b) they stood still and smiled as the mother’s uncle was taking their photograph. This photograph was taken about 20-30 years ago. c) the sea is immortal. Here, feet represents human life and it represents the temporary nature of human life when compared to the permanence of the sea.

Deceased (1924–2018)

Toulson explores several important themes in ‘A Photograph’. The most prominent are loss/mourning and memories. The entire poem is centered around the speaker’s recollections from her own life and her recollections of her mother’s memories.

The poem A Photograph carries the message of mortality and transient nature of human beings. The whole poem is about loss, separation and sorrow. Unlike sea, we humans change quickly and die one day. In addition, the poem also carries the message of bearing the pain.

Explanation. This is a poem of remembrance with a rather sad tone. It brings into focus the unstoppable changes ‘time’ forces on the lives of humans and objects.

Terribly transient feet – In this phrase, the word feet is used to describe the human beings. This phrase means that human life is not permanent but temporary. The human beings have to die one or the other day but the sea is permanent . It is still going to be their after our death.

Explanation: the feet were compared with sea which changes very less with time or u can say with respect to the girls feet it does not changes at all whereas the girls feet have changed as she grew older and died but the sea still remains same.

Transient means something which is temporary or short-lived. Here, when the author says terribly transient feet, she refers to the ever changing imprints of the feet left on the sea sand. The sea never appears to change but the human life is transient.

The poet is referring to the feet of her mother. They are transient because her mother is not alive anymore.

Answer: The silence silences means the loss of her mother’s death. Its silence refers to mother’s death and silence refers to make more silence. The sentence “Its silence silences “here refers that Death is already silent. ‘THE SILENCE SILENCES’ is used.

Alliteration in “stood still to smile”, “terribly transient” and “silence silences”. Transferred Epithet in “Washed their terribly transient feet”.

She becomes nostalgic. She is reminded of a time when her mother was young and she was a child. She remembers how her mother used to look at one of her old photograph, where she posed in the beach with her cousins Betty and Dolly with a smile.

Answer: The big girl was the author’s mother. She is eldest of the other two girls ,Dolly and betty, who are present in the photograph. The two girls were the cousins of her mother.

5. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. Ans. : This laugh indicates her remembering her past. She looked back to her childhood with nostalgia and remembered the innocent joys of her childhood days.

The third phase describes the poet’s feelings for her mother, who has died many years ago. The photograph revives nostalgic feelings in her and it leads to a deeper silence.

When the two girl cousins went paddling, Each one holding one of my mother’s hands, Explanation: An old photograph of the poet’s mother which was pasted on cardboard makes the poet recall the old memories of her mother’s childhood.

all three refer to the person or a thing which is 3 in number for ex.

Betty and dolly they were two cousins of poet’s mother. Betty and Dolly were the two younger cousins of the poetess’ mother. They accompanied her on a beach holiday in their childhood days.

Answer: The rain is poem of the earth. Rain is the poem of the earth because as poem is made up of beautiful words, thoughts, and rhythmic metre, similarly, rain also gives beauty and music to earth.