Question

$\huge\mathcal\pink{HOLA...❤}$


Please give me the summary of the poem A Photograph by Shirley.......


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Answer 1

HEY MATE----

$\huge\underline\mathfrak\red{Summary!}$

☑️$\small\bf\red{A\:Photograph\:by\:Shirley}$☑️

✒️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.

Answer 2

$\mathfrak\blue{Hola\:mate}$

^•^The poem, ‘A photograph’, contrasts the eternal state of nature and the transitory state of human beings. The poet describes a photograph that captures interesting moments of her mother’s childhood when she went for a sea holiday with her two girl cousins. The poet draws a contrast between nature, changing at a snail’s pace and the fast-changing human life.

^•^The poet recollects how her mother laughed at the photograph and felt disappointed at the loss of her childhood joys. The sea holiday was her mother’s past at that time, while her mother’s laughter is the poet’s past now. With great difficulty and at different periods of time, both reconcile with their respective losses and the pain involved in recollecting the past. For the poet, the death of her mother brings great sadness and an acute sense of loss. The painful ‘silence’ of the situation leaves her with no words to express her grief. Thus, the ‘silence silences’ her.

∆•∆The three stanzas of the poem depict three different stages of life i.e. early adolescence (girlhood).adulthood and death.

#HOPE IT WILL HELP U❤️