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“WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHER” BY STEPHEN LEACOCK

                           “WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHER”  BY STEPHEN LEACOCK



Introduction:

Stephen Leacock is best known for his humorous fiction. He wrote extensively about humour, which he saw as the ultimate expression of human kindness and progress. In “With the Photographer” by Stephen Leacock, we have the theme of insecurity, anger, appearance, confidence, acceptance, and control. It is narrated in the first person by an unnamed forty-year-old man.

The story “With the Photographer” describes one of Leacock’s incidents with a photographer in a studio, where he visits to have his photograph taken and is humiliated by the photographer.

No Enthusiasm:

“I waited an hour.”

On seeing Leacock, the photographer did not show any sort of enthusiasm and asked him to sit and wait. After an hour, the photographer asked the author to come in and sit down. The author sat down in a beam of sunlight. The photographer came with a disappointed face and said that Leacock’s face was wrong.

Humiliation:

The photographer pointed out several faults by criticising and condemning his face, head, and ears by saying “I don’t like the head, “the ears are bad”,” I don’t like the face,” ultimately making the author feel angry. He develops a sense of insecurity within himself. 

Leacock’s Photo:

“I wanted something that would depict my face as Heaven gave it to me.”

The photo that the author finally received was completely different from his real face and figure. It did not look like the author’s original photo. The photography was very poor and disappointing. The author’s eyebrows were removed, and his mouth was adjusted a little. The photographer had no guilt for his mistake, and instead he shamelessly said that he had used a process named the sulphide for removing and adding them. He had even removed the hair that was present on the author’s face.

Conclusion:

“I broke into tears and left.”

The author felt that the photograph was useless and worthless as it is artificial. He states he likes the original one more than the altered photograph. He leaves the studio with tears.

 

 

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