Photograph

Introduction

A photograph dipicts 3 stages. In the first stage, the photograph shows the poet's mother standing at the each enjoying her holiday ith her two girl cousins. She was 12 or so at that time. The second stage takes us twenty or thirty years later. The mother would laugh at the way she and her cousins Betty and Dolly were dressed up for each holidays. In the third stage, the poet remembers the mother with a heavy heart. The photograph revives a nostargic feeling in the poet.

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Text of the Poem

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Idea of the Poem

Core Meaning

Line-wise summary:

1) The cardboard (photograph) shows the narrator's mother.It was a piture when she was young. (poetic device: allusion as the cardboard’s lack of durability hints at the lack of permanence of human life)

2) When two cousins of her mother went paddling (on the beach, with the narrator’s mother)

3) Both the cousin girls were holding the mother's hands.

4) The poet's mother was the eldest – about twelve years old at the time the photograph was taken.

5) All three of them stood smiling, their hair strewn across their face (possibly tossed by the beach wind or water) (poetic device: alliteration... stood still to smile)

6) As her mother’s uncle clicked their picture with a camera. Her mother’s face was sweet.

7) And the picture was taken much before the narrator was born.

8) The sea in the picture is still the same today (has changed very less)

9) And in the picture the sea is washing their feet which by nature, are transient because human life is short-lived as compared to nature. The nature remains the same for a long time. (Poetic device: Transferred Epithet. Human life itself is temporary not the feet. When the adjective for one noun like life is transferred to another noun like feet, it is called transferred epithet. It is also alliteration due to the repetition of the ‘t’ sound but Transferred Epithet is the dominant device here.)

10) Some twenty or thirty years later from when the picture was clicked,

11) her mother had looked at the snapshot and laughed. She had pointed out her cousin Betty and Dolly and talked nostalgically of how oddly they used to be dressed for the beach. The sea holiday was remembered by her mother with a fondness as well as a sense of loss. That is because that time would never return.

12) Similarly, her laughter would never return to the narrator. The sea holiday was the narrator’s mother’s past and her mother’s laughter is the narrator’s past.

13) Both these pasts, the sea holiday as well as the laughter of her mother are remembered with a difficult and yet easy sense of loss. (Poetic device: oxymoron. The coming together of two opposite ideas to describe the same entity. ‘Laboured’ and ‘easy’ are opposite words describing the same entity ‘loss’. The loss of the holiday and the laughter was easy because these things have to be accepted as a part of life. They are merely a part of the past and cannot be brought back or relived. However, precisely because they cannot be relived, there will always be a tinge of difficulty letting them go completely. They will always be seen as loss.)

14) Now, it has been twelve years since her mother passed away. The girl in the photograph seems like a different person altogether. Thus, the use of the words, ‘that girl’.

15) And about the fact that her mother has passed away leaving behind nothing but memories and photographs like this one,

16) there is nothing to be said. It is a part of life and on thinking of it, one really has no words to express how one feels.

17) The silence of the whole situation silences the poet and leaves her quiet. (poetic device: alliteration and personification. The situation has been given the human quality of silence and the sound of ‘s’ has been repeated)

The camera thus managed to capture a moment in time. It kept the memory of the mother and for the mother alive. The sea holiday brought a sad smile (wry) to the mother’s face because she couldn’t relive it but was glad that she once had. Similarly, thinking of her mother’s laughter brought a sad smile to the poet’s face because although that laughter was now gone she was glad to have once had it in her life.

Nature is perennial while human life is temporary or transient. The poet uses a transferred epithet (terribly transient feet) in order to make this comparison and highlight the terribly short-lived life of her mother.

As in the Portrait of a Lady, this poem also deals with the theme of loss and bereavement and the impact it leaves on those who are left behind.

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Alternative Interpretations

THEME

Our days captured in still pictures have the power to once again evoke smiles and tears of the past. A search for the lost happiness in photographs is uplifting and saddening, both at the same time. Who would not want to relive the days when the friends and family were together and days passed by without a worry. But after the momentary happiness, the present only pinches more as the void after their departure makes itself felt harder. The poet here presents a poignant scene of the rush of memories felt when she looks at her mother’s smiling picture from before she was born. The smile was heartening but poles apart from her morose expression later in life. If not in reality, the poet got the warm comfort of her smile through the photograph. Through the poem, we realize the essential worth of a picture, and how memories of the past prove a fuel for future life.

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Context of the Poem

The poet is looking at her mother's photograph which is an old one. With it she can see how her mother looked when she was a little girl of twelve. THe photo shows her on a beach with her two girl cousins ho are younger than her, holding her hand. It might have been windy at that time because their hair was flying on their faces when the uncle took the photograph. All the three as smiling through their flying hair. Looking at the photograph, the poet says that her mother had a sweet face, but it was a time before the poet was born. The sea was washing their feet. The poet says that the sea has changed only a little but change has come about who's feet it was washing.

After 30 or 40 years, the mother would take out the photograph and take a look at it. By that time, she was married and had a daughter. She would laugh a little and says "Look at Betty and Dolly, see how they have dressed for the beach". By now, she can only remember those days. A huge change has come about her and she is no longer that small innocent girl of twelve.

After some years, the poet's mother dies. Now the poet remembers her mother's laughter, for her it is a thing of past.

That's why she says "the sea holiday as her past and mine is her laughter". Because just like the mother remembers her old days, now the poet can rememer her in that way only. However in course of time, the two of them learnt to live ith their losses. The pay of the losses had made a permanent impression in their wry faces. The poet says that her mother had been dead and no she feels herself in a situation that there is nothing to be said about but only emptiness. The silence of this situation sileances her. In other words, she is left speechless. The fate has killed all the feelings in her.

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About the Author

Shirley Toulson was born on 20th May 1924 in Henley-on-Thames, England as the daughter of Douglas Horsfall Dixon and Marjorie Brown. She had a huge passion on writing and was greatly influenced y her father who was a writer too. She secured a B.A on Literature from Brockenhurst College in London in the year 1953. Shortly, she took writing as career but also served as the editor for many magazines in meantime. She married Alan Brownjohn on 6th February 1960. They had three children - Janet Sayers, Ian Toulson and Steven brownjohn. ut after nine years they divorced on March 1969. Celtic Christianity influenced her greatly that most of her major works like "Celtic Alternative" in 1987 and "Celtic Year" in 1993 were on that topic. But these works indeed made her more famous.

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Transacting the Text

Vocabulary

Paddling:moving like rowing

Transcent:momentary; not lasting for long

Wry:destorted

Figures of Speech

Alliteration : stood still to smile

Transferred Epithet : Human life itself is temporary not the feet. When the adjective for one noun like life is transferred to another noun like feet, it is called transferred epithet. It is also alliteration due to the repetition of the ‘t’ sound but Transferred Epithet is the dominant device here

Oxymoron : The coming together of two opposite ideas to describe the same entity. ‘Laboured’ and ‘easy’ are opposite words describing the same entity ‘loss’. The loss of the holiday and the laughter was easy because these things have to be accepted as a part of life. They are merely a part of the past and cannot be brought back or relived. However, precisely because they cannot be relived, there will always be a tinge of difficulty letting them go completely. They will always be seen as loss.

Alliteration and personification : The situation has been given the human quality of silence and the sound of ‘s’ has been repeated.

Additional Resources

More information about the poem can be accessed through the following links:

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Assessment

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