Class XI – A Photograph – Important Questions

Ans. ‘Cardboard’ refers to the photograph only. In the past photograph used to be fixed on a cardboard and hung from the wall for everyone to see it.

Ans. The camera has captured the sweet memories when mother with her cousin Betty and Dolly went to the sea beach to spend their holidays.

Ans. The sea has not changed over the years. The poet’s mother is no more. This suggests that human life is transient (short-lived) as compared to the permanence of nature.

Ans.  The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. This is an indication of the fun and joy she had experienced during the beach holiday and she had fond memories of that particular incident. It brought joy to her when she looked at the snapshot.

Ans. Mother would look at the photograph and laugh at fleeting moments that had long past. She becomes happy as well as sad to remember her good old childhood days that could not come back.

The poet looks at her mother’s photograph and relived the memories of her mother. She also becomes happy to see her mother’s laughter but felt pain on losing her.

Ans. This circumstance refers to the death of the poet’s mother. It is as real to the poet as was the moments of being clicked on the beach to her mother. Both had become memories of mother’s past and that of the poet’s past.

Ans. The poet’s mother is dead and this situation has made everybody and everything silent. When the poet looks at her mother’s photograph she also lost in her mother’s memories. The photograph is silent and the less of the poet’s mother makes the poet silent.

Ans. The first stanza depicts the childhood age of the poet’s mother when she was a pretty young girl.

The second stanza depicts the memory of the middle-aged mother who laughs at her own photograph.

The third stanza depicts the last stage of life when nothing is left except sadness and loneliness.

Ans. Alliteration, transferred epithet, Synecdoche are the poetic devices used in ‘terribly transient feet’.

Ans. The period of nearly twelve years since the poetess’s mother passed away, has been painful for the poet. She cannot hear her laughter anymore. There is only silence now. The period after the death of the poet’s mother, the life of the poet has been dull and eventless. The void created by her death is slowly becoming less painful. The time that passes silently but steadily weakens old memories of loss and grief.

Ans. The cardboard showed the poet the scene on the sea beach with three girls.

Ans. ‘The big girl’ was the poet’s mother.

Ans. The poet’s mother was twelve years old when the photograph was clicked.

Ans. The uncle clicked the photograph.