Neutral Tones Essay

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Hardy uses various methods to tell the story in neutral tones which is written in the form of a poem. Neutral Tones tells the story of disappointment in love and life between two lovers and focuses on a theme of death. The setting of the poem is on a “winter day”, this is significantly important as Hardy uses this to convey a sense of sadness; the “winter” connotes cold which is seen to be lonely and death-like. Also, the winter could be a metaphor for the frosty nature of the two lovers’ relationship? This negativity is empathised because it appears so early in the poem “we stood by a pond that winter day”. This sets a bitter tone for the first stanza which intensifies as the emotive language becomes more blatant. In the first stanza Hardy uses the word “chidden”, whereas “curst” is used for the same purpose in the final stanza which is an obvious shift between mild and harsh language. This perhaps shows Hardy losing his temper because of his emotional connection with the theme of the poem; death. Following the apparent break up of a relationship the persona remembers a moment spent with their partner. The person feels deceived by love. As a result of this the setting is presented in a dead and neutral way using a semantic and connotations of death: “fallen from an ash and were gray”. The persona’s interpretation of his surroundings as “gray” illustrates his lack of emotion as it is a dull colour. It seems as if his experience of love has distorted the way he perceives his memories and nature. The verb “fallen” used in the past tense, shows that the story is a memory. It suggests a painful action making the reader feel that pain with the memory>the idea of falling demonstrates a decline over time of his feelings. Hardy uses colour imagery of “white” which connotes a lonely feeling despite the two characters being in a relationship. This is because of how
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