The portrait sitting
An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.
Mr Latham placed his coat carefully over the chair and sat before the camera. He had asked for a portrait to send to his sister, who had left the village years ago. The photographer, Miss Bell, arranged the chair beside the window. In its pale light, the worn cuff of his sleeve showed plainly.
“Could you take that out?” he asked, touching the frayed edge. “She remembers me better dressed.”
Miss Bell considered the prepared glass plate. The camera would preserve the cuff as faithfully as the lines beside his eyes. She could soften the light, she said, but the sleeve would remain. Latham smiled as though she had misunderstood. “A portrait is not an inventory,” he replied. “It is what a person wishes to be remembered by.”
She moved the lamp. The cuff fell into shadow, but so did half his face. Latham watched her through the mirror and said nothing. Miss Bell brought the light back towards him. For a moment he seemed about to rise; then he turned his hand so the torn seam faced the wall.
The shutter clicked. When the print was ready, the cuff could still be seen, though less clearly than before. Latham held it at arm’s length, then closer. “You have made me look like myself,” he said. He paid for two copies. As he left, Miss Bell noticed that he had tucked the frayed sleeve beneath his coat.
“Miss Bell’s final portrait resolves the conflict between an accurate record and the way Latham wishes to be remembered.”
Evaluate how successfully the writer presents this idea. Support your judgement with detailed references to the passage.
456 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE English Language 1.3 Content: prose fiction study requirements, covering 1.3.1 Read challenging prose fiction for the unseen 19th-century extract. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.