Neutral Tones - Thomas Hardy

Question 1

Summary (5 things)

Answer 1

1. Speaker recalls memory of being near a pond and tree in winter with another person (assume a lover)
2. Other person looks at speaker as remembering unresolved grievances - they exchange words that are insignificant or said many times before
3. Other person’s smile is cold and bitter
4. Time shift forward - consider what love means and how it creates untrustworthy feelings
5. Feelings associated with other persons face and that day

Question 2

Key Aspects (4 things)

Answer 2

1. Main theme - death of love
2. Other themes - regret, loss, memory
3. Rhythm seems regular at first but is broken, most frequently in last line of each stanza
4. Bleak images

Question 3

Key Setting (4 things)

Answer 3

1. Hardy creates bleak setting, as a memory in mind of speaker
2. surroundings dead or famished - “grey” leaves, “starving sod”
3. Personification - makes desolate relationship more vivid to reader
4. Bleak imagery

Question 4

Death of Love (7 things)

Answer 4

1. “Grey” leaves fallen from an “ash” - a fire gone out conjuring images of passion that has died
2. “Sun was white, as though chidden (scorned) of God”, then later “God-curst” - lifeless, powerless;
3. Link to the “neutral tones” of the title - neutrality as lack of genuine care - cold, almost hostile and malicious
4. This how speaker feels former lover views him
5. Smile is the “deadest thing”
6. Simile of “grin of bitterness” “like an ominous bird”
7. Lessons learned that “love deceives” suggest that all romantic love is dead for the author, not just this relationship

Question 5

Memory (5 things)

Answer 5

1. Poem is told as a memory in speakers mind
2. Memory has taught speaker “keen lessons” that he holds to this day - “that love deceives”
3. “Tedious riddles of years ago” - that the riddles are tedious shows the cold, lifeless neturality of the relationship that has left a long-lasting bitterness that can’t be forgotten
4. Last stanza shows how these thoughts are linked to memory of the moment by the pond, the face of the lover, the “God-curst sun”, the tree and the grey leaves
5. Last stanza brings us full circle, back to the first, showing how speaker is ruminating on the memories and feelings - describing setting, pond, tree, leaves and associated thoughts

Question 6

Techniques (4 things)

Answer 6

1. Personification - simile - “grin of bitterness” is “like an ominous bird-a-wing” - effect: connotations of malice
2. Caesura - pause in “And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me” emphasises line as runs into “your face”, highlighting bitterness and its link to the memory of the lover
3. Enjambment - as in 2 above, and in “eyes that rove / Over tedious riddles”
4. Ambiguity - strong feelings expressed contrast with the “neutral tones” of the title; tedious riddles, words “play between us” - boring, lifeless; contrasts with strength of feeling of bitterness and regret that poem conveys as a whole

Question 7

Structure and Form (3 things)

Answer 7

1. Structure - Four quatrains, regular rhyme scheme - ABBA - reflects neutral tone
2. Form - Last line of each quatrain is inset - suggesting imperfection of structure reflecting imperfection of relationship
3. Last stanza summarises the poem and returns to the setting of the pond, the tree, the greyish leaves - brings poem back full circle to the first stanza, linking the setting to the memory and the lessons learned

Question 8

Context (2 things)

Answer 8

1. Written in 1867, sometimes thought to reflect Hardy’s experiences of his own marriage, but written before he met her.
2. Does it reflect his sorrow at the death of the rural landscape as it became industrialised, grey - a key theme in his novels.

Question 9

Use of sound (2 things)

Answer 9

1. “keen lessons that love deceives” - harsh k and stealthy, secretive “s”
2. emphasis of “keen” - means sharp, painful as well as earnest

Question 10

Stillness (4 things)

Answer 10

1. The speaker and former lover “stood” by the pond
2. Pond is a still body of water
3. Reflects lack of life, energy in the relationship - “tedious riddles”
4. End of poem returns to the beginning and the pond - has gone nowhere, no resolution other than bitterness of memories and the lessons learned

Question 11

Separation (3 things)

Answer 11

1. There is a cold distance between speaker and former lover now
2. Sense that there was a distance always in their relationship - “love deceives”, it was an illusion
3. “words played between us to and fro” - captures the distance between the two that empty words cannot bridge

Question 12

Natural World (5 things)

Answer 12

1. World seems in decay
2. the few leaves of the ash tree are grey
3. “Sun was white” - powerless, cold, later “curst”
4. Sun “chidden” of God - scorned, God turning away, natural order disturbed
5. A bird is an “ominous sign”
6. The decaying, lifeless world reflects nature of the relationship between speaker and lover.