing weakness, and 

finally death—processes experienced by practically everyone.

Meanings of words-

a. Paddling- walk in shallow water with bare feet.

b. Transient- lasting for only a short period of time, impermanent

c. Wry- discontented

Important points of the poem "A PHOTOGRAPH"-

1. In the 1st stanza the poet’s mother is shown as a 2 year oil girl with a pretty and 

laughing face. There she went paddling with two girl cousins. This phase is 

before the birth of the poet. The 2nd phase describes the middle aged mother 

laughing at her own snapshot. The 3rd phase describes the chilling pall of silence 

that the death of the mother has left in the life of the poet.

2. The word ‘circumstance’ in the poetry refers to death of the poet’s mother. The 

photograph of the dead mother brings nostalgic feelings in the poet. But the poet 

has nothing to say about it and therefore only the silence of the poet makes the 

pall of silence prevailing there still deeper.

3. The sea has not changed over years . it brings out the ‘transient’ nature of man 

when compared to nature and it’s objects, that, time spares none. The pretty 

faces and the feet of the three girls are ‘terribly transient’ or mortal in comparison 

to the ageless and the unchangeable sea.

Text Book Questions and Answers of this chapter  "A PHOTOGRAPH":

1. What does the word 'cardboard' denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?

Ans-    The word 'cardboard' denotes the damage photograph of the poet's mother which was captured when the poet's mother was only twelve years old.

            The poet used the word cardboard because the photograph no longer resembles a photograph but looks a more cardboard as years ruled by.

       

2. What has the camera captured?

Ans-    The camera has captured the three young girl's happy and smiling face at their holiday beach. It has captured the sweat face of the poet's mother who was the girl of twelve years that time. It has also captured one of those happiest day of the poet's mother's childhood and her two cousin sister enjoying their holiday beach.

3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?

Ans-    The sea has not changed over the years because the nature is permanent.

            It suggest that man will come,man will go but the nature will remain constant forever.

4. The poet's mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?

Ans-    The poet's mother laughed while reading a moment of her post captured in the photograph. Here laughter laughter indicate their youthful spirit.

5. What is the meaning of the line " Both wry with the laboured ease of loss."

Ans-    The poet and her mother have a different phase of life reconciled to losses. The poet's mother's suffers the loss of her joyful childhood days,where as the poet suffers the loss her mother's sweet face and her sweet laughter's while looking at her post captured photograph.

6. What does"this circumstance" refer to?

Ans-     "This circumstance" refers to the Denise of the poet's mother. Having seen the photograph of her mother who no longer survives, the poet's heart get overwhelmed with nostalgic feelings and becomes speach less and there by prevails only silence.

7.  The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?

Ans-    The three stanzas depicts three different phases. They are-

             The first stanza is the childhood days of the  poet's mother. This stanza depicts the sweet smiling face of the poet's mother with her two girl cousins when they are out to enjoy of their holiday at a beach.

             The second phase is about the middle aged mother of the poet . That girl of twelve is a middle aged today and now she laughs to see the two girl cousin at the snapshot taken at the beach.

              The third phase is about the Denise of the poet's mother. The poet become specah less and there by prevails only silence.

Some Important Extra Questions and Answers of the poem "A PHOTOGRAPH":

 

1. What does the poet see in the photograph?

Ans-   The poet sees the sweet smiling face of her mother of her photograph. The photograph was taken when the next mother & her two cousins sisters were enjoying the holiday beach.

2.  Who had taken the photo & what did she captured?

Ans-  Photo was taken by the poet's uncle. He had captured the smiling face of the three girls as they stood still on the beach with flying hair over their face.

3. How did the cousins accompany mother for paddling?

Ans-   Here cousins accompanied mother by holding her hands when they went for paddling.

4. Who is the poet of the poem " A PHOTOGRAPH"?

Ans-   "Shirley Toulsn" is the poet of the poem "A photograph".

Some Important Extract for Comprehension of the poem "A PHOTOGRAPH":

1. " The cardboard shows me how it was .....and  she the big girl - some twelve years or so."

a.   Explain how it was? 

Ans-      It means that the photo in the cardboard shows how everything was when the poet's mother's uncle.

b.  How do the girls go to the sea? 

Ans-       The girls went to the sea for a walk with bare feet in the less deap water of the sea.

c.    How did they express their joy when they went for sea holiday?

Ans-      They paddled into the shallow water and posed for a picture taken by their uncle.

d.    Who is the 'big girl' referred to here?

Ans-      The poet's mother is the 'big girl' referred to here.

e.     Find from the passage which means 'walk with bare feet'?

Ans-   'Walk with bare feet'means paddling.

2.  " Some twenty-thirty years later...dressed us for beach."

a. What is 'she' referred to here?

Ans-  'She' referred to here is the poet's mother.

b. Who are Betty and Dolly ?

Ans-   Betty and Dolly are the cousin sisters of the poet's mother.

c. How would the poet's mother react at the photograph after a long day?

Ans-   The poet's mother would laugh at the photograph after a long period of time because it showed her totally different from what she had been.

d.  What was so peculiar about the photograph as pointed out by the poet's mother?

Ans-   The peculiarity about the photograph is the way the poet's mother and her two girl cousins Bitty and Dolly had dressed up for the beach.

e.  What are the two things that have become past?

Ans-  The two things that have become past are-

    The sea holiday has become the past for the poet's mother and her laughter has become past for the poet.

3. " Now she's been dead nearly as many years..... It's silence silence."

a.    What is 'she'  referred to here?

Ans- 'She' referred to here is the poet's mother.

b. Explain that girl?

Ans-   It means that the poet's mother was a girl of twelve years old when she had gone for paddling.

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