Theme of Grief in The Photograph by Jolyn Phillips (Essay Example)

This assay discusses how the narration and focalism on The Photograph by (Jolyn Phillips 2016) reveal the theme of grief, this will be done by defining the key elements (theme, narration, focalism, and setting) as well as determine how this story, highlights the lack of communication between adults and children following traumatic events. (Lebepe 38948370 & Lebeko 29300487)

Theme, (Piotrowski (ed), 2019:28) can be defined as the ideas embodied in the work or rather what the events say or imply, the theme grief from the story The Photograph is how the parents and the daughter deal with the loss of the brother as the writer expresses how bad she feels for hating her brother for dying (Phillips 2016:11), as a reader you are able to pick the expressions of grief (Phillips 2016:11-12) from the way the parents as well as the child begin to relate to each other following the death of the brother. (Lebepe 38948370)

Narration of the story is how the story is narrated to the reader and in The Photograph, story is being narrated from the first-person point of view as is shown in the pronouns of ‘I’ and ‘me’ (study guide p33-34). This narrator is a limited narrator as she only has access to one character’s mind (study guide p33). The narrator restricts information to what is seen, heard, felt or thought by the other character. The readers are seeing what the narrator is experiencing. For example, ‘The closer I got to the shore the more I could smell the Fynbos’ (Phillips 2016 p11). (Lebeko 29300487)

The internal  focalism is limited inside the represented events because the agent is a character in the story (Piotrowska, 2019:33) hence as readers we are left in the dark especially with certain occurring events, the first which is where the aunt kept glancing at the writer and making hand gestures, covering her mouth with her hand  (Phillips 2016:9), second one is when the mother and the father looked at each other without sharing words (Phillips 2016:11), as an internal focaliser (Molelekoa 2022) you are limited to what you think and not what is going on in another person’s mind. (Lebepe 38948370)  

As a reader you are exposed to multiple settings in the story. A setting meaning the time and place in which the events take place (Piotrowska, 2019:30) firstly the first occurring setting is located at An Molla’s house (Phillips, 2016:9) the writer further compares her home to An Molla’s, it occurs the circumstances of finance between the two homes are different. The second setting is found at the writer’s home (Phillips, 2016:10) the writer confides how her home is full of people, the set-up in the writer’s home  (Phillips 2016:9) as well as how the writer explains the happenings in her home execute suspense, the reader begins to pick up the vast differences between their emotions, the mother is crying emotionally and the writer seems clueless, relatively the grief and trauma that’s the main ground for the story (Johny Phillips 2016) is executed through the mother’s emotional display. (Lebepe 38948370)

The next element is grief which is the significant personal loss suffered (English dictionary) as it is experienced by the family. The mother at first was in denial as she was saying ‘it’s not him; it can’t be him’ (Phillips 2016 p10) and the narrator was confused as to what was what was going on and later felt for wanting her brother to die. Dera was just sitting listening to Kfm with his head resting on his lap (Phillips 2016 p10). The next day kept her-self busy with cleaning and turning out the house and when the narrator went to her, she chased her out. The mother isolating and keeping herself busy basically means she has not acknowledged the loss (Daka 1999 p37). The mother was showing the five steps of grief of which they are in denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.(Lebeko 29300487)

The last element of discussion is the lack of communication between the parents and children, the intense conflict of emotions is reached (Phillips 2016:12) The vulnerability from the writer is expressed as her sadness, here is the conflict of comfort vs solitude, while the narrator expresses affection to the mother, the mother expresses passive aggression towards the writer indicating that she wants to be left alone, throughout the story the writer has been portraying her mother rather unimpressively, as the mother who employs parental favoritism, (Phillips 2016:10). Here, the theme of grief is relative, while the lack of communication is displayed as the writer wants assurance but only gains dismissiveness from the father (Phillips 2016:13). (Lebepe 38948370)

Each character is evidently going through something but with the style of narration and focalism that is executed in the story the reader is only limited to a certain portion of knowledge, The father in chapter 12 (Phillips 2016:13) portrayed as stressed from the way he is sitted and the gestures he is showing, the mother appears to want to express something, from the way she is sharing a moment with the Father, Although the narrator is close to the supporting characters, the insight from the narrator is also limited to what the narrator appears to see rather than the actual fact from the other character’s perspective (Molelekoa 2022), hence the reader is exposed to uncertainty is terms of knowing what causes the characters conflict that has led to the miscommunication. (Lebeko 29300487)

In this assay we have discussed how the narration and focalization Jolyn Phillips executes in The Photograph contributes to the theme ‘grief’, also we have critically analyzed how the grief following traumatic events affected the relationship of the characters by evaluating their actions towards each other. (Lebeko 29300487)

REFERENCE

Molelekoa, V. (2022). fiction, ENLL111.North West University.11 April "3.1.3+ENLL+111+fiction+theme.pdf - Responding to fiction ...." https://www.coursehero.com/file/116484026/313ENLL111fictionthemepdf/.

Piotrowska, C.M. 2019Introduction to literary genres. Faculty of Humanities. Mafikeng (Study guide, ENLL 111)

Phillips, J. 2016.The Photograph. Cape Town: Modjadji Books