photograph poem summary hornbill

A PHOTOGRAPH

– Shirley Toulson

Nostalgically recollecting fond memories, the poet looks at a very old photograph of her mother who has been dead for nearly twelve years. The poet is consumed with grief but is left with no words to express the loss.

The poem begins with the poet looking at a very old photograph of her mother at twelve years of age. 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.

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.

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he poet looks at the photograph of her mother, which was taken when her mother was 12 years old. The mother had gone for a sea holiday with her cousins Betty and Dolly and while they were paddling, her uncle took a photograph of them.

Each of the cousins was holding the hands of the poets mother who was the eldest among them. All three of them stood smiling through their hair while the photo was taken. Her mother had a sweet face. All this happened before she was born.Years fled past. Her mother grew up into an adult. They all underwent changes, while the sea stood still and seemed unaltered despite the passage of time. After about twenty or thirty years, the poets mother would look at the photograph, laughing nostalgically and remembering the past.She would comment on the dress worn by her cousins Betty and Dolly and herself. The sea holiday belonged to the past of her mother and the poet still remembers how her mother would laugh looking at the snapshot.The smile Shirley Toulsons mother had on her face when she thought of her past (the sea holiday) and Shirleys thoughts when she recalls her mothers laughter, both, seem to be wry i.e. filled with dry or sad amusement for a time that was happier but cannot be re-lived.

For the poet, both these (the photograph and her memories of her mother) bring great sadness and an acute sense of loss. However, time has been a healer of sorts. Although the sense of loss that may never go away completely, with time, she has come to accept this eventuality of life.She has been able to come to terms with her mothers demise. Her mother died about 12 years ago and now, the poetess has nothing to say about this circumstance. It leaves her sad and yet at ease. It leaves her in pain, but with acceptance. The photograph is silent and leaves her silent as well.The three stanzas depict three different phases. The first stanza refers to the childhood of the poets mother. The second stanza refers to the poets childhood when her mother was an adult. The last stanza refers to the poets adulthood when she is not with her mother.

The poet is looking at her mother's photograph which is indeed 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 een windy at that time that 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.

The cardboard (photograph) shows the narrator who it was that day (poetic device: allusion as the cardboard’s lack of durability hints at the lack of permanence of human life)

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

3) Each of the cousins held one of her mother’s hands.

4) Her mother was the eldest – about twelve years old at this time.

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 it seems to wash their feet which by nature, are transient because human life is short-lived as compared to nature. (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, 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 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

A photograph
Nostalgically recollecting fond memories, the poet looks at a very old photograph of her mother who has been dead for nearly twelve years. The poet is consumed with grief but is left with no words to express the loss.
The poem begins with the poet looking at a very old photograph of her mother at twelve years of age. 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. 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.

“A Photograph,” a poem by the English writer Shirley Toulson, describes the adult speaker’s discovery of a photograph showing her mother, at that time a girl, and some even younger cousins swimming during a holiday at the sea. At the time the picture was taken, the speaker’s mother was “the big girl,” roughly twelve years old (4), and the picture shows her holding the hands of the two younger girls as they swim. The photo shows all three girls smiling for the camera, and the speaker fondly recalls how her mother, in her thirties or forties, later looked at the picture and laughed at the way she and her cousins were dressed. Now the speaker, looking at the picture herself, ponders the fact that her mother has been dead for roughly twelve years—about as long as the young girl in the picture had at that point lived.

Clearly one theme of Toulson’s poem is mutability, or change. The picture records a time in the distant past; the speaker recalls a time in the more recent past; and then the speaker finally comments on the present, when her mother has been dead for roughly twelve years. The poem is thus a meditation on the passing of time and also on the fact of loss, especially the mother’s loss of her youth and the speaker’s loss of her mother. Yet the poem can also be seen as a response to, and minor victory over, such loss. Just as the photograph records the past so that the past still, in some sense, exists, so the poem itself records both the photograph and the responses to it of the speaker’s mother and of the speaker herself. The poem itself functions as a kind of photograph, preserving the past so that it never completely disappears.

The fact that the photograph is surrounded by (or pasted onto) a piece of mere “cardboard” (1) already suggests the idea of fragility. The photograph is not surrounded by a sturdy metal frame, nor is it (apparently) preserved under protective glass. Instead, the photo is in some ways as vulnerable to change as the people it pictures have proven to be. In the photo, the mother, then a twelve-year-old girl, serves as a source of security and reassurance to her younger cousins. Ironically, of course, the mother herself is now dead; although she protected her...

Shirley Toulson’s poem “The Photograph” is a tribute to her mother. The poet is looking at an old photograph of her mother when her mother was a little girl. Photographs capture a moment in a time and also the emotions felt when the photograph was taken. The photograph shows her mother playing on a beach accompanied with her two cousins. Her mother is the elder one among the two and she is holding the hands of her other cousins. The weather was windy at that time and their hair was flying on their faces when the uncle took the photograph. All the three children had a happy and smiling expression on their face.
The poet expresses the view that her mother had a sweet face when the poet was not even born. The sea washes away the transient feet of the children. ‘Transient feet’ refers to the changeable nature of human beings i.e. ‘feet’ too will change with time. The sea is unchangeable and it has washed away the footprints on the sand. Similarly, the photograph and the memories have not changed while the time has changed and so has the poet’s mother who is no more.
The poet recalls that when her mother used to take a look at the photograph after thirty-forty years, she would laugh hard. By that time, her mother was married and she had a daughter of her own. The poet’s mother would laugh and say how her cousins Betty and Dolly were dressed up for the beach.
The sea holiday was the mother’s past and her laughter was the poet’s. There had been huge changes in the lives of the mother and the daughter. Both the mother and the daughter had learned to accept the losses their fate has imbibed them with.
The poet’s mother is no more and the silence of the little girl in the photograph has silenced the poet. She is left without words. The photograph reminds her of her mother. Shirley Toulson feels sad seeing the photograph of her dead mother while her mother had derived a sense of happiness and laughter when she used to see it. This feeling of loss has silenced the poet.

Title:
The poem, “A Photograph” is composed in blank verse. Its title is very much appropriate as it reminds the poet of his 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.

Allusion:
An Allusion is a reference or an incidental mention of something; either directly or by implication.
Example of an allusion from “A Photograph” is the cardboard (photograph) itself. The durability of the cardboard shows the lack of permanence of human life.

Alliteration:
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial letter (generally a consonant) of several words marking the stressed syllables in a line of a poetry.
“stood still to smile” is an example of alliteration from the poem.

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.

Poem Summary
Shirley Toulson?s poem ?The Photograph? is a tribute to her mother. The poet is looking at an old photograph of her mother when her mother was a little girl. Photographs capture a moment in a time and also the emotions felt when the photograph was taken. The photograph shows her mother playing on a beach accompanied with her two cousins. Her mother is the elder one among the two and she is holding the hands of her other cousins. The weather was windy at that time and their hair was flying on their faces when the uncle took the photograph. All the three children had a happy and smiling expression on their face.
The poet expresses the view that her mother had a sweet face when the poet was not even born. The sea washes away the transient feet of the children. ?Transient feet? refers to the changeable nature of human beings i.e. ?feet? too will change with time. The sea is unchangeable and it has washed away the footprints on the sand. Similarly, the photograph and the memories have not changed while the time has changed and so has the poet?s mother who is no more.
The poet recalls that when her mother used to take a look at the photograph after thirty-forty years, she would laugh hard. By that time, her mother was married and she had a daughter of her own. The poet?s mother would laugh and say how her cousins Betty and Dolly were dressed up for the beach.
The sea holiday was the mother?s past and her laughter was the poet?s. There had been huge changes in the lives of the mother and the daughter. Both the mother and the daughter had learned to accept the losses their fate has imbibed them with.
The poet?s mother is no more and the silence of the little girl in the photograph has silenced the poet. She is left without words. The photograph reminds her of her mother. Shirley Toulson feels sad seeing the photograph of her dead mother while her mother had derived a sense of happiness and laughter when she used to see it. This feeling of loss has silenced the poet.

Title:
The poem, ?A Photograph? is composed in blank verse. Its title is very much appropriate as it reminds the poet of his 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.

Allusion:
An Allusion is a reference or an incidental mention of something; either directly or by implication.
Example of an allusion from ?A Photograph? is the cardboard (photograph) itself. The durability of the cardboard shows the lack of permanence of human life.

Alliteration:
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial letter (generally a consonant) of several words marking the stressed syllables in a line of a poetry.
?stood still to smile? is an example of alliteration from the poem.

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.