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A Photograph

by Shirley Toulson

Introduction to Chapter

‘A Photograph’ is a powerful poem about loss, memory, and time. Even though it focuses on speaker’s mother and a very specific photograph, it is incredibly moving and relatable. Everyone has experienced loss of some kind and in the lines of this poem, Toulson taps into what that loss feels like when one looks back on it, years later. One of the most interesting elements of this poem is the way that the photograph features. 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.



In this poem, the poetess looks at a photograph of her mother and two cousins. 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. The three stanzas of the poem depict three phases. First the poet’s mother’s enjoyment of sea holidays with her cousins. The second stage takes us twenty or thirty years later. The third stage the poet remembers her dead mother with a heavy heart.



In the first stanza, the poetess was not even born. She looks at a photograph. It shows her two cousins, each one holding her mother's hands at the seashore. Her mother was also a girl of about twelve years at that time. The poetess’ uncle took that photograph. The poetess says that her mother’s face in the photograph is very sweet. The three girls in the photograph are standing at the seashore and the sea water is washing their feet. The second phase describes a period about twenty or thirty years. The poetess’ mother looked at the photograph and told her about it. She said that the two girls in the photograph are Betty and Dolly and they had specially dressed for their sea beach holiday. The poetess says that the sea beach holiday was her mother’s past. Her mother’s laughter is now the poetess’ past. It means that her mother is no more in this world. In the third phase, the poetess’ mother had died. When the poetess looks at the photograph, she remembers her mother. She says that there is nothing to say of this circumstance. The silence of this circumstance makes her also silent.

Full Explanation

Lines 1 - 9

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.

Enjoy Full Explanation on Youtube

In these lines, the poet describes looking through a photo album, the pages of which seem to be made of cardboard. She is looking at one picture. 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 girl’s hands for support. The picture has been taken on a day that the three girls had gone paddling at the beach. In these lines, the poet further 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 wet hair open, and their hair was obscuring 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 been taken. The poet calls those feet “terribly 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.

Literary Devices:

Alliteration is used which is formal device that focuses on the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words. For example, “stood still to smile”

Imagery is used. A good example can be seen in lines eight and nine. They read: “And the sea, which appears to have changed less / Washed their terribly transient feet.
One of the most important techniques at work in any poem. Without successful crafting images, poems are unable to connect with the reader’s imagination. The best images encourage the reader to use a variety of senses in order to imagine them.

Transferred Epithet: It is a literary device in which an adjective is usually used to describe one thing is transferred to another. Here in “washed their terribly transient feet”.

Personification: It is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human things and animals. Here “The cardboard shows me how it was”. Here the cardboard is acting like humans.

Lines 10 - 15

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.

In these lines, the poet stops looking at the photograph and recalls what her mother used to say about the photograph. The poet isn’t 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. In these lines, 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.

Literary Devices:

Oxymoron: It is the combination of two words that seem to be the opposite of each other. Here “laboured ease”.

Also, this line carries Alliteration which is formal device that focuses on the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words. in the sixth line and “laboured” and “loss”

Lines 16-19

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.

In these lines, the poet says that her mother has been dead for the past twelve years, that is, the same number of years that was the age of her mother in the photograph she had been looking at. The poet can 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.

Exercises

Comprehension Passage:

Stanza 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.

Questions:

(i) Who wrote this poem?
A: Shirley Toulson is the poetess of this poem.
(ii) How many girls are there in the photograph?
A: There are three girls in the photograph.
(iii) Why did the girls go to the sea beach?
A: They went there for paddling.
(iv) Who is the ‘big girl’ in the photograph?
A: The ‘big girl’ in the photograph is the poetess’ mother.
(v) Find words from the stanza which mean the same as: (a) Rowing (b) Grasping.
A: (a) Paddling, (b) Holding.

Stanza 2:

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.

Questions:

(i) Who are the ‘all three’ referred to in the poem?
A: The three are: the poetess’ mother and her two cousins.
(ii) Who is taking the photograph?
A: The poetess’ uncle is taking the photograph.
(iii) How does the poetess describe her mother’s face?
A: She describes it as ‘sweet’.
(iv) Where are the three standing?
A: The three are standing in water on the seashore.
(v) Find words from the passage which mean the same as: (a) Seems (b) Short-living.
A: (a) Appears (b) Transient

Stanza 3:

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.

Questions:

(i) How many years have passed since the photograph was taken?
A: Twenty or thirty years have passed.
(ii) What are the names of the two girls referred to by the mother?
A: Their names are Betty and Dolly.
(iii) What did they dress for?
A: They dressed for a holiday at the beach.
(iv) What is the poetess’ past?
A: Her mother’s laughter is the poetess’ past.
(v) Find words from the passage which mean the same as: (a) Photograph (b) Shore.
A: (a) Snapshot (b) Beach.

Stanza 4:

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

Questions:

(i) Who has been dead?
A: The poetess’ mother has been dead.
(ii) What is the circumstance mentioned here?
A: The circumstance mentioned here is the death of her mother.
(iii) What silences the poetess?
A: The circumstance of her mother’s death silences the poetess.
(iv) Who is the poetess of this poem?
A: Shirley Toulson is the poetess of this poem.
(v) Which word in the passage means ‘situation’?
A: ‘Circumstance’.

Question and Answers

Q.1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Ans. This word denotes a photograph. This word has been used to show the sense of past. Generally, we paste past photographs on cardboard for record or for displaying them in the house.

Q.2. What has the camera captured?
Ans. The camera has captured three girls on the seashore. They are standing at the seashore. They are holding one another’s hands. They are looking at the camera. Their hair is ruffled.

Q.3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you? Ans. The sea has not changed over the years. This suggests that man’s life is transient. On the other hand, nature is permanent.

Q.4. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?
Ans. When she looked at the photograph after many years, she laughed. This indicates that she remembered her past. The memory of that sea holiday became alive in her mind.

Q.5. What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss”?
Ans. Both women have suffered loss in life. The poetess’s mother suffered the loss of her cousins. But she laughed and tried to make it easy. In the same way, the poetess is sad at the loss of her mother. But she also tries to forget it.

Q.6. What does ‘this circumstance’ refer to?
Ans. This circumstance refers to the death of the poetess’ mother.

Q.7. The three stanzas of the poem depict three different phases. What are they?
Or
Write gist summary of the poem.
Or
What is the central idea of the poem ‘A Photograph’?
Ans. In this poem, the poetess looks at a photograph of her mother and two cousins. The three stanzas of the poem depict three phases. In the first stanza, the poetess was not even born. She looks at a photograph. It shows her two cousins, each one holding her mother’s hands at the seashore. Her mother was also a girl of about twelve years at that time. The poetess’ uncle took that photograph. The poetess says that her mother’s face in the photograph is very sweet. The three girls in the photograph are standing at the seashore and the sea water is washing their feet. The second phase describes a period about twenty or thirty years. The poetess’ mother looked at the photograph and told her about it. She said that the two girls in the photograph are Betty and Dolly and they had specially dressed for their sea beach holiday. The poetess says that the sea beach holiday was her mother’s past. Her mother’s laughter is now the poetess’ past. It means that her mother is no more in this world. In the third phase, the poetess’ mother had died. When the poetess looks at the photograph, she remembers her mother. She says that there is nothing to say of this circumstance. The silence of this circumstance makes her also silent.

Multiple Choice Questions:

1. Who is the poet of the poem ‘A Photograph’?
(A) William Shakespeare
(B) Robert Browning
(C) Shirley Toulson
(D) Vikram Seth
Ans. (C) Shirley Toulson
2. How many persons are there in the photograph?
(A) two
(B) three
(C) four
(D) one
Ans. (B) three
3. What is the relation of the woman in the photograph to the poetess?
(A) her sister
(B) her mother
(C) her aunt
(D) her daughter
Ans. (B) her mother
4. How old was the poetess when this photograph was taken?
(A) ten years
(B) five years
(C) twenty years
(D) she was not born
Ans. (D) she was not born
5. Who snapped the photograph?
(A) her mother
(B) her sister
(C) her uncle
(D) her father
Ans. (C) her uncle
6. What is the background in the photograph?
(A) the sea
(B) the forest
(C) a hill
(D) a desert
Ans. (A) the sea
7. What is the relation of the two girls in the photograph to the poetess?
(A) her aunts
(B) her sisters
(C) her daughters
(D) her cousins
Ans. (D) her cousins
8. What are the names of the girls in the photograph?
(A) Betty and Pretty
(B) Dolly and Lolly
(C) Letty and Drolly
(D) Betty and Dolly
Ans. (D) Betty and Dolly
9. Where is the mother of the poetess now?
(A) she has gone to another city
(B) she has gone abroad
(C) she is dead
(D) she is in the hospital
Ans. (C) she is dead
10. The sea holiday was the past of her mother. What is the poetess’ past?
(A) her mother’s memory
(B) her mother’s laughter
(C) her mother’s photograph
(D) her uncle’s camera
Ans. (B) her mother’s laughter

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