Photography Symbol in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

The most potent symbol throughout The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is that of photography—cameras, poses, and pictures. When Norah gifts David a camera for the first wedding anniversary they celebrate following the birth of Paul and the “death” of Phoebe, David begins what will become a lifelong obsession with photography, and eventually a mercurial but successful career as a lauded artist. David’s preoccupation with the art of taking photographs stems from his desire to return to the most fateful moment of his life—the moment in which he chose to give Phoebe away. David is obsessed with the fact that one moment has changed the fate of his family forever, and though he knows that at literally any time he could reveal the truth and change the course of his life again, he chooses instead to retreat into memory and try to freeze moments of the past rather than focus on changing the future. David maintains that he doesn’t use photography to “escape the world,” but instead to linger in moments he enjoys. He wants to capture as many happy moments as he can, in hopes of obscuring the one moment most painful to him. As a symbol of retreat into, lingering within, or selectively remembering the past, photography ties in with the novel’s major themes of memory, secrets, and lies.

Photography Quotes in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

The The Memory Keeper’s Daughter quotes below all refer to the symbol of Photography. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

“Please don’t be sad. I didn’t forget, Norah. Not our anniversary. Not our daughter. Not anything.”

“Oh, David,” she said. “I left your present in the car.” She thought of the camera, its precise dials and levers. The Memory Keeper, it said on the box, in white italic letters; this, she realized, was why she’d bought it—so he’d capture every moment, so he’d never forget.

Related Characters: Dr. David Henry (speaker), Norah Henry (speaker)

Related Symbols: Photography

Page Number and Citation: 88

Explanation and Analysis:

“Put the camera away,” she said. “Please. It’s a party, David.”

“These tulips are so beautiful,” he began, but he was unable to explain himself, unable to put into words why these images compelled him so.

“It’s a party,” she repeated. “You can either miss it and take pictures of it, or you can get a drink and join it.”

“I have a drink,” he pointed out. “No one cares that I’m taking a few pictures, Norah.”

“I care. It’s rude.”

Related Characters: Dr. David Henry (speaker), Norah Henry (speaker)

Related Symbols: Photography

Page Number and Citation: 149

Explanation and Analysis:

The photographs they were discussing were all of her: her hips, her skin, her hands, her hair. And yet she was excluded from the conversation: object, not subject. […] She had tried, by posing for David, to ease some of the distance that had grown between them. His fault, hers—it didn’t really matter. But watching David now, absorbed in his explanation, she understood that he did not really see her and hadn’t for years.

Related Characters: Norah Henry (speaker), Dr. David Henry, Howard

Related Symbols: Photography

Page Number and Citation: 181

Explanation and Analysis:

His life turned around that single action: a newborn child in his arms—and then he reached out to give her away. It was as if he’d taken pictures all these years since to try and give another moment similar substance, equal weight. He’d wanted to try to still the rushing world, the flow of events, but of course that had been impossible.

Related Characters: Dr. David Henry (speaker), Phoebe Gill Simpson

Related Symbols: Photography

Page Number and Citation: 258

Explanation and Analysis:

For a long time Norah sat very still, agitated, on the edge of knowing. And then suddenly the knowledge was hers, irrevocable, searing: all those years of silence, when he would not speak of their lost daughter, David had been keeping this record of her absence. Paul, and a thousand other girls, all growing.

Paul, but not Phoebe.

Norah might have wept. She longed suddenly to talk with David. All these years, he’d missed her too. All these photographs, all this silent, secret longing.

Related Characters: Norah Henry (speaker), Dr. David Henry, Paul Henry, Phoebe Gill Simpson

Related Symbols: Photography

Page Number and Citation: 364

Explanation and Analysis:

Paul reached out into the hot, humid air, feeling as if he were standing in one of his father’s photographs, where trees bloomed up in the pulse of a heart, where the world was suddenly not what it seemed. He caught a flake in one palm; when he closed his hand into a fist and opened it again, his flesh was smeared with black. Ashes were drifting down like snow in the dense July heat.

Related Characters: Paul Henry (speaker), Dr. David Henry

Related Symbols: Photography, Snow

Page Number and Citation: 379

Explanation and Analysis:

Photography Symbol Timeline in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

The timeline below shows where the symbol Photography appears in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...snacking as the night grows dark outside. Norah tells Bree that she’s bought David a camera for their anniversary, and she can’t wait to give it to him. Bree offers to... (full context)

...the wrapping paper of David’s present. Impulsively, she tears it open and inspects the beautiful camera herself. She begins taking some pictures of the empty house. As she glances at a... (full context)

...off at the door. Norah feels deeply drunk and stumbles through the house with the camera, photographing details in every room. She feels a pain in her heel and looks down—she... (full context)

...present is in the car. He goes down to get it. Norah thinks of the camera’s pretty box, which reads “The Memory Keeper.” She has gotten it for David in hopes... (full context)

...grief over Phoebe seems to have abated. After getting rid of the negatives of the photographs Norah took the drunken night she went to the old house, David has started over... (full context)

...across the field. David feels for the envelope in his pocket and thinks about the photographs of Phoebe within it. (full context)

David is developing photographs in his darkroom shed in the backyard when he hears Paul calling for him from... (full context)

...promising to follow him and help him look up the rocks. David cleans up the darkroom, enjoying the peace and quiet. When he’s finished, he heads inside to find Norah in... (full context)

...and what she might be doing at this moment—every few months, he receives letters and pictures from Caroline. The P.O. boxes they’re delivered from are always in different cities, but the... (full context)

David goes up to his darkroom, loads a new roll of film into the camera, and heads back downstairs to photograph... (full context)

...job at the travel agency. Norah lies on the sand posing for David, who is photographing her, while Paul, now thirteen, runs along the shoreline. Norah is uncomfortable with the position... (full context)

...and is now in charge of the entire agency. David, meanwhile, has become a devoted photographer. (full context)

...play with people’s perception and expectations—he wants people to have to “find” Norah in the photograph. As Norah listens to David describe his intent for the photograph, she feels sad—he used... (full context)

...to a man who has been running on the beach and stopped to admire David’s camera. The man introduces himself to Norah and David as Howard, and the two of them... (full context)

...ordinary and comfortable. Norah listens to David and Howard talk about their shared passion for photography, but feels she has nothing to contribute. (full context)

...David discourages him from pursuing it at every turn. As David and Howard continue discussing photography and turn to looking at David’s photographs, Norah is struck by the realization that although... (full context)

...in full view of David but obscured by the darkness. The two men discuss alternate photography techniques, including pinhole cameras, while Norah grows faint. She says she’s going to go inside—Howard... (full context)

...any reference to their charged interaction the night before. He shows her his unique pinhole camera, and then Howard asks if he can draw Norah as she lies on the beach.... (full context)

As David and Paul arrive home, David asks Paul to come with him into his darkroom. There, he shows Paul some of his photographs—and explains that he understands how deeply Paul... (full context)

...to get thoughts of Aruba out of his head, David begins developing some of the pictures he took there. In one picture, from the night of their dinner party with Howard,... (full context)

Duke asks if Paul has any cash, and Paul leads him out to David’s darkroom. In the last few years, David’s photographs have gained some attention in the art world,... (full context)

...them for the drugs, and then the four boys smoke a joint together inside the darkroom. Paul has a different high this time, though—he feels lost, empty, and paranoid. When the... (full context)

...thing Paul knows, it is morning, and he is awake on the floor of the darkroom—with David standing over him, shouting about the mess and demanding to know what happened. He... (full context)

At a party for Phoebe’s confirmation, Caroline takes pictures of her daughter and their guests using a Polaroid camera. A summer storm is gathering... (full context)

...held and looks up at the banner fluttering over the entrance: “MIRROR IMAGES,” it reads; “PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID HENRY.” Caroline trembles as she heads up the steps into the building, merging... (full context)

Caroline proceeds into a large gallery room and finds herself face-to-face with his most famous photograph—a picture of Norah on the beach, dwarfed by large sand dunes. Caroline has had a... (full context)

...she realizes that’s she has “held him in her mind all this time like a photograph.” (full context)

...Caroline doesn’t answer—instead, she reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope filled with photographs of Phoebe. Caroline watches David mill about the main room for a minute, but then... (full context)

...“loss and grief,” and reaches for the envelope she gave him to flip through the photographs inside. He takes in Phoebe’s “gentle-seeming” face, and is startled by a picture in which... (full context)

...over to Caroline, and realizes his whole life has “turned around that single action.” His photography, he realizes, has been an attempt “to try and give another moment similar substance,” but... (full context)

...trust David. He urges her to look through the envelope in his jacket pocket—it contains pictures of his daughter Phoebe, who is Rosemary’s age. Rosemary looks through the photos and remarks... (full context)

...grandmother, whom she feels closer to when she’s creating. David tells Rosemary about his own photography, and the two of them connect over the fickle demands of artmaking. (full context)

Paul goes upstairs to retrieve his guitar, and a folder of pictures of his father’s childhood. He goes out on the porch to play some music and... (full context)

...her wedding in a few weeks. He promises he will, and asks Rosemary to send photographs of her and Jack’s lives in Harrisburg. Rosemary says she will. David has given up... (full context)

Since his death, David’s photographs have become popular and valuable. Norah enters his old darkroom studio for the first time... (full context)

Norah, refreshed and renewed, returns to the darkroom to finish what she started. As she opens up several new boxes of photographs, she’s... (full context)

...feels all the “jagged pieces of her life” start to make sense. Caroline slides some photographs of Phoebe across the table, and Norah asks why Caroline would do such a thing.... (full context)

...all the mundane tasks she has to do. She has to take care of David’s photos, meet with a furniture appraiser, and tomorrow, host Paul. She wonders how she’s going to... (full context)

...and dreaming of Phoebe. She wakes at dawn and looks outside to see that David’s photographs are scattered everywhere. Norah gets dressed, goes outside, and drags as many boxes as she... (full context)

...at the scattered boxes, and realizes with horror that his mother is burning his father’s photographs. Norah, seeing Paul’s face, tells him not to worry—she was only able to burn one... (full context)

Paul asks his mother what has happened to make her angry enough to burn David’s photos. Norah tells him that yesterday, she had a visit from Caroline Gill, the nurse who... (full context)

...been up all night wondering the same thing. Paul remembers one afternoon, helping David develop photographs. His father told him that the word “camera” came from the French word “chamber,” or... (full context)

Norah gets up and retrieves some photographs of Phoebe—she brings them back to Paul so that he can look at them. In... (full context)

...A silence falls over them, and Paul suggests they get to work cleaning up the photographs. Paul stays in Lexington for several days, helping Norah. He calls Michelle to try and... (full context)

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Kim Edwards

Photography Symbol Analysis

Photography Quotes in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Photography Symbol Timeline in The Memory Keeper’s Daughter