“With the Photographer” by Stephen Leacock is a popular short story in ICSE Class 10 English curriculum that explores themes of identity, authenticity, and professional arrogance through brilliant satirical humor. This comprehensive guide provides detailed questions and answers, character analysis, and exam preparation materials to help students excel in their assessments.
Table of Contents
Story Summary
The narrator visits a photographer’s studio to get his picture taken. After waiting an hour, he meets an unenthusiastic photographer who finds fault with his appearance, calling his face “quite wrong.” The photographer manipulates the narrator’s pose extensively, takes the photo secretly when the narrator becomes animated with frustration, and later presents a heavily retouched image that bears no resemblance to the original person. The narrator, wanting a natural photograph for his friends to remember him by, becomes deeply upset and storms out, calling the altered photo a “worthless bauble.”
Character Analysis Questions and Answers
The Narrator
Q1: How would you describe the narrator’s character at the beginning of the story?
Answer: The narrator begins as a humble, patient man who shows respect for the photographer’s profession. He waits for an hour without complaint and even feels guilty for “breaking in on the privacy of this man’s scientific pursuits with a face like mine.” This shows his self-deprecating nature and tendency to blame himself rather than others.
Q2: What does the narrator’s statement “This face is my face” reveal about his character development?
Answer: This powerful declaration marks the narrator’s transformation from passive acceptance to active self-assertion. After forty years of living with his face, he has learned to love it despite its imperfections. The statement reveals his growth from insecurity to dignity, showing he values authenticity over artificial perfection.
Q3: Why does the narrator want a photograph that looks like him “as Heaven gave it to me”?
Answer: The narrator desires authenticity because he wants something genuine that his friends can keep after his death to remember him by. He values his natural appearance, flaws and all, over an artificially enhanced version that doesn’t represent his true self.
The Photographer
Q4: How does Leacock characterize the photographer in the opening scene?
Answer: The photographer is described as “a drooping man in a gray suit, with the dim eye of a natural scientist.” He looks at the narrator “without enthusiasm,” suggesting he views his work mechanically rather than with human warmth. His scientific approach lacks empathy and personal connection.
Q5: What does the photographer’s behavior reveal about his professional attitude?
Answer: The photographer treats his clients as objects to be improved rather than individuals to be served. His comment that the narrator’s face is “quite wrong” and his extensive retouching show he prioritizes his artistic vision over client satisfaction, displaying professional arrogance and insensitivity.
Passage-Based Questions and Answers
Extract 1: The Waiting Scene
“I waited an hour. I read the Ladies’ Companion for 1912, the Girls’ Magazines for 1902, and the Infants’ Journal for 1888.”
Q6: What does the narrator’s reading material reveal about the photographer’s studio?
Answer: The outdated magazines (some over 25 years old) suggest the photographer is either negligent about his waiting area or indifferent to his clients’ comfort. This reflects his lack of concern for customer service and his focus solely on his technical work.
Q7: Why does the narrator feel he has done an “unwarrantable thing”?
Answer: The long wait and the photographer’s dismissive attitude make the narrator feel guilty for disturbing what he perceives as important scientific work. His self-doubt about his appearance (“with a face like mine”) shows how the photographer’s coldness affects his self-confidence.
Extract 2: The Photography Session
“The photographer looked at me without enthusiasm… ‘Your face is quite wrong,’ he said with scientific detachment.”
Q8: How does the photographer’s “scientific detachment” affect the narrator?
Answer: The photographer’s clinical approach dehumanizes the narrator, treating him as a specimen rather than a person. This scientific coldness strips away the narrator’s dignity and makes him feel like a failed experiment rather than a valued customer.
Q9: What is ironic about the photographer calling the narrator’s face “wrong”?
Answer: The irony lies in the photographer judging a natural human face by artificial standards. Every person’s face is unique and valid as it is, but the photographer applies arbitrary aesthetic criteria that transform individuality into a “problem” to be fixed.
Extract 3: The Retouching Revelation
“‘Is it me?’ I asked… ‘Yes,’ said the photographer thoughtfully, ‘that’s so; but I can fix that all right in the print.'”
Q10: Why does the narrator ask “Is it me?” when seeing his photograph?
Answer: The narrator doesn’t recognize himself because the photograph has been so heavily altered. His eyes have been retouched, eyebrows removed and replaced, and his mouth adjusted. The question reflects his shock at seeing his identity completely transformed.
Q11: What processes does the photographer mention for altering the photograph?
Answer: The photographer mentions several processes: retouching the eyes, using “the Delphide” to remove and replace eyebrows, adjusting the mouth position, and employing “the Sulphide” to remove ears entirely. These represent the extreme lengths he goes to “improve” natural features.
Theme-Based Questions and Answers
Identity and Authenticity
Q12: How does the story explore the theme of personal identity?
Answer: The story contrasts authentic self-acceptance with artificial transformation. The narrator’s journey from accepting the photographer’s criticism to asserting “This face is my face” illustrates the struggle to maintain personal identity against external pressures to conform to artificial standards.
Q13: What does the photographer’s work represent in terms of authenticity?
Answer: The photographer’s extensive retouching represents society’s tendency to value artificial perfection over natural authenticity. His work destroys the genuine human characteristics that make each person unique and meaningful to their loved ones.
Professional Ethics
Q14: What ethical issues does the story raise about professional service?
Answer: The story questions whether professionals should impose their standards on clients or honor their customers’ wishes. The photographer’s disregard for the narrator’s desire for a natural photograph raises issues about consent, respect, and the balance between expertise and client autonomy.
Q15: How does the photographer abuse his professional authority?
Answer: The photographer uses his expertise to manipulate and criticize the narrator, making him feel inadequate about his natural appearance. He prioritizes his artistic vision over the client’s clearly stated preferences, showing how professional authority can become oppressive.
Literary Technique Questions and Answers
Irony and Satire
Q16: How does Leacock use situational irony in the story?
Answer: The main irony is that the narrator seeks to preserve his image for posterity but receives a photograph that destroys his true appearance. The photographer’s “improvements” actually make the photo worthless for its intended purpose, creating perfect situational irony.
Q17: What aspects of society does Leacock satirize through this story?
Answer: Leacock satirizes professional arrogance, the emerging culture of image obsession, the tendency to value technical perfection over human authenticity, and the way expertise can be used to manipulate and diminish individuals.
Characterization Techniques
Q18: How does Leacock develop the narrator’s character arc?
Answer: Leacock develops the narrator through a clear progression: initial deference and self-doubt, growing frustration with the photographer’s demands, dignified assertion of self-worth, and final rejection of artificial standards. This arc shows character growth from passivity to empowerment.
Q19: What role does dialogue play in revealing character?
Answer: The dialogue reveals character through contrast: the photographer’s cold, technical language (“quite wrong,” “scientific detachment”) versus the narrator’s emotional, personal expressions (“This face is my face,” “I’ve learned to love it”). This contrast highlights their different values and perspectives.
Context and Background Questions
Q20: How does the story reflect early 20th-century photography culture?
Answer: The story captures the era when photography was transitioning from simple documentation to artistic manipulation. The photographer’s chemical processes (Delphide, Sulphide) reflect real techniques used for photo enhancement before digital editing existed.
Q21: What modern parallels can you draw with this story?
Answer: The story anticipates contemporary issues with digital photo editing, Instagram filters, and social media’s impact on self-image. The photographer’s chemical manipulation parallels today’s digital tools that can drastically alter appearance, raising similar questions about authenticity versus artificial enhancement.
Advanced Analysis Questions
Q22: Why does the narrator call the final photograph a “worthless bauble”?
Answer: The photograph becomes worthless because it fails its intended purpose – to provide a genuine memory of the narrator for his friends. By removing all authentic characteristics, the photographer has created a decorative object with no personal meaning or emotional value.
Q23: How does the story’s ending resolve the central conflict?
Answer: The ending resolves the conflict through the narrator’s complete rejection of the photographer’s values. By storming out and dismissing the photo as worthless, he reclaims his dignity and affirms the value of authentic self-representation over artificial perfection.
Q24: What does the photographer’s pride in his work reveal about his character?
Answer: The photographer’s pride in heavily retouching the image shows he measures success by technical skill rather than client satisfaction or authentic representation. His pride blinds him to the human cost of his “improvements” and reveals his fundamental misunderstanding of his role as a service provider.
Exam Preparation Questions
Short Answer Questions (3-4 marks)
Q25: Why does the narrator wait an hour before meeting the photographer?
Answer: The photographer makes the narrator wait an hour, showing his indifference to customer service and suggesting he doesn’t value his clients’ time. This wait establishes the power imbalance and the photographer’s dismissive attitude from the beginning.
Q26: What specific faults does the photographer find with the narrator’s appearance?
Answer: The photographer finds multiple faults: he calls the face “quite wrong,” criticizes the head position, finds the ears “bad,” wants to adjust the mouth, and suggests removing various features entirely through chemical processes.
Q27: How does the narrator respond to the photographer’s criticism?
Answer: Initially, the narrator tries to be agreeable and even complimentary. However, as the criticism continues, he becomes increasingly frustrated and finally asserts his dignity by declaring ownership of his face and rejecting the photographer’s standards.
Long Answer Questions (8-10 marks)
Q28: Analyze the conflict between authenticity and artificial improvement in “With the Photographer.”
Answer: The central conflict revolves around two opposing philosophies: the narrator’s desire for authentic representation versus the photographer’s pursuit of artificial perfection. The narrator seeks a genuine photograph that captures his true appearance, flaws and all, because he values his natural identity and wants something meaningful for his friends to remember.
The photographer, however, views the narrator’s face as raw material to be improved through technical manipulation. He removes, adjusts, and recreates features according to his artistic standards, destroying the authentic human characteristics that give the image personal meaning.
This conflict represents broader societal tensions between accepting ourselves as we are versus conforming to artificial beauty standards. Leacock ultimately supports authenticity through the narrator’s final rejection of the altered photograph, suggesting that genuine human characteristics possess more value than technically perfect but emotionally meaningless representations.
The story’s resolution affirms that true worth lies in authentic self-acceptance rather than artificial enhancement, making it remarkably relevant to contemporary debates about digital manipulation and social media’s impact on self-image.
Q29: Examine Stephen Leacock’s use of humor to convey serious social criticism in the story.
Answer: Leacock masterfully employs humor as a vehicle for serious social commentary, using satirical techniques to expose professional arrogance, societal beauty standards, and the dehumanizing effects of technical obsession.
The humor emerges through several techniques: situational irony (seeking to preserve one’s image but receiving a worthless distortion), character exaggeration (the photographer’s absurd perfectionism), and escalating absurdity (increasingly ridiculous demands and processes).
The comedy serves multiple purposes beyond entertainment. It makes the criticism more palatable and memorable, allowing readers to laugh while simultaneously recognizing serious flaws in professional attitudes and social values. The photographer’s scientific pretensions become ridiculous through humorous presentation, but they represent real concerns about how expertise can become oppressive.
The narrator’s emotional journey from deference to dignity gains power through the comedic context. His final assertion of self-worth becomes more impactful because it emerges from a situation that begins as merely amusing but reveals deeper truths about human dignity and authentic self-representation.
Through humor, Leacock transforms a simple business interaction into a profound meditation on identity, professional ethics, and the value of authentic human characteristics versus artificial perfection.
Modern Relevance and Discussion Questions
Q30: How does “With the Photographer” relate to contemporary issues with social media and digital editing?
Answer: The story proves remarkably prescient in the age of Instagram filters, Photoshop manipulation, and digital beauty standards. The photographer’s chemical processes mirror modern digital editing tools that can drastically alter appearance, raising identical questions about authenticity versus artificial enhancement.
Just as the photographer imposed his aesthetic standards on the narrator, social media platforms and digital tools encourage users to conform to artificial beauty ideals. The narrator’s desire for a genuine photograph that friends could keep as a memory parallels contemporary concerns about how digital manipulation affects genuine self-representation and meaningful human connection.
The story’s themes about professional authority forcing artificial standards remain relevant in discussions about how technology companies, beauty industries, and social media influencers shape individual self-perception and societal beauty standards.
Key Takeaways for Students
Understanding “With the Photographer” requires recognizing its dual nature as both humorous entertainment and serious social commentary. Students should focus on:
- Character Development: How both characters reveal their values through actions and dialogue
- Thematic Analysis: The tension between authenticity and artificial improvement
- Literary Techniques: How Leacock uses irony, satire, and humor to convey serious messages
- Historical Context: The story’s reflection of early photography culture and emerging image obsession
- Modern Relevance: Connections to contemporary digital manipulation and social media issues
The story’s enduring popularity stems from its ability to find profound meaning in everyday situations while entertaining readers through masterful comedic writing. For exam preparation, students should practice identifying specific examples of literary techniques and connecting thematic elements to both historical context and modern parallels.
Students preparing for ICSE examinations should also explore connections to other works in their curriculum that deal with similar themes of identity, authenticity, and social criticism, as comparative analysis often appears in advanced questions.
For additional literary analysis and study materials, students can explore comprehensive guides to classic literature analysis and examination preparation resources that provide similar detailed breakdowns of important literary works.
