A PHOTOGRAPH.pdf

Class 11 CBSE
English Hornbill (Core Course)
(Main Course Book)
Poem 1 - The Photograph
Poetess - Shirley Toulson
Poem + Summary
The Photograph.pdf
Created By:- NehaRohtagi1

1. 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.
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.
Its silence silences.
A Photograph
Shirley Toulson

2. Summary Of The Poem
The poem is a tribute to the poet’s mother. She is looking at an old
photograph of her mother which has a frame of cardboard. The
picture has three girls in which the middle one is the oldest and tallest.
The mother when she was twelve years old or so. Beside her, on both
sides are her two cousins, Betty and Dolly, who are holding her hands
and are younger than her. They went for paddling on a beach holiday.
Her uncle took the photograph then. The poet could not help but
notice her mother’s sweet face. The sea touched her terribly transient
feet which depicted that she changed over the years and the sea
remained the same.
After twenty-thirty years, her mother would laugh at the photograph.
She would make the poet look at the photograph and tell her how
their parents would dress them up for the beach holiday. The beach
holiday was her mother’s favorite past memories while her laugh was
the poet’s favorite memory. Both of them lost something which they
cherished a lot and yet cannot live that moment again. Those sweet
moments were memories now.
Now, the poet’s mother had been dead for the past twelve years,
which is the same number as of her age when the photograph was
taken back then. She cannot express the grief that she has from
her mother’s absence.

3. The Poetic Devices
Alliteration:- The use of the same letter or sound at the
beginning of words that are close together, For eg:- terribly
transient, stood still, through their, etc.
Allusion:- It is a literary device which briefly and indirectly refer to
a person, place, thing, or a idea. For eg:- 'The Cardboard' actually
refers to the photograph.
Oxymoron:- A phrase that combines two words that seem to be
the opposite of each other, For eg:- 'Laboured Ease' in which
both the words have entirely different meanings.
Repetition:- It is when a certain word, sentence or phrase is
written more than once in a poem. For eg:- 'Silence Silences' in
this silence word got repeated.
Synecdoche:- It is a figure of speech in which a part represents
the whole. For eg:- The word 'Feet' represented their whole body.
Transferred Epithet:- When an adjective usually used to describe
one thing is transferred to another. For eg:- The phrase
'Transient Feet' is used to describe human feet but also signifies
the lack of permanence of human life.
Personification:- It is a poetic device where animals, plants or
even inanimate objects, are given human qualities. For eg:- The
poet personifies the photograph by describing 'The cardboard
show me how it was' and 'Its silences silence'.

4. The Rhyming Scheme
'A Photograph' is a powerful poem about loss, memory, and time. It is
a source of Nostalgia for the mother, but also for the daughter when
she looks at it, thinks of her mother as a young girl, and then thinks
about looking at the same photograph with her mother.
The entire poem is centered around the speaker’s recollections from
her mother’s memories. She feels both Sorrow and Joy as she recalls
her mother’s words when the two looked at the photograph together.
So much time has passed since the image was taken, and since she
looked at it with her mother.
'A Photograph' is a nineteen line poem and is written in Free Verse,
which means that there is no Rhyming Scheme. But it does not mean
that the poem is entirely without Rhyme. There are several examples
of Half-Rhyme scattered throughout the poem. For eg:- “sea” and
“feet” in eighth and ninth lines.

5. Phases Of Life
Childhood of the mother, when she was 12 years old:-
The poet's childhood days, when her mother became an
adult:-
After the death of the mother:-
The 'Phases Of Life' discussed by the poet in the Poem are:-
The 1st stanza depicts a photograph of her mother when she went on
a sea holiday with her cousin sisters and uncle, who clicked their
picture while they were smiling through their hairs.
The 2nd stanza depicts the mother recalling her childhood memories
and laughing on their dressing sense while looking at the old
photograph.
The 3rd stanza depicts that the mother is dead now for twelve years.
The poet’s looking at the same photograph and got nostalgia of her
mother’s laughter. The loss of her mother puts her in extreme grief.
She has no words to describe the terrible pain of her mother’s death.

6. Phases Of Life
The 1st Phase
The 2nd Phase
The 3rd Phase

7. Shirley Toulson

8. About The Poet
Her Early Life:- She attended Prior's Field School and worked
with the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II. She
then studied English at Birkbeck, University of London, and
worked at Foyles bookshop before becoming a Journalist.
Her Career:- As a poet she was a member of The Group, an
informal group of poets who met in London from the mid-1950s
to the mid-1960s. Her work was included in A Group Anthology.
In 1962, She was elected as Labor councillors in the Wandsworth
London Borough Council. Her 1973, short story 'Playground of
England', appearing in the Welsh journal 'Planet', satirized the
objectification of Wales as a tourist destination by English second
home owners. She contributed a profile of the novelist Christine
Brooke-Rose for a 1986 reference publication.
Her Books and Poems:-
Shadows in an Orchard
Circumcision's Not Such a Bad Thing After All
The Fault, Dear Brutus: A Zodiac of Sonnets
The Celtic Years
The Moors of the South - West
Kathleen Shirley Toulson {20 May 1924 – 23 Sept. 2018} was an
English writer, poet, journalist and politician.
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9. Reader's Point Of View
'A Photograph' by Shirley Toulson is a tender piece of poem revolves
around the theme of loss and separation – an inevitable reality that is
a common lot of mankind. Through the Poem, evoked in many literary
pieces to denote nostalgia and remembrance, the poet expresses the
void she feels upon having made uncomfortable peace with her
mother’s death.
The tone of the poem is soft because of the heart-touching manner in
which it has expressed nostalgia born of loss to the passage of time
and the final rest; the jolting attribute comes from the harsh message
it sends across about how humans can never be entirely adept at
accepting irreversible separation from a loved one.
The poem 'A Photograph' carries the message of mortality and
transient nature of the life of human beings. The whole poem is about
loss, separation and sorrow. Unlike sea that changes a little everyday,
we humans change quickly and die one day. The poem also carries the
message of bearing the pain. In the poem, the mother learns to live
with the pain of loss (of her youth). Similarly, the poet has learnt to
live with the loss of her mother. She is sad but still she is living.

10. The Importance Of
A Photograph
What do you think is a Photograph? Why do we preserve
photographs ?
Do photographs affect you? How?
Ans. A photograph records the past and time, it allows us to preserve
our precious moments. Photographs are significant as we can
nostalgically relive our old and wonderful memories.
Preserving memories through photographs allows us to look back on
our life and recall its most special moments. It also helps our young
generations to learn a lot about our past lives. Photographs make
things clearer, as we can remember our small, simple but happy
memories.
Ans. Photographs can create great impacts in our lives. A photograph
can inspire, change our viewpoints, shake someone's ideals, educate,
etc. They may invoke innermost emotions such as fear, anxiety, etc. As
Winkielman said, "That emotionally charged pictures speak more
directly to us than words". Therefore, photographs hold the power to
effect our past, present and future.

11. THANK
YOU