A Photograph Explanation Stanza Wise Class 11 is available here, Students should read “A Photograph” stanza-wise to explore the poem’s theme. Each stanza reflects a different aspect, including deeper insight into the poem. Reference to context questions are asked in all types of examinations.
Table of Contents
A Photograph Explanation Stanza Wise- 1
Stanza 1
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.
EXPLANATION:-
The poet looks at the cardboard frame. It is an old photograph of her mother when she was twelve years old. The poet’s mother stands holding the hands of her two girl cousins. All three had gone paddling in the sea. The poet’s mother was the eldest of them. All of them were standing near the sea and smiling silently at the camera, with their hair blowing in the wind. Their uncle was taking their picture, while the sea washed their feet. The poet compares the short-lived human life on this earth with the immortal nature. He calls human feet “terribly transient” which means not permanent. On the other side the word “the sea” symbolizes our timeless nature.
LITERARY DEVICES:-
- Alliteration– repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning of two or more consecutive words.
Example: – stood still to smile through their
- Transferred Epithet – A transferred epithet is when this adjective is transferred to a different noun.
Example:– transient feet
- Synecdoche– a figure of speech that uses a part of something to refer to the whole thing.
Example:– transient feet
- Personification- It is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human things and animals.
Example:– “The cardboard shows me how it was”.
A Photograph Explanation Stanza – 2
Stanza 2
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.
EXPLANATION:-
Twenty or thirty years have passed since that photograph was taken. The mother would laugh, whenever she looked at that photograph. Her cousins, Betty and Dolly, were quaintly dressed up (by their parents) for the sea holiday. That happy sea holiday was her mother’s past. For the poet, her mother’s laughter was her past. Mother and daughter, both remembered their past with a sense of loss and felt dejected over their loss.
LITERARY DEVICES:-
- Oxymoron – a term that contradicts itself.
Example- Laboured ease
A Photograph Explanation Stanza – 3
Stanza 3
Now she’s been dead nearly as many years
As that girl lived. And of this circumstance
There is nothing to say at all.
Its silence silences.
EXPLANATION:-
The poet’s mother had passed away twelve years ago. She was twelve years old in the snapshot; she laughed at it thirty years ago. The poet does not want to talk about her death, or how she passed away. Only silent grief remains with her. There is nothing left for her to express.
Read- Poem A Photograph Summary
Read- A Photograph Central Idea Class 11
Read- A Photograph Class 11 Question Answers Solution
