photograph class 11

1. CLASS XI
ENGLISH CORE
LITERATURE
A PHOTOGRAPH
Presentation by
SP Singh

2. ABOUT THE POET
Shirley Toulson has been writing books on the social history of the
countryside since 1974. She is a leading authority on ancient tracks
and drove roads and is the author of 'The Drovers' Roads of
Wales' and 'The Drovers Roads of South Wales'.
Born: 20 May 1924, Thames, United Kingdom

3. A PHOTOGRAPH

4. A PHOTOGRAPH
•
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.

5. CONTD...
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 has been dead nearly as many years
As that girl lived. And of this circumstance
There is nothing to say at all,
Its silence silences.

6. “An Embodiment of Time and Timelessness”
Shirley Toulson’s ‘A Photograph` unfolds the very tenet(a belief) of “Time –
and Timelessness”. The poem strongly hints at the eternal state of the
natural being and ephemeral(lasting for a short time) state of the humans.
Here we are acquainted with a picture of sea beach and three girls including
the poet’s mother. Sea rarely changed but the mother of the poet met the
horns of death.
*(EMBODIMENT- a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling.)

7. SUMMARY
In the poem, poetess describes a photograph of her mothers’ childhood. In the
photograph of time when she went for a sea holiday with her two girl cousins. Also,
poetess contrasts between nature, altering at the pace of a snail and the fast-changing
human life. Poetess remembers how her mother laughs at the photograph and feel
disappointed at the loss of her childhood joys. However, then, the sea holiday was her
mother’s past and now her mother’s laugh is the poetess’s past. At different periods of
time and with great difficulty, both resolve with their respective losses and the pain
that involves in remembering past. Besides, for the poetess, his mother’s death of her
mother brings great sadness and a dire sense of loss. Moreover, the painful ‘silence’ of
the situation leaves her without words.

8. Poetic Devices
• Alliteration in "stood still to smile", "terribly transient" and "silence silences".
• Transferred Epithet in "Washed their terribly transient feet".
• Oxymoron in "laboured ease".
• Personification in "Its silence silences.“

9. POETIC DEVICES
Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of
adjacent or closely connected words.
Transferred epithet is a little known—but often used—figure of speech in which
a modifier (usually an adjective) qualifies a noun other than the person or thing it
is actually describing. In other words, the modifier or epithet is transferred
from the noun it is meant to describe to another noun in the sentence.
Oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in
conjunction.
Personification is a figure intended to represent an abstract quality.

10. A PHOTOGRAPH - A Melancholic, A Nostalgic 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.
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.

11. THEME
The theme of the poem Photograph is loss, memory
and the transience of life. It explores how people may die
but in a strange way they continue to live on in the form
of memories. These memories are not just restricted to
one's head but can also attain a tangible form such as
photographs.

12. Thank you
For doubts contact
sp.singh@swarnprastha.com
WhatsApp 9896122126