A Photograph

RTCs:-
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. What does the cardboard refer to?

b. Who was the big girl and how old was she?
1. Betty , 15 years 2. Dolly , 12 years 3. Poet’s mother, 12 years 4. None of the
above
c. What had the camera captured?

2. “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.”
a. Where was the poet’s mother when the photograph was clicked?
1. At the beach with her cousins 2. At home with her cousins 3. At home
with her daughter 4. At the beach with her daughter
b. What has stood the passage of time and what has not?
c. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?

3. “The sea holiday

was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry
With the labored ease of loss.”
a. Explain, “both wry with the labored ease of loss.”
b. How does the poet feel when she remembers her mother’s sea holiday?
c. What does ‘both’ refer to?
1. Both the poet and her mother 2. Poet and her uncle 3. Betty and Dolly
4. Poet and her uncle
 4. “Now she’s has been dead nearly as many years
As that girl lived. And of this circumstance
There is nothing to say at all,
Its silence silences.”

a. What does ‘this circumstance’ refer to?

b. Each photograph is a memory. Justify the statement in the light of the
poem, The Photograph.
c. Why doesn’t the poet want to think about the photograph any more?

5. “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.”.
a. Who would laugh at the snapshot after twenty – thirty years?
b. How did the mother remember her past?
c. The poet’s mother would have laughed at the snapshot. What did this
laughter indicate?