A Photograph explanation with important notes

A thorough analysis of the poem

1. A PHOTOGRAPH Shirley Toulson English Classroom

2. Shirley Toulson was born on 20 th May,1924 in Henley-on-Thames, England . She had a huge passion on writing and was greatly influenced by her father who was a writer too . Celtic Christianity influenced her greatly that most of her major works like "Celtic Alternative" in 1987 and "Celtic Year" in 1993 were on that topic. But these works indeed made her more famous. English Classroom

3. Introduction The poem “A Photograph” is a tribute to the poet’s mother .Three stages of time span is focused here. First the poet’s mother’s enjoyment of sea holidays with her cousins. The second stage takes us twenty or thirty years later. In the third stage the poet remembers her dead mother with a heavyheart . The poet remembers her mother who died about twelve years ago. There is a photograph taken when her mother had gone for a sea holiday with her cousins and her uncle. Looking at the photograph, she remembers her mother and how she had been nostalgic about her childhood . She expresses her inability to respond to the loss of her mother. English Classroom

4. The cardboard shows me how it was When the two girl cousins went paddling, Each one holding one of my mother's hands, And she the big girl- some twelve years or so . cardboard – very stiff paperboard on which the photograph was pasted paddling – walking through shallow water in bare feet big girl – mother is referred to as the big girl as she was the eldest among the three girls English Classroom

5. 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. terribly – extremely transient – temporary, lasting only for a short time English Classroom

6. 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. Wry – Out of proper shape laboured – achieved after a lot of hard work, done with great effort ease – comfort English Classroom

7. Now she's been dead nearly as many years As that girl lived. And of this circumstance There is nothing to say at all. Its silence silences. circumstance – situation, state English Classroom

8. Important Phrases ‘transient feet ’– the phrase shows how transient, temporary human life is as compared to nature . T he word ‘transient’ indicates the ever-changing lives of human beings as well as the shortness of their stay in this World, in contrast to the eternality of nature. The girls’ life changed drastically during this period but the sea has not changed.  2. “ The sea holiday / Was her past, mine is her laughter ”--- the mother missed her past, and found it amusing , and the daughter missed her past with her mother (i.e. the time she spent with her mother when she was alive). English Classroom

9. 3 . “ laboured ease of loss " --- --- it is difficult for her to forget her mother and put behind her past and move on. --- it has ease because the pain of the loss is reduced with time. TIME acts as a healer and the daughter moves on. So, even though she hasn't really forgotten her mother , but she is not even in as great a pain now ( 12 years after her mother’s death) as she was when her mother died. Contd … " it's silence silences“ ---- Death can numb you and leave you at a loss of words. The finality of death and the loss cannot be expressed in words. Death can silence you and leave you speechless" English Classroom

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