A PHOTOGRAPH
Vocabulary Inference & Dictionary Meanings
1. Paddling
Inferred Meaning: Wading or rowing a boat.
Dictionary Meaning: Walking or standing with bare feet in shallow water; “went paddling”
implies swimming with gentle movements of hands or feet.
2. Transient
Inferred Meaning: Temporary.
Dictionary Meaning: Lasting for only a short time; staying in a place briefly.
A PHOTOGRAPH
THEMES
“AN EMBODIMENT OF TIME AND TIMELESSNESS”
Shirley Toulson’s ‘A Photograph` unfolds the very tenet of “Time – and
Timelessness”. The poem strongly hints at the eternal state of the natural
being and ephemeral state of the humans. Here, we are acquainted with a
picture of a beach and three girls including the poet’s mother. Sea rarely
changed but the mother of the poet met the horns of death.
A MELANCHOLIC POEM`
A photograph is melancholic to the utmost. We are acquainted here about
loss, pain and separation. The smiling photograph creates a pang in the heart
of the poet as she remembers and misses her mother with a doleful heart. The
absence of her mother in her life has made her life a gloomy one.
‘A NOSTALGIC POEM`
If nostalgia describes sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or
place with happy personal associations, then ‘A photograph` is a nostalgic
poem. We find the poet to acquaint us with past happy moments related to her
mother’s childhood and happy days.
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.
Think It Out – Textbook Questions & Answers
Q1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Ans: ‘Cardboard’ refers to the hard backing on which old photographs were mounted. It reflects
an old-fashioned method of preserving photographs, thus hinting at the age of the photo and
evoking nostalgia.
Q2. What has the camera captured?
Ans: The camera captured a moment from the poet’s mother’s childhood—her standing with her
cousins Betty and Dolly, paddling in the sea during a holiday.
Q3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something?
Ans: The sea has remained unchanged, unlike the people in the photograph. This contrast
highlights the permanence of nature and the transience of human life.
Q4. Why did the poet’s mother laugh at the snapshot?
Ans: She laughed reminiscing the carefree and innocent time of her youth, amused by their
appearance and perhaps their outdated swimwear.
Q5. Explain: “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.”
Ans: This line reflects the shared sense of loss—first, the mother’s loss of her childhood, and
later, the poet’s loss of her mother. Their reactions to loss were marked by a subdued, almost
ironic acceptance.
Q6. What does ‘this circumstance’ refer to?
Ans: It refers to the death of the poet’s mother, an event that has left her deeply affected and
silent.
Q7. Name the three different phases depicted in the stanzas.
Ans:
The mother’s childhood (pre-poet’s birth)
Her adulthood and motherhood
Her absence due to death and the poet’s mourning
Additional Short Answer Questions
Q1. Which incident has been captured in the snapshot?
Ans: A sea holiday where the poet’s mother and her cousins posed while paddling in the sea,
capturing their youthful joy.
Q2. What do we learn about the poet’s mother from the photograph?
Ans: She was tall, attractive, full of life, and enjoyed holidays. She had a humorous and
reflective nature, evident in how she laughed at the memory later.
Q3. How did the girls face the camera?
Ans: They stood still, smiling, with their hair brushed aside, enjoying the moment as Betty and
Dolly held the mother’s hands.
Q4. What made the poet’s mother laugh?
Ans: The quaint clothes and the playful memories of the beach holiday amused her, making her
laugh warmly.
Q5. How does the poet react to her past, in contrast to her mother?
Ans: While her mother laughed remembering her past, the poet finds her mother’s death an
unbearable loss, and the laughter itself becomes a memory, steeped in grief.
Q6. Why does the poet say nothing about her mother’s death?
Ans: The poet is rendered speechless by sorrow. The stillness following her mother’s death
mirrors the finality of loss, for which she finds no words.
Long Answer Question
Q1. What impression do you form of the poet and her mother after reading the poem “A
Photograph”?
Ans:
The poet emerges as a sensitive and affectionate daughter. Her deep attachment to her mother is
evident in the way she cherishes her childhood photograph and the memories associated with it.
She appreciates her mother’s personality and is deeply pained by her loss, finding solace only in
silence.
The poet’s mother comes across as a cheerful, kind-hearted, and spirited woman who cherished
her youth and relationships. Her laughter at the old photograph reveals her sense of humour and
emotional depth. Both women, in their ways, demonstrate the beauty and fragility of life—one
through remembrance, the other through reflection.
