A Photograph by Shirley Toulson explained by Sukhpreet Singh
A Photograph by Shirley Toulson explained by Sukhpreet Singh
About the Poem
The poet is consumed in the thoughts of her mother and is in pensive mood. The true love of the poet for her mother and her dejection at losing the lady (mother) whom she adores; forms the substance of the poem. Her visage and expressions speak volumes of her sadness at the loss. She has beautifully glued into this small poem, a universal message of transient nature of human beings.
Poetic Devices used in the Poem
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visual Imagery
The
device of imagery has been used in the poem very well. The words ‘sweet’,
‘young’, ‘tall’, ‘sea’, ‘hair’ ; etc create visual images before our eyes.
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Alliteration
“stood still to smile” is an example of alliteration from the poem. |
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Comparison
Comparison between
permanency of nature and transience of human nature has been drawn very
beautifully in this poem.
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Oxymoron
With the laboured ease of loss – using
two opposite ideas together.
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Transferred Epithet
A transferred epithet is a description which refers to a
character or event but is used to describe a different situation or
character. “Transient feet” is a transferred epithet in the poem, “A
Photograph.” It refers to the human feet but it is used to describe the lack
of permanence of human life. The sea is constant and eternal while the human
feet which are being washed away by the sea are transient.
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Personification
Silence silences
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Title Aptness:-
A photograph is something that captures a certain moment of someone’s life.
The person changes with the course of time, but memories related to the
photograph remain the same. Whenever we get a glimpse of the photograph clicked
in past, all the memories and moments related to it, start bouncing into our
mind and lay afresh before us, the vigour, enthusiasm and our temperament
during that click. In this poem, the poet’s mother is no more but the
photograph makes her memories come alive, as her mother used to share her
feelings related to this photograph to her often. 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. Hence it reminds the poet about
the laughter of her mother, that she (mother) usually had, whenever she glanced
at this picture.
Summary of the Poem (Sad Lyric)
(Expresses the pure love of a daughter for her mother)
The poet, in the
mood of nostalgia, is looking at the photograph of her mother who had been dead
for nearly twelve long years. The poet feels consumed with grief and is
overwhelmed with emotions that leave her with no words to express her
irreparable loss. She is glued in the
fond memories of her mother and her visage speaks volumes about her malady and
dejection.
The poem begins
with the poet looking at a very old photograph of her mother when her mother
was of twelve years. The photograph, on a cardboard frame, shows the poet’s
mother, with her two girl cousins each holding one of her hand. She was eldest
of the three and had a ‘sweet face’. In the snapshot, all the three girls stand
still, smiling with their hair falling on their faces, to get clicked by the
camera of their uncle, on an occasion when they went paddling. The sea, which
has apparently undergone no change, washed their ‘transient’ feet. This image
of transience provides a sharp contrast to the eternal sea. Poet has used
‘Transferred Epithet’, which makes this poem of universal application; as it
compares the temporary life of humans with permanent nature.
Some twenty or
thirty years later, the poet’s mother laughed at the picture pointing how she,
Betty and Dolly (the two cousins) were made to dress for the beach holiday.
That sea holiday was a thing of past for her mother at that time, while her
mother’s laughter is the poet’s past now. Both signify their respective losses
and the pain involved in recollecting the past.
Her mother is
dead for nearly twelve years now. And for the present ‘circumstance’ the poet
has nothing left to say. She is absorbed in the memories of her dead mother.
The painful ‘silence’ of the situation leaves the poet silent, with no words to
express her grief. Thus, the ‘silence silences’ her. The poet, engrossed in the
indelible sweet memories of her mother, expresses her pure love for her mother,
which has not slackened after her death, and she feels the loss in the same way
as she used to feel earlier.
Themes
a. Transient nature of Human Life
b. A daughter’s love for her mother
Questions:-
1. Pick out all the words from the poem
that create a
visual image in your mind?
2. What has not changed over the
years? Does this suggest something to
you?
3. The poet’s mother laughed at the
snapshot. What did this laugh
indicate?
4. What is the meaning of the line “Both
wry with the laboured ease of
loss”.
5. What does “this circumstance” refer
to?
6. What
poetic devices are used in the
poem? Give examples from the poem with
definition of each.
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