Thomas Hardy - Neutral Tones

Question 1

What is the poem about?

Answer 1

• The narrator is recalling a day where he and his love stood by a pond, at the near end of their failing relationship, its likely from the description of her actions she got bored and left him.
• Whenever he gets hurt by love, he remembers the day by the pond.

Question 2

Give a brief synopsis of the poem

Answer 2

• The speaker introduces them as standing by a pond in winter
• He recalls their relationship breaking down
• The lack of love between them is described
• Nature is again described as deathly

Question 3

Context regarding Thomas Hardy

Answer 3

• Hardy was known as being insecure, depressed and sensitive as a result of two unhappy marriages.
• This lack of happiness is well-reflected in the depressing tone of “Neutral Tones”.
• Hardy was known to have experienced a disappointing life so it is difficult to tell whether in this poem, he is talking about a specific event or these are the general feelings he has towards relationships and women.
• This was one of the last poems he wrote before deciding to stop writing poetry.
• The dismal tone of the poem is similar to that of his books in which the characters often experience great difficulty.

Question 4

When was the poet alive?

Answer 4

• 1840-1928

Question 5

When was the poem written?

Answer 5

• 1867, published in 1898

Question 6

“We stood by a pond that winter day,”

Answer 6

• Uses pathetic fallacy in his reference to “winter” to establish sadness and coldness from the start, the two are emotionally cold to one another and reflects how their relationship froze to a halt
• Verb “stood” is both past tense, which suggests that the relationship is over, and has a rather passive implication - lack of movement contributes to the lifeless atmosphere
• Pathetic fallacy when the winter mirror the character’s feelings in the environment they create

Question 7

“And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,”

Answer 7

• There is a lack of colour throughout the poem which represents the lack of life between the characters
• However, the colour white has connotation so purity and angelic associations which juxtaposes the phrase “chidden of God” which means the place has been rebuked by God
• ‘chidden of God’ -It is as though God had scolded the sun, this adds to the bleak mood, hinting at how the poet sees everything negatively.
• “White” also has connotations as being a cold colour, it suggests that the warmth has drained from the sun, which reflects how the love in their relationship had also drained away

Question 8

“And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;”

Answer 8

• Harsh sibilance in “starving sod” to convey despair - shows the narrator’s suffering and emphasises the personification of the ground, which reflects their love-starved and dying relationship.
• The alliteration of ‘L’ emphasises the stillness in the scene, which further’s the bleak mood.

Question 9

”- They had fallen from an ash, and were grey.”

Answer 9

• Idea of falling leaves which is like to autumn - implies their relationship is entering winter and all warmth is leaving it
• Monochromatic colours to suggest a one sided and dreary relationship
• ‘ash’ links to ashes from a fire, mimicking how their love had burnt out.

Question 10

“Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove”

Answer 10

• Eyes are symbolic as a window to the soul however, past tense of “were” shows the deep level of understanding is no longer there
• “eyes” subverts standard love poetry traditions, where eyes were a thing of beauty and positivity, whereas here they are shown negatively and only bring the narrator pain.
• The enjambment reflects how her eyes’ gaze moved over his face, the words are similar in how they look and sound which hints at the boredom she felt in being with him.

Question 11

“Over tedious riddles of years ago;”

Answer 11

• Temporal deixis present in “years ago” shows the loss of love over time
• Enjambment of these two lines reflect the physical nature of “rove// Over” to give the poem some texture and suggests the poet is being honest about his experience in the relationship

Question 12

“And some words played between us to and fro”

Answer 12

• Personification of “words” to highlight lack of communication
• The game imagery in stanza 2 (‘tedious riddles’, ‘ lost’ ‘played’) subverts the expectations of playful love by contrasting it to the boredom present in the narrator’s relationship, their relationship became “tedious” and fell apart, they “lost”.

Question 13

“On which lost the more by our love.”

Answer 13

• Lack of love is emphasise by Hardy’s use of alliterative consonants in “lost” and “love”

Question 14

“The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing”

Answer 14

• Juxtaposition between life and death how’s the pain caused by love
• The oxymoron suggests her complete lack of emotions for him, a smile shouldn’t be dead, which reinforces the neutral atmosphere

Question 15

“Alive enough to have strength to die;”

Answer 15

• Line is an example of antithesis, and suggests that the couple were prone to conflict and contrasted each other in a destructive way
• The juxtaposition shows the narrator’s bitterness towards the lover, it suggests that he blames her for the end of their relationship, in the same way she let her smile die, she may have also chosen to end their relationship.

Question 16

“And a grin of bitterness swept thereby”

Answer 16

• Emotion of bitterness is personified, which suggests that nature is intentionally positioned against the couple’s relationship - speaker may be trying to justify their separation

Question 17

“Like an ominous bird a-wing…”

Answer 17

• Simile - imagery of the bird flying away reflects her leaving him as the relationship ends
• Ellipsis represents a time shift between stanzas 3 and 4.

Question 18

“Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,”

Answer 18

• “keen” means sharp or strong, it’s possible that the lessons were painful for him, and he found it difficult to move on.
• “deceives” shows he no longer trusts love and has become more pessimistic in his view of it.

Question 19

“And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me”

Answer 19

• Repetition of the approximant “w” in “wrings with wrong” shows the difficulty the speaker is having expressing themselves
• The alliteration draws the reader’s focus in order to emphasise the pain and anguish he felt.
• ‘shaped to me//your face’ -other experiences of deceitful love remind him of this incident by the pond, possibly because it was the first time he experienced it.

Question 20

“Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree,”

Answer 20

• Links to “chidden of God” demonstrating the cyclic nature of the pom and the fact that God is fundamentally against their relationship
• The “t” in “curst” is a harsher sound than “chidden” (Line 2) which hints that he has become more bitter with time

Question 21

“And a pond edged with greyish leaves.”

Answer 21

• The poem ends with a melancholic and depressing sentiment, which ties up the theme of the poem effectively to suggest that the relationship was unsuccessful and the speaker’s reflection of to has come to a conclusion
• ‘and a pond’ is cyclical, it starts and ends with remembering the pond, which reflects the narrator’s inability to move on
• The “greyish leaves” repeat how the leaves in stanza 1 were grey. They were grey because they had rotted, in the same way that the poet’s relationship had. Ending the poem this way emphasises this decay.

Question 22

Describe the perspective of the poem

Answer 22

“Neutral tones” is written in the first person so only the speaker’s view of the relationship is heard. It appears that the speaker is more upset by the loss of love between them than their former lover is. The speaker appears to be overwhelmed by sadness as there is no positivity at all in the poem.

Question 23

Describe the opening of the poem

Answer 23

• The first line introduces the fact that it is winter, creating the gloomy atmosphere which persists throughout the poem.

Question 24

Describe the form of the poem.

Answer 24

• The poem is written from the point of view of a man addressing his past lover. With an A,B,B,A rhyme scheme.

Question 25

Describe the structure of the poem.

Answer 25

• The first 3 of the 4 stanzas follow a specific memory before a time jump to the final stanza where the narrator reflects on love in general.
• The poem ends where it began, with the pond, the cyclical structure shows how badly the breakup affected him, and that the breakups afterwards causes him to look back at it
• The first stanza shows Romantic influences in its heavy focus on the natural world. In this stanza, Hardy creates a gloomy atmosphere.
• In the second stanza, Hardy begins to provide insight into the relationship. He implies that he wasted time in this relationship and is embittered by it.
• The third stanza is similar to the second showing that the speaker is unwaveringly resentful. Stanza four returns to the natural setting. * The poem starts and ends, “by a pond”, in the same location, which represents the stagnant nature of the relationship.
• This cyclicity juxtaposes with the fact that the relationship has ended. But it also mirrors the pain that he continues to feel even though it is years later. It could also be inferred that the speaker is trying to move forwards but is unable to, with this poem being an attempt of reflecting on what went wrong.

Question 26

Describe the form of the poem regarding rhyme scheme

Answer 26

• The ABBA rhyme scheme implies that the speaker takes solace in regularity to deal with the difficult emotions expressed in the poem.

Question 27

Describe the poem regarding rhythm

Answer 27

• The quatrains (stanzas of four lines) are in tetrameter which gives a faster pace than iambic tetrameter.
• This contrasts with the stagnant atmosphere of the poem.
• The pace of the poem is increased by Hardy’s use of enjambment and then slowed down by caesura. This creates a claustrophobic, limiting atmosphere.

Question 28

Describing the use of language regarding metaphors

Answer 28

• “Neutral Tones” doesn’t heavily feature metaphorical language, this shows how Hardy intends to depict the harsh reality of the loss of a relationship.
• There are some metaphors present in the poem which are generally used to increase the significance of the sad statements Hardy is trying to make.
• The speaker’s lover’s smile is described as “Alive enough to have strength to die”.
• This metaphor is hyperbolic so exaggerates the animosity between the characters.
• Hardy also describes how their words “played” between each other implying that their relationship was trivial and pointless.

Question 29

Describe the use of language regarding death imagery

Answer 29

• Hardy refers to death frequently in order to create an ominous mood.
• His former lover’s smile is described as “the deadest thing” this morbid reference subverts the connotations of a smile to show how something that should be happy (a relationship) has become something torturous.
• This impression is then developed by then describing her smile as “Alive enough to have strength to die” which has truly horrific connotations.

Question 30

Describe the use of language regarding negativity

Answer 30

• Descriptions of the weather and the character’s surroundings are used in order to express the desperation experienced by the speaker.
• The poem begins with a description of the events occurring on a “winter day” which implies there is a lack of light and colour in the environment and the relationship.
• The metaphor “starving sod” is emphasised by the sibilant alliteration used which personifies the soil as miserable also.

Question 31

Describe the use of language regarding religion

Answer 31

• Hardy’s use of language demonstrates the speaker’s negativity.
• He uses the oxymoron “grin of bitterness” to show that the speaker is viewing the world through a negative lens.
• The speaker’s pessimism is shown further through Hardy’s use of colour imagery.
• The adjective “greyish” links to the title “neutral tones” implying that the character’s are apathetic towards each other.
• This lack of colour is mirrored in the statement “the sun was white”.

Question 32

Describe the use of language about suffering.

Answer 32

• The narrator uses language associated with pain, death and punishment, showing how badly he was hurt by the breakup.

Question 33

Describe the use of language about suffering.

Answer 33

• The narrator uses language associated with pain, death and punishment, showing how badly he was hurt by the breakup.

Question 34

How does the poet use language about lifelessness?

Answer 34

• The neutral tone formed through the stillness and the greyness in the descriptions of the poem shows a lack of love between the narrator and his lover, showing his pessimism, which is reflected in the landscape, bleak, decaying and cold.

Question 35

How are feelings/attitudes of bitterness displayed in the poem?

Answer 35

• The narrator feels bitter about the breakdown of his relationship - he resents the lack of real emotion behind his lover’s smile and the way she seemed bored of him

Question 36

How are feelings/attitudes of pessimism displayed in the poem?

Answer 36

• Other negative experiences of love since the relationship describe in the poem have only confirmed this pessimistic view of lover.
• The bleak mood and colorless setting show that there’s a lack of hope everywhere, even in nature

Question 37

Themes:

Answer 37

• Pain, Loss, Death
• Bitterness, Anger
• Nature

Question 38

Compare With:

Answer 38

• Winter Swans
• When We Two Parted
• Father’s Bride
• Eden Rock

Question 39

Pain, Loss, Death:

Answer 39

• “And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; they had fallen from an ash, and were grey”
  Grey (Colour) is lifeless and signify death
• The earth is starving and dying aswell

Question 40

Bitterness, Anger:

Answer 40

• “Alive enough to have strength to die and a grin of bitterness swept thereby”
  Thinks she is evil and bitter, no life in the relationship at all

Question 41

Nature:

Answer 41

• “The sun was white as though chidden of god”
• “Like an ominous bird- a wing”
• “A wing”

Question 42

Compare With: Winter Swans

Answer 42

• Both set in nature
• Breakups and death
• Start with a pond

Question 43

Compare With: When We Two Parted

Answer 43

• Breakups
• Death Of Relationships
• Nature

Question 44

Tone:

Answer 44

• Although the poem has a neutral tone, it reflects a sense of bitterness on the part of the narrator