NCERT Solution of Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
By Shirley Toulson
Summary
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.
It is her 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 favourite past memories while her laugh was the poet’s favourite 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.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
Questions-Answers
Question 1:
What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Answer
The word ‘cardboard’ here denotes a photograph. In fact, cardboard is a part of the frame that keeps the photo intact. As the cardboard is stiff and long lasting, so it has made the photo of a twelve year old girl long lasting. This word has been used to highlight this very point.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
Question 2:
What has the camera captured?
Answer
The camera has captured a happy moment from the childhood days of the poet’s mother. The photograph was taken when the poet’s mother at the age of twelve or so went to a beach holiday with two of her cousins.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
Question 3:
What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
Answer
The sea has not changed over the years. Its waves are as fresh, shining and tireless as they were years ago. The changelessness of sea reminds us of the changes in human face with advancing age.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
Question 4:
The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?
Answer
This laugh’ indicated her joy at remembering an incident connected with her past life, when she was quite young and free from the tensions and worries of life.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
Question 5:
What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.”
Answer
The line refers to the sea holiday as remembered by her mother and the poet remembering her mother’s laughing face. Both these now belong to the past. Her mother is no more now.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
Question 6:
What does “this circumstance” refer to?
Answer
‘This circumstance’ refers to the present situation of the poet wherein the poet is absorbed in the painful memory of her dead mother.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
Question 7:
The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?
Answer
- The girlhood of the poet’s mother—the period before the birth of the poet.
- Her middle age—the period during the childhood of the poet
- Period after the death of the poet’s mother.
Class 11 English Ch-1 A Photograph
