NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Hornbill Poem 1 A Photograph

Think it out

Question:- 1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?

Answer:- The word ‘cardboard’ is used in the poem to refer to a photograph that has been attached to a hard and thick piece of paper. It has been used to refer to an old practice when photographs were pasted on cardboard and framed with glass front to preserve them.

Question:- 2. What has the camera captured?

Answer:- The camera has captured three girls including the mother of the poet and her two cousins – Dolly and Betty, on either side of the poet’s mother in their swimming dress holding her hands and walking with feet in sea water.

Question:- 3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?

Answer:- The sea has not changed over the years. It is still the same. It symbolizes eternity. It also emphasises man’s transient nature in comparison to nature and its objects.

Question:- 4. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?

Answer:- The poet’s mother laugh indicates that she is reminiscing about her past. She looked back to her childhood with nostalgia and remembered the innocent joys of her childhood days.

Question:- 5. What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.”

Answer:- The mother’s reminiscences of her childhood days and the poet’s reminiscences of her mother’s laughing face. Her mother is no more now. Thus both are the incidents from the past. A sense of loss is connected with them

Question:- 6. What does “this circumstance” refer to?

Answer:- ‘This circumstance’ refers to the poet’s current position, in which she is consumed by the sad memories of her deceased mother. The poet notices that it has been the same number of years since her mother died as her mother’s age in the photograph while looking at the photograph and remembering her mother’s laughing.

Question:- 7. The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?

Answer:- The three stanzas depict the following three different phases.

1. The poet’s mother’s childhood — the period preceding the poet’s birth.
2. Middle age – The period in the poet’s life when he was a child.
3. Death – The period following the poet’s mother’s death.