AHSEC (ASSEB) Class 11 English Hornbill – Chapter 2 Solutions –A Photograph | Assam Eduverse
Chapter Overview:
Assam Eduverse presents the summary and solutions of Class 11 English (AHSEC/ASSEB) – Hornbill, Chapter 2: A Photograph by Shirley Toulson. This chapter from the Class 11 Hornbill textbook is a reflective poem that explores memory, the passage of time, family bonds, and loss, making it essential for exam preparation with both summary and textbook solutions.
The poem A Photograph describes the poet looking at an old photograph of her mother with two cousins on a beach. The poet reflects on the changes that time has brought to the people in the picture, noting that while the sea and surroundings remain unchanged, the people have aged or passed away. The mother’s joyful laughter and vitality in the photograph evoke both warmth and melancholy, highlighting the impermanence of human life. The poem ends with the profound sadness of her mother’s death, emphasizing how memory preserves emotions and relationships, even as time erases physical presence.
Chapter 2: A Photograph emphasizes the beauty of family memories, the passage of time, and the emotional power of recollection. For Class 11 students (AHSEC/ASSEB), it provides both a detailed summary and solutions to textbook questions, making it an emotionally resonant chapter in the Hornbill textbook.
AHSEC (ASSEB) Class 11 English Hornbill – Chapter 2: A Photograph Solutions & Question Answers
📖 Summary of A Photograph
Chapter 2 – Class 11 Hornbill
The poem narrates the poet Shirley Toulson reflecting on an old photograph of her mother and two cousins at a beach. While the sea and surroundings have remained unchanged over the years, the people in the photograph have aged, moved apart, or passed away. The photograph evokes memories of the mother’s joyful laughter, vitality, and the warmth of family moments long gone.Toulson contrasts the permanence of nature with the transience of human life, exploring how memories preserve emotions, love, and connections even after loved ones have departed. The poet reflects on the silent but profound impact of her mother’s presence and the sadness of her death, showing how photographs can capture both happiness and the inevitability of time passing.Conclusion: Chapter 2 emphasizes memory, family bonds, the passage of time, and the emotional power of photographs, leaving a reflective and melancholic impression on the reader.
— From the book Hornbill
Think it out
Q1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used?
Answer: The word ‘cardboard’ represents the photograph itself, which is likely a very old, mounted photo. It’s used to emphasize the age and fragility of the picture, suggesting that the memory it holds is also old and a bit faded.
Q2. What has the camera captured?
Answer: The camera captured a single, happy moment from the past: a photograph of the poet’s mother, a young girl, and her two girl cousins, all smiling together on a beach holiday.
Q3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you?
Answer: The sea has not changed, or at least it “appears to have changed less” than the people. This suggests that nature is timeless and eternal, while human life is short and temporary.
Q4. The poet’s mother laughed at the snapshot. What did this laugh indicate?
Answer: Her laugh was a mix of fond nostalgia and a bit of self-conscious amusement at how they dressed. It indicated a memory that was both happy and a little bittersweet, a moment from a past that could never be regained.
Q5. What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.”
Answer: This line means that both the mother’s memory of her past and the poet’s memory of her mother’s laughter are painful but accepted. “Wry” suggests a grim or ironic acceptance. The “laboured ease” implies that while they have accepted the loss, it’s something they’ve worked hard to cope with, a painful effort to seem comfortable with it.
Q6. What does “this circumstance” refer to?
Answer: “This circumstance” refers to the fact that her mother has been dead for almost as many years as the girl in the photograph lived. It’s the stark, silent reality of her mother’s passing.
Q7. The three stanzas depict three different phases. What are they?
Answer:
The first stanza shows the past, from the perspective of the photograph itself, capturing the moment when the poet’s mother was a young girl.
The second stanza describes the middle phase, twenty to thirty years later, when the mother would look at the photo and laugh, and the poet would witness that joy.
The third stanza is the present, after the mother’s death, where the poet is left with nothing but the silence of her memory.
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